By Roldo Bartimole

There were two main reasons why Clevelanders voted slothfully in the recent mayoral runoff election:

1) Its citizens are a dispirited, dejected constituency, and they further do not believe it makes a spits worth of difference who is mayor of Cleveland.

2) The major outlet for news (hint: pd) held up its nose at the candidates and decided they were not worth serious coverage, so the paper of record avoided its duty and made the race even more irrelevant.

There has been a long, long process of killing democratic predispositions in the Cleveland community for the benefit of the few.

Cleveland has been an institutionally dominated community for so long that it may be impossible to revive the city’s democratic status, once praised by Lincoln Steffens for its muckraking spirit.

That quality has been beaten out of Cleveland over many, many years. Little by little. Decision by decision.

Steffens writes in his biography about a conversation with Cleveland Mayor Tom Johnson. Johnson tells him “privilege” is responsible for civic corruption. “It is privilege that causes evil in the world, not wickedness, and not men,” Johnson told him.

Of course, men and women seek these privileges that corrupt.

In Cleveland, for as long as I’ve been here (since 1965), civic forces – allied with corporations, high-powered lawyers, developers, bankers and contractors – have corrupted the city by using politicians to gain privilege for profit. These forces have the cooperation of the local news media, particularly the Pee Dee -- since it is the trendsetter. It’s the habit of news publishers (editors follow naturally) for obvious reasons to ally themselves with the power structure.

These civic institutions – everything from the Cleveland and Gund Foundations to the Greater Cleveland Partnership (formerly Cleveland Tomorrow) - have been so successful that they have wrung hope out of the body politic. With hopelessness comes apathy and further disintegration of participation.

They do it by controlling what’s done – new stadiums, downtown development, etc. – and ignoring what has to be done – attending to poverty, schools, infrastructure, recreation and public health.

The process breeds an acceptance and participation by the newspaper, a natural alliance that binds the newspaper to the aims, desires and ambitions of these ordained civic organizations. Their goals are always considered “good” for the community. Think of when you last read anything in the paper that was critical of a chosen civic institution. It rarely happens.

What makes all this worse is the economic pie of Cleveland has shrunk significantly. Some 68,000 more jobs were lost in Cuyahoga County, 2000-2005. As George Zeller - fired by the corrupted Council for Economic Opportunities in Greater Cleveland - but still selflessly producing data, said, “When we lost jobs in this massive magnitude, a major economic catastrophe resulted. There is no way to put a kind face on numbers that are this bad.”

This condition of neediness only makes the necessity to get while the getting is good more sordid.

So, we have the kind of community we have.

I was away for the final two weeks of the mayoral campaign. I returned and reviewed the Pee Dee’s coverage, finding not only a dearth of information about candidates, but also not a single profile of one of the candidates, no coverage of a candidate making some statement or charge. One candidate’s spokesperson felt that the newspaper did not use a statement or charge from one candidate because it would have to contact the rest of them to get comment. That is simply foolish. You decide what news is and report it.

That sentiment limits candidates. It tells them that the newspaper isn’t interested in any offered ideas, so why go in that direction. It tells candidates there is no opportunity here. Even the candidates apparently come to believe they have nothing to say.

Editorial director Brent Larkin, also the paper’s political columnist, didn’t write until after the election with a piece on how other politicians were giving Campbell the stiff arm, refusing to endorse her even when asked.

On the day of the election, the Pee Dee failed to report on the front page that there was an election that day for Cleveland mayor! Instead, the city’s monopoly paper ran an all-election article, including Cleveland’s, bottom of the Metro front page. Not good enough.

Former Councilman Bill Patmon gave another reason for constituency apathy and the poor coverage. He compared someone telling you everything on a restaurant menu was lousy, as the PD suggested of the slate of eight candidates, and then you turn up your nose at all. He’s right.

I heard an equally disturbing explanation by the PD’s political reporter Mark Naymik on a post election show on WCPN. The issue was a TV ad cleverly attacking both Jane Campbell and Frank Jackson. The negative ad rapped both Campbell and Jackson but neither endorse nor mentioned any other candidate. I would think most people asked themselves, as I did, who does the ad really back? Many thousands of people probably saw the ad.

Naymik, asked why the paper didn’t inform the public about the ad, suggested that had the Pee Dee done so, some people would say the paper had been “duped” – for further publicizing the ad. That’s a poor reason for withholding information from a puzzled public. Who cares if someone thinks you are being duped if you are performing a responsible duty to report?

Unfortunately, such thought process reflects a defensive, play it safe mindset, the trademark of the newspaper’s view of its responsibility to its readers and the public.

There’s likely another reason for limited coverage by the Pee Dee. The skeptical will agree. The less said – or printed – keeps the heat off Mayor Campbell, the Pee Dee’s endorsed candidate.

The coverage of the general election also started out shakily. The Pee Dee had Naymik giving “advice” to the two remaining candidates – Campbell and Jackson. Three suggestions for each highlighted the front page without an actual article. Aside the advice column was a short, inessential piece playing off the low vote count by contrasting it against sports and other attendance venues. Very weak.

I hope that the Pee Dee will get serious not only about its coverage of the looming general election but also about community powers. We need a review of the last several decades, where leadership has taken the community and what have the results been.
From Cool Cleveland contributor Roldo Bartimole roldoATadelphia.net (:divend:)