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Apparently dissatisfied with the kid-glove treatment she's received at the hands of the Niagara Gazette and The Buffalo News, Mayor Irene Elia recently announced she is going to start her own newspaper.
At first, I thought she was just goofing. Or maybe she forgot to take her medication that day. Anyway, I laughed.
But if she's serious, we, here, at the Reporter wish her all the best luck in the world. Because she's going to need it.
It's a rough-and-tumble world, this newspaper running business. Just ask my partner, Bruce B. On the other hand, Irene's good friends with Gazette Publisher Steve Braver, a man of obvious newspaper savvy. Having presided over the terminations or resignations of about 90 percent of the decent editors and writers who used to work for the Gazette, Braver can no doubt counsel Lois Lane, er, um, Irene on the finer points of employee relations and improving the editorial package.
Or maybe not.
In her announcement, the Mayor named City Administrator Al Joseph as editor of the paper, which will be called "Good News." Just so long as she keeps him out of the business office, which would be "bad news." Joseph's financial follies, including about $50,000 in bad debt to the Cordish Co., are well documented and I won't go into them here.
Al, too, could pick up some pointers from his opposite number at the Gazette--Editor Terry Shaw--whose riveting accounts of cleaning up dog feces while waiting for his wife to get dressed very nearly snagged him the coveted "Best Newspaper Columnist" award and have made him the darling of the Niagara Falls literati. Shaw could stress to Joseph the importance of sounding like you're older than you are in your columns, and giving the impression you've been around a lot more than you actually have.
I can only hope the City Council approves additional funding so Paul Colangelo gets a deputy director to help him out over at the Public Works Department. He's the only one in the Mayor's gang--the erudite Ron Anton being excepted--who can write a lick, and I'd imagine his services will be needed desperately on the "Good News" staff. His work on the newsletter "The Transparency" is well known, as is his famous friendship with crackerjack newsman Pat Bradley. Many speeches, mangled beyond recognition by the past three mayors, also have sprung from Colangelo's prolific pen.
Far more adept as a propagandist than as a Public Works director, Paul could give Irene a lot more bang for the buck, as it were, in the position of Ink-Stained Wretch.
Really though, editorial is the easy part. Just ask Bruce B. What about financing? Will the taxpayers be picking up the "Good News" tab or will our millionaire mayor be paying for it herself? Will a Niagara Falls shop get the printing business?
Advertising presents another unique challenge in the depressed Niagara Falls economy. Irene has a leg up on us in this department in the sense that she has the power to unleash city inspectors on recalcitrant would-be advertisers. I wish I would have thought of that.
And let's not forget about circulation! In her announcement, our esteemed Mayor said the paper would be carried at all--both--Tops stores as well as the newly opened Save-A-Lot on Pine Avenue. But these things have a way of getting out of control. We saw the circulation of the Niagara Falls Reporter mushroom from 10,000 to 40,000 copies a month in no time at all.
I think that had a lot to do with the kind of journalism our paper produces, which is, emphatically, not "good news," so maybe Irene won't face the same problems we did. In fact, if the turnout at her last public meeting is any indication, she may be able to cover the entire DeVeaux region with fewer than 11 copies.
Bruce and I had no idea that Irene wanted to get into the newspaper business. Had she announced her intentions earlier, we'd have partnered with her.
Stupidly, perhaps, we thought she wanted to be the mayor of Niagara Falls.