The Rules Have Changed
We subconsciously know the real state of the news we learn about Pittsford.
Yet we still delude ourselves that the daily and weekly newspapers, combined with television news and radio, are telling us everything we need to know.
And now both the delusion and the reality are changing again.
First the delusion – somehow there is still a reporter everywhere – at Town Board meetings, doing in depth investigations if there were anything to investigate that would be coupled with big headlines that we could never miss.
Of course this state of affairs never existed. Not even back in the late sixties where you might, if you went to a Town Board meeting see reporters from one or more of the Democrat & Chronicle, Times-Union, and local weeklies (up in Webster there was a reporter generally present from the Webster Herald making it more informative than the Post paper).
Because even then the reporting was stenography, just literally reporting what was said rather than anything investigative. With one party rule, the opposition was ignored though just before local elections there might be a press release covered along with a brief coverage in the annual who is on the ballot story.
Since then, the T-U is gone and neither the daily nor the weeklies have field reporters. At best a reporter might rarely give someone a call. Weeklies are understaffed and overworked; the daily, with even zoned metro coverage, ignores the suburban governments – except for the pre-election roundups.
Whatever the opposition does – speak out at Town Board meetings, write letters to the editor, send out press releases, they get ignored.
To tell the truth, municipalities and incumbents fair little better. But they still know the value of good press and the need of the news media to fill the news hole, no matter how much it continues to shrink.
Enter the communications director or whatever it is named in your municipality, pumping out a regular stream of feel good stories about their bureaucracy. Among the best locally is the Fairport School District.
Practically every week there is some positive story about Fairport schools in the D&C.
Town Supervisors get a regular column in the weekly to tout themselves.
And in their spare time, the communications directors spew out newsletters, printed and distributed at public expense, explaining how wonderful their world is. Doesn’t hurt that the incumbents, especially if they are up for election, to get their name mentioned in these formats.
The opposition gets ignored as the community was always of one voice regardless of the issue – but there are never issues.
While as the new jargon says – the MSM (Main Stream Media) becomes less useful in learning about our community, the new media on the Internet, in words, images and video has the opportunity to fill the news gap.
So far there is little new media that even indirectly focuses on Pittsford. With this site our hope to fill some of the need. We are under no illusion that we have thousands or even hundreds of viewers.
But our goal is the make us a must read for everyone who is truly interested in Pittsford regardless of your political perspective. You might not like the implications but you will want to read us. RSS notification is available so when something new is posted, you can learn about it without having to check with the site periodically.
Yes, we are partisan. We will not be giving every side to every issue. We will not try.There will be separate articles and opinions and we will be fact checking. If we get a fact, wrong, let us know so that we can acknowledge our error and correct it.
Stay tuned.