December 10, 2007

Feeling positive about Racine? Read the newspaper and call me in the morning

Mark Twain once said, "Never pick a fight with a man who buys ink by the barrel and paper by the ton." Or was it Samuel Johnson... or Oscar Wilde? No matter: whoever said it first, it's been true since shortly after Gutenberg figured out movable type (circa 1439).

But that was then, and this is now. The internet is rife with 21st century revisions of that old adage.

"Ink matters less, electrons matter more," wrote John Udell "and the playing field is closer to level." Bob Stepno collected these variants on new-media/old-media exchanges, warning of the power of "bandwidth by the barrel, pixels by the bushel, photons by the google and diskspace by the gigabyte." Finally, Kevin Craver rang in the 21st Century with the warning, "Never pick a fight with a person who writes in his pajamas."

Take this self-serving history as preamble to a discussion of the question, Do you view Racine in a positive or negative light? The Journal Times asks that question as a poll on its website -- I first noticed it Saturday -- and, surprise! the naysayers are winning.

Is their poll a result of my criticism of Mike Moore's Friday column reminding us of negatives like crime and job losses (Gee, thanks; we might have forgotten!) in response to the New York Times' favorable profile of the city's growing arts scene a week ago? Irrelevant. It is what it is.

The poll props up the stereotype the JT promulgates on 2,000 tons of newsprint annually. Saturday's paper had, by my count, 17 crime stories -- six relating to criminal charges for auto accidents and eleven about robberies, assaults, murder plots and so on. (The killing of a 16-year-old girl in a bar fight atop Sunday's front page occurred after Saturday's paper went to press.) Not all the crime stories are from the city itself, but sometimes you had to look closely to find the regional dateline. (I'm not counting two stories on the Omaha mall massacre.)

My point is: How the hell can anyone have positive feelings when bombarded with all that negativity? And so, I was not surprised with the results that came up when I clicked on the Journal Times' poll Saturday night: 174 positive (42.2%) vs. 239 negative responses (57.8%). Not even close; no need for the Supreme Court to decide this election!

Still the poll raises the all-important question of cause-and-effect. Does reading the Journal Times create a negative environment? Or is the community self-selecting, dividing itself along positive / negative axes: those with a negative view reading the newspaper for a daily dose of pessimistic proof that the community is going to the dogs; while those who walk on the sunny side of the street get their news elsewhere (or not at all). If that's the case, positive outlooks are in the majority.

It's no secret that many newspapers have adopted the advice of consultants (bolstered by newsstand sales spikes) that show circulation rising when crime stories are emphasized. Big city tabloids lived on this mantra for decades (at least until celebrity-mania replaced it.) But crime stories become a drug, one to which the readership gains an immunity over time. So it takes bigger and more gruesome headlines to maintain the buzz. (Believed unsurpassable is the NY Post's, "Headless body in topless bar," from 1983.)

But eventually all that crime news causes people to retreat into their homes, afraid to walk the streets. They forget -- the newcomers may never have known -- that this community was a finalist in the National Civic League's All-America City competition in 1994, before Main Street was revitalized: the former JC Penney building sat vacant, the entire block where the Johnson Building now stands tall was a vacant lot, mute reminder of a fire in the '70s. There was no attractive vista to the lake, no Laurel Clark fountain; just dozens of parked Postal trucks.

The city was an All-America City finalist again -- a bridesmaid but not a bride -- in 1999, before all those galleries opened on Sixth Street.

The city -- the Greater Racine area, to be precise -- finally won the award in 2003. The award cited such accomplishments as the regional sewer pact, fine arts museum, zoo and library; the Sixth Street revitalization; Racine County Youth as Resources. And that was before Monument Square's restoration, the new shops and condos at State and Main.

Granted, a city is more than its downtown, but you have to start at the core.

So which came first: Racinians overwhelmed with community-loathing, or a newspaper feeding them negative thoughts? I mean: if you really dislike the city, then why stay here? I'm not arguing for a Pollyanna Press; crime is a fact of life and we need to know about it. But must the Police Blotter be the bedrock of all our conversations, day after day?

If a majority of the population truly sees the city in a negative light, then maybe we need to do something about it.

Something more substantive than fearmongering and polling.

4 comments:

  1. Yes, Pete, maybe Racine needs to do something about it.

    I live at 613 Sixth Street and I come home after being away to find tragedy outside my door. Am I supposed to pretend nobody lost her life here? Shot in the back here?

    I remember when Racine went through the parking lot shootings in 2005 and the local paper chose to feature a fun at the beach story.... When a community really needed to focus on business.

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  2. In my experience it's the born and raised Racinians who have such a poor attitude and low image/opinion of this town. We relocated here and although there are days I find it challenging to stay positive about this city, it's usually because I wasted time reading the JT blogs. I've never lived in a town that had such a low self-image. Just imagine what a better place this town could be if more people took pride in the city. It would be a small step towards accomplishing big things. And yes, the JT doesn't help things. I want the news, the good and the bad, but how many times in 10 days does the front page need to show a court room image?

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  3. Thank you anonymous. You are right - I was raised in Racine and as soon as I went to high school, my classmates and I hated Racine. It took leaving for me to appreciate our city, and I now intend to stay here because our community does have many wonderful things to offer.
    Problem is we take, take, take, and don't want to give. Our #1 priority should be to increase education standards for all children (and yes, that means giving whatever you have - time, money to help).
    We also need to strengthen families so that children can go to homes and feel safe and loved and not go out into the streets looking only to find themselves dead on katie's doorstep.

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  4. Sounds like a simple "them" versus "us."

    …Or the magnificent light being pulled and pushed to the dark side.

    The fact is that traditional journalism -- unfortunately -- has always focused on reporting what psychotherapists call trauma. Think about it. The stuff of regular "news" is really an unrelenting parade of stories of trauma and pain:

    War, kidnappings, fires, crime, rapes, shootings, attacks, street violence, home violence, rabid dogs, robberies, drugs. The list goes on.

    Yes, news people need to report these things, and people need to read about them so they know what is going on in their world. But there is a way to report this information and provide it to the public in a way that is both honest and sensitive. There is a way of putting painful information in perspective for readers so they can understand their world, and themselves, more completely. There are even ways of reporting news of trauma that are respectful and have the potential of actually healing of the survivors of the trauma.

    So, we have to ask: where is the encouragement of creativity and depth to provide other new information about our community and the people who live here, or wherever? People tire of reading about trauma news all the time, and it results in avoidance and cynicism -- not only in the readers but also in the writers.

    I doubt that bashing the Journal Times will make the Journal Times a better paper.

    If you want to chat more about this, let me know. It is one of my favorite topics to think about and talk about.

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