Don't let anybody tell you the Reporter doesn't get results. Just last week, items on Sal Paonessa's radio interview with his boss, Mayor Vince Anello, and the tragically unfunny musings of David Arkin, the boyish editor of the Niagara Gazette, produced results both entertaining and amazing.
Sal had worked himself up into high dudgeon Tuesday morning because I had written critically about the softball interview, suggesting there might be a conflict between Sal's roles as a radio talk show host and a decorated Niagara Falls Police Department lieutenant. I also mentioned that his references to our fine publication as "The Rag"caused the Redhead to stick her fingers in her ears and sing "100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" until the show was over.
He steamed and stewed for the first 15 minutes of the program, then challenged me to call in on the air. What followed was about a half-hour of pure hilarity, in which Sal seemed to be arguing that The New York Times, the Associated Press, the Buffalo News, the Gazette and Channels 2, 4 and 7 only did stories on the federal corruption probe of the Anello administration because we did one in the Reporter.
I found myself in the rather absurd position of having to say I didn't just make the whole thing up, and that the FBI agents assigned to the case weren't simply figments of my overheated imagination. At one point, he even questioned the existence of the Redhead. I couldn't help but laugh.
While Sal and I were having fun, some of his listeners became agitated. Halfway through the exchange, his switchboard was lit up with callers eager to talk about me in a most unflattering manner. Finally we had to break -- so Sal could play a commercial for the Reporter.
Some of the callers didn't like me and some didn't like the mayor. One guy didn't like me or the mayor. Another noted that if the purpose of the show was to entertain, Sal had accomplished his mission.
We had fun, did some good radio and laughed about it afterwards.
One person who didn't have much fun last week was young Arkin, the boy wonder brought in from Alabama a month or so ago to rescue the fortunes of the foundering Gazette. His Nov. 25 column, a lame attempt to poke fun at hockey, chicken wings, doughnuts, supermarkets, snow and everything else Western New Yorkers hold sacred, produced not laughter but cries of protest from an outraged populace.
He made matters worse by laughing himself at people who called up to complain. Over at Bada Bean Coffee and Cafe, owner Debora Krieger even organized a petition drive to force the lad to retract the offending comments.
She also called the Reporter.
By week's end, area Web sites like wnymedia.net, niagarafallsalive.com and buffalopundit had picked up on our story. One ran a smiling photo of the boyish editor beneath the headline, "Who Does This Dink Think He Is?"
When some local businesses threatened to stop advertising, young Arkin knew his goose was cooked. His effort last Friday was a 1,000-word mea culpa in which he practically said he'd come to your house and wash your car but please, please don't be mad at him.
I almost found myself feeling sorry for him. Almost. But despite the fact that his paper's circulation heads further and further south with each passing day, young Arkin vowed not to return to that land of cotton from whence he came, a banjo on his knee.
"Simply put, we're staying here for a good, long while," he wrote. "We aren't going back to Alabama anytime soon."
I wouldn't bet the farm on it, kid.
In the midst of all this media hubbub, I almost forgot to mention that the startling ascendancy of the Niagara Falls Reporter has been duly noted in a major feature in the December issue of the glossy monthly "PoliticsNY.Net" magazine.
The article, written by Frank Parlato, details the paper's role in exposing any number of tawdry cases, including the Parkway condominium scandal, racketeering in Laborers Local 91, the theft of city property by a Department of Public Works foreman, and the former county youth director who had "forgotten" about the arrest record that would have disqualified her for employment.
But the focus of the piece concerns the ongoing tragedy at City Hall. Entitled "The Fall of Niagara Falls Mayor Vincenzo V. Anello and the Rise of the Niagara Falls Reporter," the article is the first full accounting of the paper's role in the continuing federal investigation.
While die-hard Reporter readers will be familiar with much of the material, the Buffalo-based magazine has a wide readership in the corridors of power, not just in Western New York, but in Albany and Washington, D.C., as well.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | Dec. 6 2005 |