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We weren't publishing last spring when the Chamber of Commerce held its annual awards banquet. If we had been, I would have commented on how I had never seen anyone who passes himself off as a newspaperman fawning over a politician the way Greater Niagara Newspapers Publisher Steve Braver did to Mayor Irene Elia.
Not that I was invited to the event, mind you. That kind of feel-good phoniness makes my flesh crawl anyway. I watched it on television instead. And my flesh still crawled. Braver served as master of ceremonies in what amounted to a civil canonization of the former nun.
The erstwhile publisher is a member of the Mayor's unofficial "kitchen cabinet," a select group of gadflies who spend time hobnobbing at the Niagara Falls Country Club. Other members include Maid of the Mist owner Jimmy Glynn and NCCC President Antoinette Cleveland. At least Braver isn't alone in the fact that he doesn't live in the Falls.
Since taking over the newspaper chain in the spring of 1999, Braver has cut staff, reduced the physical size of the paper and moved jobs out of the city. The most recent bloodbath occurred a couple of weeks ago, when several senior employees of the Niagara Gazette circulation department were told their jobs were being "eliminated" as a cost-cutting measure.
From the point of view of his employers, the Alabama-based Community Newspaper Holdings Inc., these actions might be seen as "improvements." Not that the papers were losing money, they just weren't squeezing as much out of the area as the good ol' boys down south thought they should be.
But from the point of view of readers in Niagara Falls, who depend on their daily paper not only for information but also for advocacy, the results have been disastrous. The morning dose of news about the city has gotten smaller and smaller as coverage of the Wheatfield town supervisors and the Lew-Port school district has expanded. It's not that what goes on in Porter is more important than what's happening in Niagara Falls, it's just that the people out there are more appealing demographically.
Which means they have more money.
In any event, since Braver seems to have the ear of the Mayor, I'd like to make a suggestion. Why not have her employ the methods he's used to make his friends in Alabama richer right here in Niagara Falls to help stave off the obscene tax increase she's proposed?
At City Hall, he could show her how to create a working environment so miserable that highly paid longtime employees just quit. They could then be replaced by recent graduates earning the bare minimum, a concept that has been developed into an art form in newsrooms throughout Niagara County.
The actual elimination of positions is another cost-saving measure that the Mayor seems to be ignorant of. Braver, on the other hand, seems well-versed in the practice and could perhaps offer some suggestions. "Don't do it yourself," I can hear him telling her. "And make sure you get them to sign an exit contract."
Reduction in the size of the product is another important key. Braver reportedly saved $3 million a year in newsprint costs alone just by reducing the paper's page size. Three million here and $3 million there, pretty soon you're talking about a lot of money.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander, as they say, and if the Gazette can manage to pump more and more money out of Niagara Falls, the least its publisher can do is help our Mayor figure out the city's finances.
Hobnobbing at the country club can be a tiring business, but I'm sure that if the suburbanites who actually run our city just put on their thinking caps, we'll find a way out of this mess.
Onward and upward, boys and girls. There's a Braver new world just around the bend.