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.