Poll Dancing

Imagine my surprise today when I opened my mail, to find that I have a new polling location for upcoming elections.

And the new site is somewhat surprising to me.

You see, instead of voting at the quaint little church right down the hill ... instead, I'll be casting my ballot at a local "alternative" school.

I find this interesting on a couple of levels.

First, the church seems to me to be the perfect spot for polling. Quiet, empty on Tuesdays, ample parking, etc.

Secondly, there's been a recent trend to get schools OUT of the polling process, because of concerns over security and traffic.

Add to the fact that the new location is an "alternative" school ... and it's even stranger.

You see, these types of schools are set up for students who, for one reason or another, seem to fail in the traditional school environment.

Even its mission statement states that learning "will be accomplished by emphasizing the development of both academic and social skills."

So, here my question: Will these students benefit from the disruption of their daily routine, by a parade of strangers entering and exiting their parking lot and building.

Perhaps they will. Perhaps it will serve as a real-life lesson in democracy.

Or, it just might cause such a distraction, that learning on that particular day will become even more difficult.

I happen to know for a fact that neighbors of the school weren't really happy when it opened, probably because of the influx of "non-traditional" student in their neighborhood.

I wonder how they feel now ... knowing the congestion that voters will bring to the area.

Boss Time!

I'm a happy boy today.

You see, as a huge Bruce Springsteen fan, I've been waiting patiently for a tour date in Cleveland.

Today, we got one ... set for November at the Q.

It will be Bruce and the E Street Band's first trip to the Rock and Roll capitol in almost two years.

And what a two years it's been.

Bruce and the band lost longtime keyboardist Danny Federici to cancer, wrapped up a second leg of the "Magic" tour, released a new album, and toured the world again in support of "Working On A Dream."

There were some fears for me, at least, that perhaps the rust belt would be skipped because of the economy, but Bruce will follow-up on a Super Bowl promise and return to town.

What makes this even more exciting for me, is that the Cleveland stop will be the 3rd to the last show of the tour (at least right now.)

Usually, Cleveland is early in the tour itinerary, before the band has completely put it together.

The shows are good, but not as loose as they are towards the end of tours.

Factor in the idea that this could be the last appearance of the E Street Band for some time, and I'm really crossing my fingers for a special evening.

At least I can hope Bruce will break out "Rosalita" ... one of my all-time favorites, and a song that's been skipped in recent Cleveland tour stops.

Now all I have to do is get some tickets!

(By the way, if you want to play "Where's Waldo" with the photo included in this entry, it is a fabulous picture of me and the Boss!)

The "South of 480" Bias

I hate to continue to critique my former industry (and former colleagues) ... but its stuff like this that really gets my blood boiling.

When I worked in television news, we always joked about the existence of a "south of 480" bias.

In other words, news crews only traveled into Summit County and beyond for stories related to crime, death and destruction.

For some reason, reporters would gladly drive to Put-In-Bay or Ashtabula to cover a story, but hated driving to Akron ... even though Akron is closer than either of those other locations (making for an easier day.)

You see, here's a dirty little secret of tv news. "Smart" stations cover stories where the ratings boxes are located.

I seem to remember one year, when there was a sudden spike in the number of Nielsen families in Richland County.

Well, you know what that meant ... suddenly Mansfield became a much more important area to cover.

Why do they do this? Well, the higher the ratings the more you can charge for ads.

Well, when the full-fledged advent of delivering news online through websites arrived, I for one was glad.

This was surely something that would break down regional barriers, right?

I mean, while you want Nielsen families to tune in to your broadcasts, you want everyone to use your website.

Sadly, that still isn't happening.

A check of my former employer's website finds the following stories as the top news items south of I-480.

An July 4th attack that might be a hate crime. Gunshot victim in Barberton. Texas dog found roaming the streets of Brunswick (debatable whether this should be an "Akron-Canton" story). Man found hanging in Stow playground. Canton shooting victim mourned. 1200 arrests in "Operation Falcon." 7th child enticement in Stow.

Whew. It seems like the "south of 480" area is a horrible place to live.

Now, these stories SHOULD be here, don't get me wrong. People want to know when bad things happen in their neighborhoods.

But, they also want to know the GOOD things that happen there as well.

Looking at my former employer's news for the area north of 480 ... you see stories on free health care, Cuyahoga County reform, a setback for a Chagrin Valley church, a dentist paying patients to come to their appointments, a new ethics policy for Cleveland city workers, and local businesses using social networking for marketing.

To top it off, that section features "previews" of 4 weekend events: the unveiling of the rebuilt Superman house in Cleveland, the city's Ingenuityfest, a church rummage sale, and the Cain Park Arts Festival.

Notice the difference?

The "south of 480" area of the website is filled solely with crime. The north of 480 is almost devoid of crime.

Why? Well crime is easy to cover. Easy to pull out of newspapers. Easy to get via press releases. Easy to acquire through beat calls. Easy to show a "presence" in the Akron-Canton area, even though that "presence" is entirely bad news.

And the weekend previews really, really get to me.

You see, this weekend, downtown Akron happened to host an Italian-American Festival. It was the 62nd year for this event, but its first since moving downtown. There were 70 vendors, 2 music stages, games, great food, and much more.

I was in attendance last night ... and on Friday night alone, THOUSANDS of people packed into the downtown area to experience the fun. Akron was alive. It was a wonderful event.

So here's a question. If the station/website listed above can take so much time to write weekend previews of great events in Cuyahoga County, why not take 10 more minutes and post a few words about a great event in Summit County? An event that likely will draw crowds larger than that rummage sale, and equal to the other events.

My theory ... it's because very few of the website contributors live in Summit County. They write about the events they go to, and not about the ones they pass on. Which is fascinating to me.

I once sat in a morning meeting, where a corporate news guru pointed out that the meeting participants were very homogenized.

All were white, many were single, there weren't a lot of men, and there weren't a lot of parents in the room.

He concluded that our story selection might be biased, because we were determining our coverage based on what we were interested in, but not necessarily what the general public thought was important.

It was a fascinating lesson.

Well guess what, these stations have cured that problem, but now suffer from a regional bias.

There aren't a lot of people who live south of 480 who can make their voices heard. Even if it's for something simple, like writing a preview of an Italian-American Festival.

So, as a consumer who lives south of 480, and likes living south of 480, I urge you to keep supporting you local newspapers, radio stations and their websites. Places like akronnewsnow.com, ohio.com, and cantonrep.com.

Otherwise a news void could turn into a news vacuum for those of us living in the undiscovered country.

Catching Up

Well, my post-a-day promise has gone by the wayside ... but I'm still here!

It's funny how a visit from your folks combined with a holiday weekend will keep you from writing.

Anyways, not a whole lot to add today ... other than a reiteration of how much I love living in modern times.

I've added some words here before about using Facebook to reconnect with old friends who I've lost touch with in the days since high school.

Well, another one has come out of the woodwork ... after Googling my name and being led right to this blog!

I know that a lot of people argue that the Internet makes the world a lot less personal, and that can be true.

But, it can make the world a lot more personal as well.

I think the key is this ... if you're young, you can't live on a computer.

Get outside, breathe some air, cause trouble with your friends.

Laugh, dance, have fun.

But, when you get to be a little older ... and you've lost contact with the people who you laughed and danced with in the first place .. this is a great tool to reconnect, share some memories, and relive the old days. Even if they weren't necessarily the GOOD old days.

Not only that, I discovered that he's a blogger as well!

Well, his blog is now part of my blog, joining the honor roll on the right ... and I look forward to reading his thoughts and words as well.

So anyways, to my old/new friend, welcome aboard, and I'm glad you found me!

Hopefully, the modern world will keep us in touch.

Michael & Me

Let me clarify something before I dive into the meat of this post.

I killed Michael Jackson.

Yes, you heard me.

I'll say it again.

I killed Michael Jackson.

Well, not literally, of course.

But, I was talking to a friend on her drive home from work yesterday, and she commented on the death of Farrah Fawcett.

I off-handedly said something along the lines of, "Well, that wasn't too shocking, since Farrah launched an entire media campaign surrounding her illness. But, what would be surprising is someone relatively young and unexpected passing away."

Before the conversation was over, Twitter was abuzz with the news that the King of Pop had suffered a cardiac arrest and "wasn't doing well."

So, to the Jackson family ... I'm sorry. I promised to use my superpowers for good and not evil, and apparently failed.

Seriously, the only online comment I made about Michael was this: "Yes, I owned Thriller. Yes, it was on vinyl. Yes, I'm old."

Here's the weird thing, I don't really consider myself much of a Michael Jackson fan.

I acknowledge his creative genius, and his place of inspiration for other artists, but I just wasn't a huge fan.

So, it kind of surprised me when I realized that Thriller was not just one of the few, actual, you-know, RECORDS, I owned ... it may have been the first one I EVER bought.

See, that's where those of you too young to remember America in 1982, probably don't truly understand how 0ff-the-charts (and on), unbelievably, impossibly huge this guy was.

He was so gigantic, that an 11-year-old white kid from a cow town in Ohio bought Thriller as his first foray into music.

Why? Well, first of all, at 11, you're always trying to be cool.

And you couldn't be cool if you didn't have Thriller. That's how big of a record it was, literally everyone had it.

Secondly, why a record? Well, believe it or not, boom boxes were just starting to come into vogue, and I would have one soon enough, but not before buying an actual album or 2 (the other was Def Leppard's "Pyromania".

And the third reason consisted of 3 little letters ... MTV. Yes, it was a network that, back then, actually played music videos.

Michael Jackson and MTV grew up in the early-80's together, and you could argue that Michael was the artist who pushed the network into super stardom.

The Thriller video wasn't some cheap, throwaway promotional ad shot in front of a white wall, like so many others.

Michael sunk big time money into it. Making a mini-movie, and hiring a big name director to shoot it. It was 14 minutes long, and MTV ran it twice an hour to meet demand.

(Oddly enough, I didn't realize until Jackson passed away yesterday that MTV initially refused to play his videos, and he really opened the door for African-Americans on the network.)

And the last reason for owning Thriller ... well, it was good. I mean, really, really, really good.

Jackson could have likely released almost every song on the record, and had a hit. As it was, he did release 7 of the 9 tracks.

It was laced with guest stars, from legendary producer Quincy Jones, to a duet with Paul McCartney, to the signature guitar lick of Beat It, courtesy one Eddie Van Halen.

Oddly enough, I never bought another Michael Jackson record (or tape, or CD, or digital download for that matter.)

Why? I don't really know.

Thriller was probably too perfect ... a combination of time, and place, and age, and tastes.

Jackson's death yesterday was certainly sad, but it probably didn't hit me as hard as the passing of founding E Street Band member Danny Federici last year.

For me, Springsteen's music was much more of a soundtrack to my life than Jackson's.

But, Jackson's influence is undeniable. His reach was long, despite his erratic behavior over the last 15 years or so.

And somewhere, deep down, that 11-year-old kid from Ohio, will miss him.

Diminishing Returns?

A funny thing happened on the way to the ballot box yesterday.

The local media, with one exception, stopped using social media to deliver me the news.

As a former media member, I'm watching with great interest from outside the industry, as stations adapt to using Facebook, Twitter, and other sources to deliver their content. In fact, I've written about this before.

Last night was particularly interesting to me, as there was a special election you might have heard about ... as Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic battled to avoid recall.

This issue has been dominating the discussion in Summit County ... with mayors from Hudson to Green chiming in on the effort.

So, needless to say, I watched with great interest as the returns came in.

Now, I'm smart enough to know where to get the results myself, but I thought I would keep an eye on the social media sites to see how the local media would deliver me the numbers.

To my surprise, outside of the fine folks over at Akron News Now (who also delivered a live video feed from their newsroom, which unfortunately, I missed), they didn't.

So, I started delivering the results myself ... on both Facebook and Twitter, sometimes even getting the numbers up faster than the folks at ANN (but not by much.)

Interestingly, one television station (who shall remain nameless), had an assignment editor "tweeting" the results under her Twitter account, but only after she received a call from the reporter in the field.

In other words, by the time they were "tweeted" they were already behind.

Here's what confuses me. Why not just have the reporter tweet them himself?

The old ways of delivering results are dead, folks.

The social media world, and its consumers, want their news hand-delivered, and they want it fresh.

It absolutely floors me that television stations and newspapers that tweet on a regular basis didn't bother to offer the results through social media.

So, when it came to getting the results yesterday the quickest, Akron area consumers basically had three options.

1. The Board of Elections website.

2. Akron News Now.

3. Me -- a guy sitting in his office delivering the numbers while listening to a Tribe game.

The fact that there are at least 7 or 8 other news organizations that I, personally, defeated last night should be of GREAT concern to them.

Because, if private citizens like me can take journalism into their own hands, what use will we have for those who actually get paid to deliver the news?

PS: To every news outlet who wants me to be their "Facebook Friend of the Day" ... stop pandering. Don't lip service social media ... either go all in, as ANN did, or face the consequences.

On The Recall

My post-a-day promise rolls right along ... with politics!

It's not something I write about very often, but this is an issue that I feel pretty strongly about ... so here goes.

I believe the effort to recall Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic is wrong, and should be soundly rejected by voters tomorrow.

Before I go further, a little bit of disclosure. First, I don't live in Akron, so I will not be casting a ballot. Secondly, I've met the Mayor on a few occasions, but I wouldn't consider myself a friend or a crony. Third, I've had a number of interactions with the Mayor's Office ... some good, some bad, some ugly.

Most of my reasons for opposing this effort to recall Plusquellic have already been written by others, but I'm going to state them in my words.

Mainly, I'm against the idea because the arguments and accusations leveled against the Mayor are issues that should be contested and debated during a primary/general election cycle, not a recall.

To me, recalls should be used like those oxygen masks on airplanes ... only when the worst is about to happen.

In the case of politics, that should be when the incumbent is charged criminally ... or responsible for the most heinous acts of disregard for his office.

Now, those opposing Plusquellic are acting within the boundaries of the city charter. So, I can't blame them for them for taking action. The charter makes it too simple to recall an elected official, and no matter the outcome of tomorrow's vote, you can bet it will be changed.

But, just because the recall is legal ... it doesn't mean it's right.

Look, I'll be the first one to say that over the past several years, Plusquellic's manner has grown more brusque and bully-like. Opponents often point to the fact that the Mayor "tells it like it is", even if it offends many.

But, honestly, in this day and age where every politician, athlete, news anchor, and head of industry sanitizes their words to save themselves from the PC police ... isn't it somewhat refreshing to have a leader who says what's on his mind?

I mean, the President just took heat for killing a fly, for God's sake.

I want a leader like Plusquellic. I want a leader who says what he thinks, even if it ruffles a few feathers.

He's earned the right to say some of those things by his performance. Sure, city debt is high. Sure, Akron isn't immune to things like the foreclosure crisis.

But, you'll notice when those lists of "declining cities" are issued ... Cleveland and Canton are always included, but Akron is mysteriously missing.

Under Plusquellic's leadership, Akron has new restaurants, a beautiful ballpark in which to watch baseball, a transformed university campus, new places to live, work and learn and a renewed commitment to the arts.

Have there been missteps? Sure. The Inventor's Hall Of Fame was and is a boondoggle. The aforementioned sewers plan was rushed to the ballot. Relations with safety forces could be better.

However, there have not been enough missteps to remove Plusquellic from office mid-term. If you don't like what he's done ... or what he's said ... run against him in either the primary or the general election.

If you beat Plusquellic then, well, the change you want will have occurred in the way it was intended.

Finally, you may ask why I care? I don't live in Akron. I don't work there. What does it matter to me?

My answer ... I believe Don Plusquellic is not just good for Akron ... he's good for the region. Like it or not, he has clout ... locally, statewide, and even nationally. And folks in the burbs may not like this, but what's good for Akron is good for it's neighbors.

I'd wager the jobs saved by retaining Goodyear and Firestone don't belong to folks who live exclusively within the city limits.

When Akron benefits, we all benefit.

And Don Plusquellic is a good leader, who's fighting for his political life, because of a bad idea.

And while I don't expect this post to sway a single person, I urge everyone who supports the Mayor to not take their votes for granted tomorrow ... if you want Plusquellic to stay in office, get out and vote.

PS: I have one other message, to those Akron City Council members who are considering a run for Mayor should Plusquellic be removed ... you are cowards. You would rather sit quietly under this Mayor then challenge him directly for the job. Anyone who runs for the sole reason that they no longer have to oppose Don Plusquellic should be sure to print their campaign signs in yellow.