Majority leader Eric Cantor apparently lost all contact with his constituents, rarely showing up locally and, when he did, surrounded by eight staff members. When a poll was taken early in the year, those who favored Cantor were outnumbered by two to one by those turned off!
Somehow Cantor and his supporters didn’t get the message. Neither did those doing his polling. So he just kept on acting as he had in the past and, instead of winning by the predicted thirty points, lost by about ten.
The Lancaster Newspapers, Inc. (LNP) is going down the same path. Long before the ground was broken for the Convention Center project, almost 80 percent of the polled county residents said they opposed any county guarantee of the debt. Yet LNP, a sponsor of the convention center complex, ignored their wishes. (In fact, they hardly reported the Fox 43 poll and, when they did, the article was distorted.)
The convention center has been a colossal financial failure, in part due to the one sided financial terms that Penn Square Partners (PSP) , of which LNP is half owner, extracted from the city and the Convention Center Authority. In part because it was continuously misrepresented by the media. The public knows this.
Now PSP is refusing to agree with county, city, tourist bureau and convention center authority and accept the Scott Martin plan which has been negotiated with bond holder Wells Fargo to lower interests rates for seven years. Instead, the LNP and its partner, the High organization, is demanding a 95 year guarantee from the authority and the county citizenry of a level of marketing expenditures. This despite a $5,00,000 CRIZ subsidy (to be repaid at the cost of our children and grandchildren) and concessions by the other parties; steps meant to stabilize the convention center finances over the next seven years.
At what point does the good will earned by decades o concientious management and faithful service by the Steinman family become fully spent?
At what point do people stop subscribing?
At what point do advertisers turn away in disgust?
At what point does LNP reach the same tipping point as did Cantor on Tuesday night?
Someday the Columbia University journalism magazine may feature an article on the LNP with a heading: “The newspaper company that committed suicide.”
Newspapers have long been vessels to move public opinion. Unfortunately what some call crony capitalism others call public service and of course the majority of citizens don’t care. The rich and powerful are adept at getting favored treatment paid for by the taxpayer and unfortunately the public has learned to accept it. The system is often assisted by politicians who pass hidden taxes so as to keep voters as uninformed as possible and newspapers, rather than educating the public, play along. One wonders when the public will have had enough.
The only way that LNP can save face, and get back in good standing with their subscribers and advertisers is to APOLOGIZE for their direct involvement on misleading the public;and COME CLEAN with a true investigative series as to the full financial disclosure of PSP (and their ongoing profits at the expense of the Lancaster county taxpayers), along with a concession of the manipulative tactics used in bringing this venture into being.
I won’t hold my breath.