BY DN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MONDAY JULY 30, 2018) — And as the glorious summer takes the clubhouse turn, THE PLANET has to laugh at the “story” in The Boring Broadsheet polling readers about the Berkshire Mall. While it ignores significant news and presents such nonsensical fluff, The BB actually presents a between-the-lines story about its failure as the lone daily to uphold the safeguard of freedom that make even a nominally democratic society possible. We speak of the crusading drive a newspaper must have to cover — and DISCOVER — the news, both what’s obvious and on the surface and, more importantly, what’s hidden.

Fact is, however, that The BB will not “go there.” Like many newspapers, it finds itself wheezing on a death bed provided by the internet. The Old Professor has asked students for several years how many of the read a physical newspaper. The results shouldn’t shock you. Virtually NO student under the age of 40 reads a daily. Most don’t bother with what we recognize as hard news, and those that do get it from home pages and social media. THE PLANET shall leave that discussion for another day, the germane point being how the local daily has failed to deliver what publisher Fred Rutberg promised — a newspaper as vital to citizens as the power that heats, cools, lights, and propels their homes, offices, and vehicles.

The BB muzzles young reporters, who dare not cover their beats aggressively, else how is it that THE PLANET gets wind of the dirt and grime without a practical effort? Answer: Sources. One covers city hall, political, business, public safety, and the other beats by cultivating sources in the know. They call it a “beat” because that’s what reporters are supposed to do: “beat” the trails digging up stories. The tales are there. One just has to know how to find them and, once in hand, develop and get them into print. That can only be done with an editorial management that encourages rather than punishes enterprise. Why do you think so many talented reporters have left … or been asked to leave. Jack Dew, Conor Berry, Andy Amelnyx, and many others who found stories only to see them spiked by the desk.

Kevin Moran, that decent but helpless (hapless?) journalist taking the silver to be executive yes man, needs to stand up to Fearless Leader and demand control of the newsroom. Job One: Form a three-person investigative team and turn them loose. That’s where the reclamation of his professional soul can be found. The only way a paper can do its job is when there’s a wall separating Rug Row upstairs from the ink-stained wretches in the newsroom. Without that wall, the publisher, driven by shrinking ad dollars, rides herd over “the gate.”

The gatekeeping function of a news operation is what, and who, decides what stories to let in or keep out. When the publisher controls the gate, you can be sure of a timid, boring, irrelevant newspaper that prefers puff and PR over the persistence of integral reporting.

As an  attorney and judge, Rutberg did well by himself. We congratulate him on that. He was shrewd enough of a businessman to put together syndicate to buy for a paltry million a once-elite local daily. The “fire sale” price returned the paper to local ownership. That, too, was a good thing after the disaster of Dean Singleton and his rapacious Media News Group. After a promising start, in which the new owners said the right thing, they failed to carry it through.

We imagine the financial pressures of running  physical newspaper did most of the talking, and the most unfortunate victim of the negotiation was the editorial independence of the newsroom, which leaves us with The BB in its present state.

Citizens of Berkshire County and Pittsfield particularly have seen how local politicians, officials, and Big Shots have acted in the wake. It’s human nature to expect corruption when you mix power, greed, access to money, and little accountability. The daily newspaper has been and still could be the greatest protection of citizens, but it has to be run with courage. Oddly enough, the type of editorial boldness that The BB ownership so greatly fears is the one development that could put it on a circulation skyrocket — and as circulation goes, so do ad dollars.

The paper could say goodbye to circulation inflation, a deceptive practice where a paper counts the number of papers printed, as the number of copies being sold. No more dumping bundles in backlots and Dumpsters. No more counting freebies as paid circulation. No more software to generate website hits that didn’t really happen. …

THE PLANET knows how to bring that paper back to life and relevance. If Rutberg wants a free consultation, all he has to do is dial “V” for “Valenti.”

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“Everything right in America … if you can fight in America” — From the play and movie West Side Story.

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

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