Can Newspaper Editorials Be Honest?

I’d have to agree with Elizabeth Sullivan’s Sunday column saying newspaper should take the responsibility of endorsing candidates and issues. I don’t agree, however, that they do it because they “care.” That’s giving them a little too much credit.

I think unfortunately that the closed way they make their endorsements are a disservice to the public.

The Pee Dee and other papers are always calling for “openness” from others. However, the decisions of the Pee Dee editorials provide no “openness.” They are closed about it. Kept mysterious as electing a pope.

We don’t know who wrote them. We don’t know if there was a vote, as we understand there is on certain matters. We don’t know if it was a 5-4 vote or a 6-0 vote. The score would make a big difference in how a reader would interpret the endorsement.

We don’t know, for example, whether Editor Susan Goldberg put any pressure for an Issue 3 editorial supporting the casino gambling issue here. My suspicion is she did. The fact that we don’t know the vote creates mistrust. The Pee Dee can’t afford any more mistrust.

We don’t know if Kevin O’Brien wrote a particular editorial. We could judge by the strong hints of immaturity in the writing. His columns, for example, are more jokes than considered conservatism. He is a disservice to real conservatives.

I’ve been going over a lot of personal history as I pass my 50th year of some of kind of reporting. What became clear to me is that I became disenchanted with newspapers very early in that time. My distrust came quickly.

Newspapers – or as some call them now, MSM (mainstream media) – long ago destroyed much of their credibility. They became voices of the establishment. They reflect conventional corporate ideas and values. They fail miserably to support of the needs of the poor, the poorly educated, and the unfairly treated.

They have upside down coverage of the most powerful, favoring the influential almost automatically. So-called objectivity substitutes for truth-telling. The scales were rigged, it was clear to me early on.

Newspapers cannot survive if they continue to represent those interests and values.

The New York Times last week said that it had more revenue from subscribers than advertisers. That’s really how it should be.

Newspapers would begin possibly to reflect the interests of readers. What a thought!

Boy, would that be a change. Maybe the only chance newspapers have to survive.

Why don’t they try it? I would not bet on it. Would you?

Corporate Shill Eckart Backs Monopoly Casino

Former Congressman Dennis Eckart has joined the party. He’s backing Issue 3. That makes it almost unanimous – every shyster in town is backing a monopoly casino for a billionaire.

What a wonderful town this is.

Eckart, a former Greater Cleveland Growth Association (now Greater Cleveland Partnership) top boss, played a liberal politician for years. It’s has been a money-maker as Eckart has become a corporate shill here.

WKYC-TV allows this lobbyist free air access many Sunday mornings on Tom Beres’s Between the Lines. A lobbyist as a political commentator. Do you go any lower?

WKYC reports that Eckart will fill-in for billionaire mortgage man and Cavalier owner Dan Gilbert. He is supposedly ill. Gilbert will be one of the owners of a monopoly casino, if voters approve Issue 3, a constitutional change on Election Day.

Eckart will argue for Gilbert’s casino deal in a debate at Kent State University. He is a trustee at KSU.

Once a Golden Boy liberal politician, Eckart has bounced around after leaving Congress. He has been with law firms Baker & Hostetler and the now bankrupt Arter & Hadden. He served in Congress from 1981 to 1993, leaving to pursue business interests as the Republicans took ownership of the U. S. Congress.

Eckart is involved in real estate development and operates North Shore Associates. When he’s not doing business it is reported that he spends time with his family at his two estates. Well.

And then, of course, he plays a slick commentator for WKYC-TV. His liberal reputation makes him an ideal spokesperson for corporate interests.

By backing the casino deal, Eckart shows once again he played his liberalism into a money-maker.

More Bad News for Newspapers, Including PD

Newspapers across the country take another smack from readers. They are buying fewer and fewer newspapers, including the Plain Dealer.

Six month circulation figures for newspapers showed steep declines. The Plain Dealer’s daily circulation was down 11.2 percent and Sunday circulation dropped 4.9 percent.

The report was published in Editor & Publisher magazine. The figures come from the Audit Bureau of Circulations. View the report here: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1004030291.

E&P said that newspapers are unable to “shake the dramatic declines in circulation.”

The PD’s daily circulation is 271,180 as of Sept. 2009 and Sunday circulation was 390,636 in the same six month period.

That’s still a lot of newspaper readers.

The PD daily circulation for the period ending March 31 this year was 291,730. The drop was nearly 20,000 a day for the six month period.

Jacobs-Ratner Fight Continues With Issue 3 Vote

Damian Guevara in the Scene last week had a take on the Issue 3 that has been neglected by most, including me, but touches on a damaging game among Cleveland developers. They vie among themselves for advantage no matter what the cost to community.

It has cost us plenty over the years.

Guevara points out that Forest City Enterprises would be a winner if the measure passes. And that its rival, Jeff Jacobs, wants to stop it, making him the winner.

The battle between the two families – Jacobs & Ratner – has been going on in Cleveland for years. Neither cares much about the damage they cause the city.

“The question for Greater Clevelanders,” writes, Guevara, a former Plain Dealer reporter, “Do you trust wealthy pro-casino interests – in this case, Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert – to deliver on the latest promise of blue-collar and hospitality jobs, multi-million-dollar tax payments and yet another facelift of downtown Cleveland?”

I’d say no.

He calls the manipulation of the constitution inherent in a “yes” vote for Issue 3, a “deal-breaker” for many.

But the beneficiaries are clear, he notices.

“For all the vagueness of the constitutional amendment,” he writes, “there is some astounding specificity to be found in the amendment’s wording, the list of designated parcels put aside for casino construction. In Cleveland, this includes 83 acres of real estate. The Cleveland casino will, parcel-for-parcel, go on land owned by Forest City Enterprises, or the adjacent Scranton Peninsula in the industrial flats, just across the Cuyahoga river, all owned by Forest City.”

Of course, the major opponent to Gilbert’s casino desire is Jeff Jacobs, son of the late Dick Jacobs and a developer and casino operator himself.

The Jacobs-Ratner (Forest City Enterprises) battle has a long history of rivalry in Cleveland. Damaging to the city, too.

When Dick Jacobs built what is now Key Center he made it taller than Forest City’s Terminal Tower. There had been an unwritten law in Cleveland no building should be taller than Terminal Tower. That’s why the Sohio building remained shorter. They are all Public Square buildings.

Some called it developer penis envy.

When Jacobs got a special deal on the Marriott hotel, Sam Miller of Forest City demanded equal tax breaks for his Ritz-Carleton. He got it.

The biggest battle was fought over Chagrin Highlands, a plot of land more than 500 acres that the city allowed for development in 1989. Unbeknownst to anyone, Dick Jacobs was made a principal thanks to George Forbes. When Jacobs wanted to build a retail center at the same time as Beachwood Place was expanding, Mayor Michael White caused the city to sue Jacobs.

The suit stopped Jacobs’s plan; Beachwood Place, with Ratner interests, went ahead with its expansion. The suit was later dropped.

It was Jacobs vs. Ratner on the new County administration building. Jacobs sold his E. 9th property to the County for that purpose while Forest City still owns its offering to the County, the mostly empty Higbee department store building.

The two factions also fought over placement of the Medical Mart/Convention Center with Jacobs winning with the location of the present city’s center.

Originally, when the plan was passed by City Council years ago for a convention center, Scranton Peninsula was its location, with Forest City promising other retail and housing development there.

So around and around these two major Cleveland forces go.

Another question to be answered is whether any principals in the deal, if passed, will be from the Ratner or Miller families. Gilbert isn’t talking about that.

Hate to make a choice on this one but I’m pulling for Jacobs this time.

Guevara’s piece can be found here: http://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/cash-of-the-titans/Content?oid=1690218

Does Atlantic City Have A Message to Ohio Voters?

“Today, Atlantic City, in the eyes of one gambling executive, Tim Wilmott, is in a ‘death spiral,’” that’s the tone of a Sunday New York Times piece on the financial troubles of the city’s casinos.

“Rows of slot machines stand eerily empty,” says the story while hotel rooms are empty. Many casinos have experienced double digit revenue drops, the report said.

The article is far from a hatchet job. However, it does have a cautionary message to Cleveland and other Ohio cities where casinos would go if Issue 3 is passed.

Cleveland will be rolling the dice next Tuesday when voters go into the booths to cast a vote that would give a billionaire a monopoly board contract for a Cleveland casino.

“The economic slowdown has shown that the gambling industry is not quite as recession-proof as was so long believed,” it said of Atlantic City.

And you might like to remember as you go into that booth the promise of Atlantic City’s gambling sales people:

“Billed as a ‘great experiment’ in urban redevelopment, legalized gambling was pitched to voters as an effort to reverse Atlantic City’s long decline…”

Sound familiar?

Over-expansion of gambling opportunities, along with bad economic times, has taken its toll on the business. Just as there are too many shopping centers there are too many gambling spots.

“Retirees who once hopped on buses to Atlantic City to play slots for a few hours can now happily play much closer to home – in eastern Pennsylvania or the New York Metro area, for example,” said the article.

Another problem mentioned: Debt. Interest payments have been missed and the inability to raise money for newer casinos.

And crime.

The article also cites arguments about how casino taxes are being used and who gets the benefit.

Here’s a link to the long article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/business/economy/25casino.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=atlantic%20city%20&%20casinos&st=cse

Finally, “However well intentioned these efforts, some industry analyst have a tough time imagining just what Atlantic City or its casino operators can do to pull the town out of its rut.”

I guess I view a Dan Gilbert casino as an invitation to crime, an invitation to more government subsidies for roads, a hotel and other infrastructure needs, and an invite to politicians to find new avenues of helping their friends.

Don’t gamble on gambling.

Roldo Bartimole celebrates 50 years of news reporting this year. He published and wrote Point of View, a newsletter about Cleveland, for 32 years. He worked for the Plain Dealer and Wall Street Journal in the 1960s.

He was a 2004 Cleveland Journalism Hall of Fame recipient and won the national Joe Callaway Award for Civic Courage in 1991.