Tell me, when have you seen a column as this one from the Scene in the Plain Dealer with all its columnists? I’ll tell you. Never.
Mike Roberts gives it to C. Ellen Connally, president of the county council: http://CleveScene.com.
There is no columnist at the Plain Dealer who is giving us the straight talk that the community needs to hear on local decision-making.
I’m trying my hardest not to write and let go, but the PD makes it so hard.
The other thing I might say is that it is easy for both the PD and the alternatives to rebuke politicians.
Even the PD editorialized about Connally’s lack of openness. Openness in government is a top of the list requirement by the PD.
Roberts, however, does it deftly and with more punch.
The other problem is that it’s rare to find the same kind of punches – from the floor – for the many private sector rascals that have been screwing up this town for ages.
I got an invitation this week from Cleveland State University. CSU is honoring Joe Roman, boss of the Greater Cleveland Partnership. No Greater Cleveland bungler could they find. The public service tribute does have a proper cause – scholarships.
But this perpetuates the myth that the private sector – which has been responsible for so many bad decisions – is to be honored.
Cleveland’s private sector believes the city starts at the lake shore, goes west to the western river bank, then south to take in Gateway and east to Playhouse Square. The rest of the city is Tombstone.
Give me a break.
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. [Photo by Todd Bartimole.]
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10 Responses to “ROLDO: Is the Plain Dealer just too, too timid?”
Allen Freeman
The PD has written about the oblivious nature of Connally by quoting her “bizzarro-world” logic several times.
Perhaps the PD is using the use of her quotes in their current reporting as a shot-across-the-bow, to give her a chance to clean up her obtuse thinking before they are forced to directly skewer her in an editorial page piece.
At least I hope that’s what’s happening.
But I don’t think Connally has the capacity to change her stripes. Any introspective person would never let loose the things that have come out of her mouth already. She truly believes she’s the smartest person in the room and above any line of personal questioning, and the reality is the opposite…
Allen Freeman
Oops — change this sentence to:
Perhaps the PD is using her quotes in their current reporting as a shot-across-the-bow, to give her a chance to clean up her obtuse thinking before they are forced to directly skewer her in an editorial page piece.
John Polk
It’s not timidity; it’s cravenness…At least since it attained monopoly status, the PD has been the shill of the corporate establishment (I maintain that, except for sports, the paper is published for about 250 people in town).
It’s easy for the paper to take on elected officials (though, for those who lived through its slavish institutional sucking up to Mike White, the PD’s zeal to clean up local politics seems to have been somewhat belatedly acquired), since they don’t buy advertising.
To do the work required to right the civic ship would mean looking closely (and skeptically) at many of the people and projects on whose behalf the paper has been shilling. But that would risk alienating big advertisers. And with the paper back on it heels, that would be truly dangerous.
Roldo Bartimole
John: I love that comment that the paper is published for some 250 people.
Do you really think it’s that high? Maybe 198.
Anastasia P
Have to disagree with you on this one, Roldo. Mike swallowed an entire pitcher of Plain Dealer Koolade in this column, parroting their positions and their fictions virtually intact, right down to that alleged “secret meeting” that they just made up (not that a get-together occurred but that it was a meeting, that it was secret or that it involved officeholders doing public business). Ellen Connally is one of their favorite targets and will continue to be because she isn’t going along without questioning with the corporate/PD agenda and she won’t apologize for everything the Plain Dealer doesn’t agree with. Anyone who doesn’t fit the PD’s narrative about how exactly county reform should have gone (usually expressed through their mouthpiece/shill Marty Zanotti) will get worked over by them — in columns that sound just like this.
John Polk
Haven’t checked the circulation numbers lately; you could be right..
John Polk
And by the bye, I’ve known Joe Roman for many years; his first job in Cleveland was working for me (though you won’t find it on his resume’). When it comes to evaluating his effectiveness, one must remember that the bar is set sort of low. His predecessor was Dennis Eckart: a lobbyist, not a CEO. HIS predecessor was Carole Hoover, a key Mike White enabler who ran the Chamber while ALSO enjoying an exclusive no-bid contract to manage all the concessions at Hopkins Airport…a little conflict the corporate guys sorta missed…and who drove GCP’s predecessor to the brink of bankruptcy… In comparison to these Great Americans, Joe is Winston Churchill…but that’s principally because his charge from his “leaders” is to keep things quiet and not embarrass them publicly…
Roldo Bartimole
Anastasia – The PD certainly has put pressure on Connally and has gone overboard on the transparancy issue. But Connally has made classic mistake in thinking that she doesn’t have to be open in all respects when the public has just gone through two years of visible corruption. It can’t be business as usual. Trust is too low.
County politians have to understand what has preceded this new era. It’s just as simple as the old saying about Caesar’s wife, who must be above suspicion. Connally and FitzGerald have to understand this. I think he has shown he does; she hasn’t.
John: You’re correct in the history of the Growth Association and its heirs.
What a “distinguished” crew. NOT. Too bad that the PD doesn’t take the same strong position of transparency with the big boys who “run” the town.
C J Paparosa
got a little more educated great banter– Connally is part of the politcal process that is the propblem can we lock them all up?
John Polk
We can shuffle the chairs around in the name of government “reform” all we want, and toss those hapless enough to get caught on video handing elected officials money in the clink, but until those crack investigative reporters at the PD are willing to expose the BIG thieves and their scams to the light, the area’s economy will continue to decline.
The guys who brought us the Med Mart and casino gambling are the EXACT SAME guys who sold us a who-knows-how-much-it-really-cost Browns Stadium in the mid-’90’s…after having chased Art Modell out of town.
They don’t work for us. They don’t really even work for their members generally. And they make no bones about it.
I’d call the series “The Men Behind The Curtain,” and treat ’em like a criminal conspiracy…in my dreams…