WANE-15's New Role As A Public Relations Machine

The Maven will be the first to admit that the new Promenade Park on the river is a beautiful, well-executed project. It's impact will be felt for years downtown.

This project has had many champions...political leaders, community leaders, average citizens, and business leaders. One champion stands out in particular. 

WANE-15 has been the most outspoken media champion of the $20 million project. From it's conception WANE-15 was (as they like to hype) was the first to report on the idea and plans. 

During the run-up to last week's Grand Opening, WANE-15 was not to be outdone by competing media. In nearly every newscast, WANE-15 devoted significant air time and reporting resources to covering every detail and feature of the park. From the most significant to the most minute, WANE-15 provided the most rosy and positive public relations support for spending $20 million.  Even after the Grand Opening, WANE-15 found time to run a silly story about how the park's innovative design would prevent flooding. The Maven calls BS on that one. Yes, they used the word "prevent", which implies that Fort Wayne will never flood again, thanks to Promenade Park.

A professor at a local university estimates that WANE-15 devoted as much at 45% of the news reporting airtime and resources to downtown's new addition. The question at hand is: was WANE-15 just being a good (perhaps overzealous) community cheerleader, and in the process, ignored other news stories that might have reflected poorly on the community leaders basking in the glow of the new park. The Red River management team are probably happy that WANE-15 has given them a break.

In the Media Maven's humble (and perhaps flawed) opinion, Media needs to balance the homage they pay to local politicians and civic leaders with doing real journalism.

Yes, the city is more beautiful and attractive, but people are still being murdered, kids can't get off a school bus without being shot at, and Red River continues to bungle the garbage collection, while the city administration finds that acceptable. And the other mayoral candidate appears to have no definable plan.