ROLDO: Twittering Tweets Reporting? Or Not?

By Roldo Bartimole

I don’t tweet. I’m not a twitterer.

Tweeting scares me.

Why? Because I might – indeed, almost assuredly would – post something I’ll regret. It’s the quickness of the shot. So I stay away.

Plus it seems juvenile. Can’t you write something more detailed and conclusive? Are these quick quips really reporting? I guess they can be.

There is a definite attraction to tweeting though. It’s quick. You can say something provocative without having to spell it out. The way it seems to me. It gives the reader responsibility to decipher.

What would I tweet if I did twitter? Let’s see. I’m told this is how it goes:

@Roldo: The Plain Dealer has become less interesting as a 4-day a week paper, if that’s possible. And it apparently it is. Because they’ve done it. Maybe they help us by not making it necessary to read it every day. Saves time.

@Roldo: What’s happening with the PD now? A question seemingly on many minds. The paper chose a weird way to attack a problem all papers now have. People I talk to – not that many, I admit – say they don’t bother with the paper if it isn’t delivered. If it isn’t a hard copy. I find myself spending less time with the e-edition (Northeast Ohio Media Group – sounds awful, too). Does this economic decision really destroy the basic economic advantage of producing a delivered paper (the paper Plain Dealer in a blue bag)? I think so.

@Roldo: The breakup of the staff – a web non-union staff and a newspaper Guild staff – creates a division that seems to me destructive. People, I’m told, work without the advantage of a newsroom. No newsroom? Those who have gone the web-way are not eligible to join the Guild. Some consider those who jumped that way “scabs.” No “city room” where reporters come, roam, bump up against colleagues, exchange information, a place of give & take seems very strange to me, though I haven’t been in a city room for decades. I do know how it once worked. It was by nature team-building. Finally, it becomes confusing to readers to find where and when certain news appears – in the PD, in a Sun Press edition, on the web. Somewhere? The confusion breeds a reader of “who cares” attitude. Too hard to navigate. Bad stuff for a newspaper. The hell with it.

Did I just go over the Twitter limit? Too bad.

@Roldo: Mayor Frank Jackson is being credited with the planned revision (improvement?) of Public Square. That is an expensive joke, right? Gilbert’s casino wants a new free front porch. So shouldn’t Dan be credited? Or the Greater Cleveland Partnership. It’s a lot of money that should better be spent elsewhere. Almost anywhere in the city.

@Roldo: The Plain Dealer – whose recent publisher’s wife (Iris as in Vail) re-did Public Square some years ago – really is the promoter of this new and costly revision of Public Square. It’s an editorial mandate. The unspoken rationale: Get those black people away from our downtown park.

@Roldo: I’m told that the County is thinking about dumping MMPI as the operator of the new Convention Center. Does that make you feel good? After spending tens of millions of dollars, with MMPI collecting the revenue from the quarter-percent, non-voted sales tax, to build and operate the new convention center. You can bet the convention center will produce red ink by the bucket. The County now has collected $237.7 million for the Med Mart project, which includes the convention center. That’s as of the end of August. Many years to go.

@Roldo: The County is also pledging to build a 600-room hotel and operate it. Who the hell gave them that idea? Location: next to the convention center where the County Administration building now sits. Does anyone trust Cuyahoga County to run a hotel, even if it pawns operations off to a hotel chain? A hotel that will cost who knows what in county tax dollars. And one that officials already should know will lose money. I’d say by the ton again. But the town’s on a roll. Except it doesn’t apparently know it’s headed downhill on this one.

@Roldo: Mayor Jackson is being credited with backing off on the disastrous trash to electricity pollution deal. But isn’t this an election season back off, not a real take-to-the-bank one? Wait until Nov. 6, day after election. Jackson, for some unknown reason, wants this badly. I wonder what the reason is. It’s so dumb you have to.

@Roldo: Mayor Jackson, a neighborhoods guy we’re told, just seemed to be reminded there were neighborhoods in Cleveland. He took reporters for a ride – emphasis on taking reporters for a ride – to check out some of them. Someone must have told him there’s talk around town of city attentiveness to downtown, downtown, downtown. It may make some think of neighborhood neglect. And on his watch, too.

@Roldo: Picked up a free Monday Plain Dealer this week and decided it had become a very bad Sporting News instead of a newspaper. It seemed every section led with sports news. Are we that limited in interests? The few news stories one could find were written by other city newspaper reporters. Just very poor stuff. Depressing.

@Roldo: Congresswoman Marcia Fudge withholding support from County Executive Ed Fitzgerald’s run against right-wing, anti-labor Republican Gov. John Kasich reminds me of Mayor Michael White’s game-playing that helped George Voinovich defeat Anthony O. Celebreeze, Jr. in 1990. White’s withheld an endorsement until he embarrassed Celebreeze enough and damaged the candidate. Fudge is pulling the same stunt this time. Of course, Mayor Jackson also has been playing footsie with Republican Kasich. Very unseemly politics for Cleveland Democrats. They often act as Republicans.

@Roldo: What really should bother so many of Fudge’s constituents (and Frank’s) is that the man she’s giving backdoor help to – Gov. John Kasich – is undoubtedly the one who more severely damages Fudge’s constituents, particularly poor black and working people. Shame on Marcia.

@Roldo: Biggest political disappointment – Sen. Rob Portman. He has the chance to be a man of principle but he succumbs to the Republican Party’s repugnant game to oppose and depose America’s first black President. Cruddy stuff. From the birthers to the block anything Obama wants, a sickening Republican strategy continues, whether it damages the nation or not. Portman, former director of Management & Budget, knows better. By remaining in the background, rather than taking responsible positions vocally he’s no better than the Cruzes or Bachmans. Quietly accepting the game of the irresponsible Republican right.

@Roldo: OMG! Feagler’s finally gone. Is that definite? Can I really count on it? We don’t have to watch the once readable Cleveland Press columnist playing TV host, reminding us of what he misses about the past. Many years ago, he croaks. Constantly, boringly. Go gently into the night, Dick (Or will he end up another PD columnist). You may be missed by some but many yearn for a talk show on public TV with a host that knows what’s going on and can have guests with varying views. WVIZ, our PBS local, irresponsibly fails to fulfill a role sorely needed in local broadcast news.

Well, what do you know? I can twitter and make it a column, too. Thanks Tweety!

 

 

In 1991 he was awarded the Second Annual Joe Callaway Award for Civic Courage in Washington, D.C. He received the Distinguished Service Award of the Society of Professional Journalists, Cleveland chapter, in 2002, and was named to the Cleveland Journalism Hall of Fame, 2004. [Photo by Todd Bartimole.]

 

 

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