Dr. Ravi Perry: Worcester Needs its Own Media Market

Email to a friend Permalink

Friday, July 13, 2012

Dr. Ravi Perry, GoLocalWorcester MINDSETTER™

For any area resident that is honest, the availability of information from city hall is severely limited. While the City Manager’s office posts many documents via the city’s official website, many don’t have access to it, and the information still does not answer many questions.

(Such as the process during the budget season regarding  which departments receive funding and why).

Additionally, while we benefit from great newscasting from Charter Channel 3, WCCA TV 13, in the form of Worcester News Tonight, various commentaries, in addition to many different radio outlets (e.g., Jordan Levy, Hank Stoltz, etc), there remains a lack of information available to the public about the affairs and decision making within city hall.

The result, often residents are left in the dark about news, events, and important data regarding efforts (or not) by local elected officials concerning their representation of all of us.

This also contributes to the low voter participation in municipal elections, meetings, and events. Simply put, if people have no idea what’s going on, what’s the incentive to participate or learn more? Put another way, if there’s no inkling of information made available that may interest residents, why might they seek to gain more information.

Unfortunately, given limited resources, Worcester News Tonight, under the excellent leadership of Mike Marcy and others at Charter Channel 3, does not have ability or recent past history of covering every important local issue. And even if they did, not everyone has cable, so the resource is limited by design.

I do believe they could use more support and funding so that residents could receive more information. However, I also think local elected officials need to be much more transparent about their jobs. Rarely is there a press conference from the mayor’s office or city manager’s office about a new position hiring, a major investment sought after, or other affairs. Rarely, if ever, do we see local leaders going after businesses to attract them to develop in our downtown and in our neighborhoods.

And, frankly, it’s odd not to see these efforts. In most locales, politicians are eager to get the message out about what they have done. Not in Worcester. Here it seems ‘less is more’ is the motto.

Sadly, that is not a recipe for success. As a solution, I will offer publicly what I’ve offered privately to U.S. Representative James P. McGovern for years – can we please petition the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) (or whomever) to study the possibility of establishing a central Massachusetts media market with Worcester as the main base?

Boston based media markets such as Fox 25 News Boston, WHDH-TV Channel 7 News, New England Cable News, CBS WBZ Channel 4 and others – do not adequately, if at all, cover major events and news from city hall and our neighborhoods daily. Unless it’s a crime report or fire, it’s rarely in the news.

As required by Congress, the FCC reviews its media ownership rules every four years to determine whether the rules are in the public interest and to repeal or modify any regulation it determines does not meet this criteria. It’s time to add central Massachusetts to their list of priorities.

Thus, it seems as though we need to work with our federal and local leaders to begin the process of filing an application within the Broadcast Radio and Television Electronic Filing System (CDBS) at the FCC.

With the Telegram and Gazette, and most other area print outlets, not being able to (or not choosing to) cover daily issues from city hall, the time is long past to get out of Boston’s shadow and develop our own market.

It’s good for business as it would create dozens of new jobs. It’s good for local officials as they will have an outlet to advertise campaign initiatives and promote their accomplishments. It’s good for the city as they will have greater opportunities to promote transparency within government. It’s good for the public as we will benefit from having more information, including investigative journalism and numerous positive news stories about the great work bring done throughout our communities and neighborhoods on a daily basis.

We’re not a quaint New England small town or suburb. We’re the heart of the Commonwealth.

Worcester deserves better and it’s high time we begin to act like we’re the second largest city in New England. 

Related Articles

• Dr. Ravi Perry: Worcester Needs to Keep Its College Graduates in the City
• Dr. Ravi Perry: We Need to Celebrate Diversity in Worcester
• Dr. Ravi Perry: Worcester Needs More Transparency in City Hall
• Dr. Ravi Perry: What’s in a Name: “Woosta” or “Worse-ster”?
• Dr. Ravi Perry: Who’s Fighting Discrimination in Worcester
• Dr. Ravi Perry: Why Worcester Must Adopt “Plan A”
• Dr. Ravi Perry: Worcester City Manager’s Budget Priorities
• Ravi Perry: The System for Evaluating the City Manager is Flawed
• Ravi Perry: Worcester’s Embarrassing Lack of Diversity in the Workforce

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.

Email to a friend Permalink