From the emails and notes Wednesday evening, the Maven wasn't the only long-time Fort Wayne resident who was disturbed during WANE-15's Night of Light's coverage.
Live, on-location anchor Dirk Rowley did an impressive job braving the winds and cold. Dirk was not the issue.
His interview subject, a woman, identified as the President or Vice President of PNC bank was the culprit. Using talking points, obviously prepared by a PNC Public Relations flunky who has never visited the city, she enthusiastically attempted to claim a 40-year relationship with the iconic W&D Santa display After a few more questions from Dirk, she made a similar statement. This inaccurate 40-year relationship seemed to rub more than a few people the wrong way. Blame the Egg Nog?
The facts are, PNC bank has only been in the market since late 2008, early 2009, making the claim that PNC has been affiliated with the W&D Santa display for 40 years is faulty and false.
This isn't the only instance of a successor company claiming heritage credit for a predecessor's hard work and vision. Kroger's Public Relations, while promoting the annual Cancer Day fundraiser, routinely claims Cancer Day as a Kroger initiative, conveniently forgetting that the Scott family began Cancer Day, also 40 years ago.
No one really knows why local media just regurgitate the public relations codswallop as gospel truth and don't question PNC and Kroger for claiming credit for long-running, established community events. Might have something to do with those large ad budgets of both PNC and Kroger influencing how "their" events are covered. Just a guess.
Thanks to reader "Dave" for the tip...
Either the kids in the WPTA ABC21 newsroom can't find the spell-check button, or they believe themselves to be smarter than their audience and spell-check is not necessary.
The kids have "updated" (corrected the story). Find it here:
It looks like a news story, it reads like a news story, but in reality, it's not.
It's a carefully crafted trial balloon designed to gauge public support/resistance to moving the Allen County Jail out of the trendy Arts and Entertainment sector of downtown. After all, a correctional facility within the eyesight of family-friendly Promenade Park, trendy bars, and $60.00 steaks might sour some visitors/residents' stomachs.
So, being the good supporters of the new downtown Fort Wayne and the political powers that support it, WANE 15 will do their civic duty and methodically analyze support, resistance and opinions of taxpayers/citizens and loyally report the data to their TV audience AND to the political and business leaders that are transforming downtown. Those civic boosters and politicians will then use the data to fine-tune and revise their project and message to better resound with the voters/taxpayers and build support. Sometimes it may take two or three tries.
If all goes well, the heavy-lifting done by WANE 15 will eventually result in the Allen County Jail being torn down, and a $110 million dollar replacement being built somewhere out of sight from those who would be offended by its existence, and the redevelopment folks will have additional valuable downtown real estate ready for even more new, multi-use facilities with ground-level retail and dining, middle-level parking, and luxury loft-type apartments on the upper floors.
Sound familiar?
