September 1st, 2010 
joel 
P&T: Sept. 1, 2008
With a generous amount of encouragement, and a hope that I could make a difference, two years ago today I stayed up late on a Monday night to launch Press and Tower.
I wanted to provide a virtual meeting place, where current and former members of Erie’s television and radio stations, newspapers and new media outlets, could talk shop and interface with the consumers of their creativity, being held accountable and celebrating the good work being done.
To that vision much has been accomplished but still much more can be done. All in all the past year since our last birthday has been a good yet a hard year. Since last September we saw our audience explode as we covered the initial airing of the “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” shot in Erie. We covered the loss of strong TV personalities from Erie such as Jacqueline Policastro and Selena Wiles, and the successful bids by the Kanzius Cancer Foundation and now Conneaut Lake Park in receiving Pepsi Refresh funding.
We started a very popular Facebook group, “We rocked Erie in the 20th Century!” which has brought Erie radio’s finest from 50 years together sharing stories, old photos and news clippings, amongst themselves and their fans.
Finally we noted the blog’s first mention in the mainstream media, when we broke the story of the FCC’s enforcement measures on two Pirate FM stations, which landed P&T in the Erie Times-News, as well as on pirate radio websites around the world.
We’ve had our slow and down times too, as real life took over and blogging suffered. However, we are here, entering our Junior year, outlasting many online initiatives which have come and gone since our launch. It’s not easy folks to create content about small market media on a every few days basis, but its fun to try!
Some things to look forward to in the coming year is a renewed effort toward creating and presenting media content; podcasts, video interviews, interesting YouTube clips, and such. I also want you to hear more from the current media gatekeepers; the editors, front office managers, and writers and on-air personalities themselves; to raise the value of this forum being a positive and constructive one for the betterment of our craft and community.
To you, my faithful reader, please accept my heartfelt gratitude. There are so many places and sources from which you can enjoy content, and it gives me great joy and a humble heart that you choose to read here. Thank you.
Here’s to what lies ahead for our P&T community!
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Deep Background for May 2-8, 2010
It’s been exciting watch Erie and the rest of the supporters of the Kanzius Cancer Research Foundation come together to put their cause to the top of the Pepsi Refresh voting in April. It was also a lesson in the power of how viral marketing, social media, along with good old-fashioned public relations and a helpful traditional press can put solid rocket boosters behind a message.
It’s unfortunate that Pepsi won’t release vote totals, because it would be descriptive of what it takes to win that deal. I would anticipate vote totals in the hundreds of thousands if not over a million, and the sheer breadth of the outreach indicating a very large lead over #2. Of course what was shocking was the flipping of #2 & #3 on the last day; almost certainly caused by a last minute St. Louis Post-Dispatch article on the Ben-Gil Boosters situation.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: even though I’m just as excited and in awe of the power of social media, when push comes to shove, you can’t discount the sheer force of multiple messages on media that touches 96% of the entire population of your community, such as radio, TV, and newspaper.
New or old, we are all about Erie media at Press and Tower. Join us on this open forum with your civil and constructive comments below, or e-mail me at joel@nataliemedia.com or tweet @pressandtower.
Embrace the chaos!