The three stooges and the JAR-heads

Phillipe and Jorge were both startled and appalled last week when the NI-RO-PE boys from Cardi's Furniture appeared on a newscast on Channel 10. No, it wasn't a paid ad but a news story (sic) on the store's new commercial -- a takeoff on the new TV show, Providence.

More and more, local television news is becoming just another promotional vehicle, and Channel 10 seems to be leading the pack. A few weeks back, we saw "news stories" pegged to NBC's laughable soap-operatic mini-series, The '60s, which must be the IQ range of the news director who thought this worthy of eating up precious news minutes. That television news has become "info-tainment" is one thing, but when you add relentless promotion into the mix, it starts to look more like QVC.

Certainly, your superior correspondents understand the big hue and cry over NBC's new series and the desire by the JAR-heads to feature something about the series in some way or another every 10 minutes. But to devote time to promoting one of your advertiser's lame spots as news is insulting and embarrassing to viewers. (And oh, yes, children, the spot did run during last week's edition of Providence, as duly noted in the deep investigative journalism piece by JAR.)

Well, at least you know that the Cardi brothers, after having this Lewinsky thrown their way, will remain big-time spenders with Channel 10. Betcha real news people like the I-Team's Jim Taricani and Dyana Koelsch are deliriously happy about their station's throwing its integrity out the window. Babies with the bathwater, eh?

Priorities

Last Monday, when the BeloJo reported the findings of a Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council report on the increase in poverty among the state's schoolchildren, the paper quite properly placed the news at the top of the front page. The RIPEC analysis revealed that since 1990, the number of Vo Dilun schoolchildren living in or near poverty has increased dramatically, by almost 50 percent. And in some of our poorer communities, like Central Falls, the numbers are absolutely catastrophic.

The RIPEC report went on to link our failure in meeting this problem with efforts at educational reform and its long-term economic impact on the state. So, does anyone see the need for action here? While Governor Bigfoot and Lieutenant Governor Charlie Fogarty debate over how to spend the expected largess of the tobacco settlement money, we wonder if any of it will be put toward strategies to address what is a key component in building an economic future for the state.

Are strategies designed to ameliorate the welfare of our schoolchildren more important than funding a bunch of television ads (as Fogarty has suggested) urging kids not to smoke? Or should we dump the money into the General Fund, as the guv would like, in order to achieve a one-year balanced budget? Take a guess.

On February 17, the Rhode Island Campaign to Eliminate Childhood Poverty, along with a coalition of other groups, held a press conference to demand that Almond, Senate Majority Leader Paul Kelly and House Speaker John Harwood convene a summit meeting of public- and private-sector leaders to address this growing problem. We hope our elected leaders see the wisdom and urgency in tackling this issue now, because if they don't, it will certainly come back to haunt us all.

Fighting back

P&J were all set to severely criticize Save the Bay for its somnolent public attitude about the proposed megaport at Quonset Point, which would irrevocably change the character and use of the state's number-one resource, Narragansett Bay. Admittedly, criticizing Vo Dilun's top environmental advocacy group would've been as pleasant as nailing our hand to a table. But Save the Bay had been strangely mute in the QP case, and this was of growing concern, given the heavy PR push by Quonset Point Partners and Go-Port. (Note to Textron's Carol Grant and Narragansett Electric's Bob McCabe, both front people for Go-Port -- you've spent too much time building up fine reputations to have them ruined by promoting bullshit poll numbers and misleading garbage created by Duffy & Shanley's Annette Maggiacomo and David Duffy. And shame on you, Dave, for putting McCabe and Grant in that vulnerable position.)

Until this week, Save the Bay's attitude was causing serious behind-the-scenes angst among agency staffers, the board of directors, and many longtime allies. Environmental advocacy groups, if they want to be successful, don't start out at 50-50 with the powers that be -- they stake their place at the far end of protecting Narragansett Bay and dig in their heels, only moving toward the middle when the whole story gets trotted out and proven to be of overall benefit. Most important, these groups should never let a bunch of misrepresentations and phony polls dictate their position.

And, indeed, this is the stance Save the Bay finally took in a February 23 op-ed in the BeloJo signed by the bulk of Save the Bay board members. Their decision to fight back was an important one, as Save the Bay is the only environmental group with enough juice to counter the well-funded pro-megaport lobby of Governor Bigfoot's Environmental Policy Committee, QPP and GoPort. It is time for a little mass public education on the enormous impact a megaport would have on the Biggest Little and its greatest natural resource. Hopefully we'll get more of this piss-and-vinegar attitude from Save the Bay's director, Curt Spalding, at this weekend's annual meeting.

While the Missing Linc didn't have the sand to accept his invitation to the event (perhaps fearing a tar-and-feathering) P&J would guess that if Spalding were to tell the membership that General Assembly leaders have threatened to shoot down any and all legislation Save the Bay supports unless the agency rolls over on Quonset, he might further stir the fires. A free Pernod-and-grapefruit to anyone who guesses which prominent committee chair delivered this ultimatum to Save the Bay's lobbyists.

Male bag

About a week ago, the Phoenix received this letter to the editor:

To the Editors,
I've read the Phoenix, in its various incarnations, since 1987. A disturbing trend, culminating in the atrocity of the January 22 issue, is a growing "left-wing," anti-business, anti-individual, pro-statism, pro-collectivism reign (sic).
Stories glorifying inability ("Repair impaired," pg. 7), hero-bashing ("Hot air," pg. 8), maudlin whining about a long-overdue monetary union of Europe (it's now "boring" to travel -- waaaah!) and the usual P&J hijinks presented and glorified lackluster and nonessential topics while drawing attention away from the important ones.
Sadly, I can no longer read your paper, as it has become so anti-individual and anti-American. A pity.
Very truly yours,
Ed Schernau

Hey Ed, you say you've been reading the paper since 1987, and you just now realized that the Phoenix's point of view is, shall we say, to the left? We love your use of such old-line Cold War phrases as "statism" and "collectivism." Of course, the fact that many of the stories in the Phoenix seek to detail and analyze the wreckage brought about by hyper-individualism and yahoo capitalism does not necessarily make us "collectivists." If it's cheerleading and a "see-no-evil" perspective toward the "booming economy" you'd like, you'll find plenty of this in the mainstream media.

We seek balance. We believe that when the economy is going strong, the benefits and opportunities should be more equitably realized. We direct your attention to the item in this column about the RIPEC report on the increase in childhood poverty in Vo Dilun.

Is it anti-American to report -- indeed, to clamor for -- strategies that don't leave large segments of society behind? Does not the widening gap between the haves and have-nots in this country, now bigger than at any other time since the turn of the last century, concern you? We don't think that examining such things is trivial or "nonessential." What is lackluster is in the eye of the beholder.

On the other hand, Phillipe & Jorge's beat has always included detailing the extremely stupid and just plain weird, and we make no apology.

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