By now, most of you are aware that Eric Papenfuse made a pretty heavy allegation against Mayor Steven Reed and John Lavenda at his city-council-candidacy-announcement/press conference at the forthcoming Midtown Scholar Bookstore last night. And certainly, most of you have likely read the commentary by Patriot News crime reporter Matthew Kemeny on either PennLive or in today’s Patriot News. Finally, hopefully most of you have noticed the egregious error in Kemeny’s initial report. Simply by stating that Papenfuse reached out to the FBI- as opposed to what really occurred (and what Papenfuse stated three times in his press conference last night) - The FBI, according to Papenfuse, contacted him to participate in the investigation; Kemeney put a completely different spin on the story. Which brings us to the next part of what has not-surprisingly become a defensive stance from the Papenfuse camp. City Spokesman Matthew Coulter issued a statement to all media essentially discounting Papenfuse’s credibility and resorted even to name calling by stating: “Yet again, Mr. Papenfuse has made a fool of himself through his erratic actions, beliefs and conduct”. So here we have our city spokesman calling a local business owner and property re developer a “fool” and brushed off his actions by calling them “erratic” while at the same time questioning his beliefs. (Sidebar: blogger Josh Karns wrote a very interesting recap of nearly all of Matt Coulter’s public statements. Read them here) Ironically, Coulter’s statement that “This is nothing but a publicity stunt for his just-announced campaign” with regard to Papenfuse’s council-run announcement echoes something he said about Mayoral Candidate Les Ford last February. Ford initiated a protest against a gala sponsored by Mayor Steven Reed and Coulter called his protest a “petty publicity stunt” and continued by saying “Someone opposing such a good a noble purpose … represents a disservice to our city’s citizens.” So let’s catch up here- Let’s give Papenfuse the benefit-of-the-doubt here and assume that a noble local businessman who’s invested, literally, millions of dollars into his community would not jeopordize everything which he has worked towards simply to spite the Mayor. So, he had a press conference and launched an allegation that Mayor Steven Reed and his partner John Lavenda have been under investigation by the FBI’s Public Corruption Unit for over fifteen months. And that he was directly involved in this investigation- painting a picture reminiscent of a scene from Goodfella’s or The Soprano’s- by informing the public that he was asked to wear a wiretap and meet in clandestine locations. Taking into consideration Eric’s long-standing presence in the community- combined with Coulter and Reed’s de facto argument that anyone who opposes the dually dubbed “Mayor For Life” is simply seeking publicity and is living in a fantasy world- And pile onto that the notion that, as citizens, we all sort of knew that something has smelled fishy at Harrisburg City Hall- and we can’t quite put our finger on it. The incinerator. Barlow/Covanta. School board fiasco. Harrisburg Senators “contribution” to the Sports Hall of Fame. Bobblehead dolls. Wild West Artifacts. Questionable accounting within the confines of our record books. The Harrisburg Authority debacles. (This list goes on…) Who’s the one with questionable credibility here? Could it really be Eric Papenfuse? A person who has put his (and his family’s) name, reputation and business on the line? With zero visible wrongdoing in his history as a citizen and business owner in this city? Or is it Mayor Steven Reed with the questionable credibility? Is it really so hard to believe that the Federal Bureau of Investigation could be looking into the actions of our seven term Mayor? Let’s not forget the lessons we’ve learned over the past year about Mayors in surrounding cities- the Mayor of Baltimore was indicted for accepting gifts and a fur coat. Hartford, CT Mayor Eddie Perez was indicted on bribery charges. And Gulfport, MS Mayor was indicted on charges of funneling money intended for Hurricane Katrina relief to, instead, complete renovations in his home. So when Eric Papenfuse told the press that the FBI was investigating Reed for his lack of accounting of nearly fifty thousand dollars worth of artifacts purchased with taxpayer money for a failed museum, I don’t have a hard time believing that. But it appears that what we have here is going to be a battle between the presses. If you believe what you read in the Patriot, you may be leaning towards “Eric is a kook.” But if you scratch barely an inch below the surface of their obviously biased reporting, you may believe that, possibly, Eric Papenfuse isn’t making this up. Besides. Would Reed even know if he was under investigation? Does a drug dealer know that he’s under investigation before the task force shows up at his door? Not likely.

According to a news release from the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, local residents would “welcome John McCain to Harrisburg by unveiling a new video called ‘Jobs’ at a press event.” As the reporter who covers local Obama events and issues, I was dispatched. I quickly realized it wasn’t much of a story. The room consisted of two city council members, a school board member, an Obama delegate, and three or four other people used as sign-holding props. The press who took the bait on this thing were myself and a local TV cameraman. The event itself was quick and unremarkable. Turns out Obama people don’t like McCain’s record on jobs. At the end, a Democratic staffer played the DNC-produced, Web-only video on a laptop. So at this point we have a few local politicians talking about their opinions of John McCain, and standing around watching a video on a laptop. If you’re anything like me, you’ve already come to this conclusion: There’s no story here. Then I got back to the office, did a little research, and realized there was no freaking way this was a story. You see, one of the few moderately interesting quotes that I scribbled down came from the school board member who said:

“John McCain’s claims that he’ll put jobs first are laughable with his history of putting his lobbyist friends first.”

You know who else thinks that? DNC spokeswoman Karen Finney:

“John McCain’s claim that he’ll put ‘jobs first’ is laughable in light of his history of putting his lobbyist friends ahead of America’s workers at every turn,” said DNC spokeswoman Karen Finney.

Much of the content of the event also matched the DNC news release, right down to mentioning the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Oh, plus there’s the little matter of this news release being sent out nationally Sunday morning, over seven hours before this press event in Harrisburg. Oh, plus there’s the little matter of that YouTube video being posted a full day before this “unveiling.” So now we not only have an uninteresting story, we have the Obama folks claiming to unveil a video that’s already been online, and local officials acting as intermediaries to get the DNC’s words through local mouths to hopefully get the local media to repeat them to a wider audience. What followed was a newsroom tango. I argued that there was no story, editor argues it’s worth a short story. I write a short story focusing on the similarities with the DNC news release, and the fact the event was pitched to media as an unveiling but really wasn’t at all. Editor quickly wonders if it shouldn’t be recast as a straight “Dems respond to Mccain” story. I argue phony news events don’t deserve real news coverage. Editor finally sees it my way, the story is spiked, and you won’t read about it in my newspaper. Thank goodness for that. We in the media can do our part to actually aid the discussion by checking these events out, then promptly ignoring them when they turn out to be duds. Just because local politicians are speaking, and just because a reporter spent an hour listening to them speak, doesn’t mean we need to report on it. That the standard “Dems respond to McCain” story was considered, and that a TV station apparently aired the comments, is a signal that we need to be more vigilant in setting the standards of this campaign. The campaigns can put on these events because local media keep drinking it up. When we decide we’re not going to be used, when we make clear our own standards are rising, they’ll have to move on to a better strategy.

Is it possible that we’ll see a modern day rerun of the Bud Dwyer days at The Capital?

First, at times like this I’m very glad to be considered a critical state employee. I don’t get furloughed no matter what. And I feel very bad for the people who are going to have to try to find a way to pay for their $4 gas / food / car loan / mortgage / etc if the state shuts down again. Even if it’s “only a day” again, the experience has got to be nerve-wracking to say the least.   Now, when I heard about the risk of a furlough a few weeks ago, the first thing that popped into my mind was PCN’s footage of the Republican senator from Allegheny County going up to speak. This is the one who took her turn to talk about how the GOP was attempting to employ a bipartisan effort to resolve the matter, and ultimately wound up repeating “Where are the Democrats? Where are the Democrats?” over and over — presumably hoping for a sound bite. This caused the senate president to state for the record that all senators were present. If anyone from PCN happens to have footage, I’d love to see it again. Not that this is a stab at any one party, and not that it comes as a surprise to anyone, but doesn’t it make you feel warm and fuzzy inside to know that to our state lawmakers, this is nothing more than a power play for election-time fodder?

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNAZbriAkRo 351 292]

Note: In the interest of fairness, we wanted to publish a Hilary Clinton video of quality and length comparable to yesterday’s featured Barak Obama video. However, Clinton’s YouTube channel contains no footage of her appearance in Harrisburg, and thus, no comparable match could be found. This video represents one of the top YouTube search results for “Clinton Harrisburg”.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msrw7iARKCE 351 292]