Letter to The Editor: An Unseasonably Uncheery Double Lump of Coal...

...or 'A Tale of Negativity: One Active and One Passive...With Some Obfuscation Thrown in For Good Measure. Oh, and Some Bad Reporting'.

Although I want to address two particular issues in this post, it's really about what role a community newspaper plays in its community. In the case of The Stoney Creek News, I'm interested in examining what role I feel it currently plays contrasted with the role I feel it should be playing. I was prompted to editorialize this time around because of a current article in the News, and a year-end assessment of a situation that's near and dear to my heart.

1: Active Negativity

'Stoney Creek left at the station by GO Transit choice'

That's the headline on the article dealing with the choice that GO Transit officials made regarding proposed stops on the Hamilton-to-Niagara GO route.

Which is a bizarre way of framing things, given that Centennial Parkway is the traditional demarcation line between 'The Old CIty Of Hamilton' and 'What Used to be Known as Stoney Creek'.

Here are some excerpts, stuff that really had me scratching my head:

"Called the Centennial station, it would replace a previous preferred station option at Fruitland Road. There would still be a train station layover at Lewis Road."

I love how the 'preferred' station option isn't immediately explained. 'Preferred' by whom, exactly? And the name of the station is wrong. The information can be found under the sub-link 'Niagara Penninsula rail service expansion' in the green pane towards the bottom of the page, here.

(Special note to the News: If you're going to actually post an external link in an article, as you did at the conclusion of yours, please don't make your readers work any harder than they need to in order to actually access the information you're suggesting they might want to take a look at. It's unseemly, it's rude...and it's sloppy.)

"The idea would be to shift all-day rail service between Hamilton and Union Station in Toronto to Confederation from Aldershot. Originally the terminus was proposed to be at a new station at James Street North."

Considering how murky the article ends up being (especially given that the News' readers hardly hang on every word printed), I wish it had been made clear from the start that 'Confederation' is the station moniker already put into play by GO Transit, and not some arbitrary (or lazy) News-generated reference.

"Go Transit officials said they are looking at a piece of land in the east end near the rail road junction, owned by the city of Hamilton, east of Centennial Parkway off Goderich Road, north of the rail line."

Um... I've just checked the area via Google Maps...and it sure appears as of Goderich Road runs west off Centennial Parkway. Strange, that. (For the sake of clarity, here's a map, courtesy of GO Transit.)

"Hamilton councilors, at the urging of former Stoney Creek politician Dave Mitchell, recommended GO Transit select Fruitland Road as the preferred station location."

And...?

So what?

No doubt that Mr. Mitchell wanted it there; this was his constituency. But does having it there make any sense? From just about any point of view?

Not to me.

According to the item, the James Street Station will be the the primary Hamilton stop. This makes sense: James Street North (Liuna) is in fact right downtown.

The next most sensible stop heading east?

I hardly believe that given the present demographics...and even projected ones, all of which potential ridership is tied to...that Fruitland Road is a better choice for a station between James Street North and Fifty Road.

Do you?

Now granted, I haven't done any investigating into what rationale was used in choosing Fruitland Road, but consider these distances from James Street North:

Centennial Parkway: 10km

Fruitland Road: 15km

Fifty Road: 20km

To whom exactly does it make sense that Fruitland Road makes a more sensible choice in terms of making the most of respective catchment areas?

Moreover, why on Earth would the News decide to not only have a badly-written article published given the importance of what's being reported, but to give it a headline that is grossly misleading?

If, for the sake of argument, the Stoney Creek News is appointing itself as Protector of Stoney Creek, in the sense that we're still living with the elephant in the room of The Merits of Amalgamation, then I'd think it would be reasonable to make it clear that by rights, if we're going to be fair, Fruitland Road is in...wait for it...Fruitland. (Yes, I'm fully aware that it was absorbed some years back, as was Winona...but my feeling is that if we're going to be brutally honest about how we label things, then we need stop fudging things, wholesale. Stoney Creek isn't Hamilton. Never has been, never will be. By the same token, Fruitland isn't Stoney Creek, Winona most assuredly isn't Stoney Creek, they never have been...and never will be.)

So what is the Stoney Creek News attempting to do here? Fan the flames of discontent?

Why the need to skew things?

Who is it that's pushing their agenda, one that says that it's more a reasonable choice to put a station at Fruitland Road between James Street North and Fifty Road?

Mostly: why isn't the News fulfilling its commitment as a reasonable, objective supporter of the community? Of Stoney Creek?

To paraphrase a notable quote from a notable film performance: 'Why so divisive?'

2: Passive Negativity

'Downtown Stoney Creek: There's no 'there', there.'

No, that's not a Stoney Creek News headline.

But it should be.

During 2010, after I got as much as I could out of my system about 'Merlo's Clear-cut', I spent a lot of time focusing on Downtown Stoney Creek. (All of the articles/editorials are tagged 'The 'Downtown' Issue'.) Specifically, that it's in a horrible state.

The perplexing thing is that, while the News has been aware of what I've written, there has yet to be even the most perfunctory effort made by the publication to cover it. No matter that the Stoney Creek Business Improvement Area has both been aware of what I've written as well as begun actively addressing the issue themselves. No matter that Ward 9 Councillor Brad Clark has begun his own efforts on several different fronts to address the issue.

Granted, I haven't had any direct discussions with the News. I'm afraid that my 'stridency' some time back may have resulted in a chasm between myself and those who oversee things on their front. So it's not like there's been any discussion, any engagement between us.

Not that it's my responsibility to get the News to see the light.

I'm a blogger. Nothing more. I can make observations until I'm blue in the face, I can actually spend time redesigning the entire downtown, offer up extensive, tangible suggestions as to what's wrong with the downtown as well as potential remedies to these ailments, I can make sure that 'Those in The Know' are made aware of everything I've laboured to contribute...

...but in the end, I'm just a blogger. I don't have sufficient readership, I certainly don't hold any amount of sway whatsoever with anyone who plays a part in this very sad tale.

But you know who does? At least from my perspective? At least from the way I see things?

The Stoney Creek News.

Recently, I made a comment on a message board that it seemed that people (at least those to are interested) can muster all kinds of righteous indignation when a business area has fallen on bad times. When things are about as bad as they might be, especially when compared to how they used to be. But you very rarely see the same energies applied when things aren't appearing quite so calamitous.

And that's what seems to be going on regarding Downtown Stoney Creek.

Especially where the Stoney Creek News is concerned.

I don't want to belabour the point here, repeat stuff I've already, go on ad nauseam about. Nor do I want to get into an argument about my take on the downtown; if you think that things are fine, that there's no cause for concern, then clearly we'll have to agree to disagree. So instead, I'll limit my comments to one brief point: this year, I asked a very simple question that dealt with the state of affairs in Downtown Stoney Creek. I was spurred on by Hamilton's Downtown Revitalization Czar (my phraseology) Ron Marini's insistence that- Well, here's the article. And here's my question:

"In three years' time, when we're hosting the bicentennial of The Battle of Stoney Creek, and nothing substantive has changed in Downtown Stoney Creek, we hopefully have all of our properties filled and our hanging baskets are well-watered and the enhoused plants are summarily dead-headed, our benches are in working order and all of our signage is looking downright spiffy...

...just what is it that we're all hoping that our thousands of visitors will be spending money on to put revenue into the local economy, other that their admission fees to the re-enactment, their souvenirs...and perhaps an ice cream or two purchased at the Dairy?"

Putting aside the fact that it appears that the Stoney Creek Dairy will not have made it to either 2012 or 2013, what I had been asking back then remains the same.

And yet in spite of this pretty inarguable truth, the News has chosen to not get involved.

To turn a blind eye.

And to instead, focus on news items such as 'Dofasco Christmas party draws thousands'.

Why?

Given the Stoney Creek News' often fervent take on the distinctness of Stoney Creek, its consistently defensive stance, I'm rather perplexed as to what it feels its role is in the community. Because there appears a dichotomy at play.

On the one hand, in the case of active negativity, the News seems to have no problem at all painting a particular picture of an issue, the bias of which is clear to see. (If you want an example beyond the one I led off this editorial with, take a look at this article. What I was yammering on about was hardly the stuff of finely-executed, carefully-considered journalism.)

And on the other hand, the News seems intent on not standing up for its citizens...at least within its original readership area, 'The Golden Square Mile', in which Downtown Stoney Creek is situated...because you'd think that Hamilton's downtown was the only such area in need of some protracted revitalization effort.

I get that the News is not an independent community paper. That its mandate is controlled by its parent company...which is itself controlled by its parent company.

I get that there might not be much latitude for the journalists or the editorial management, that their hands are tied.

I get that staff availability might not be optimum, that the News is constantly straining to deliver the product it might actually want to deliver.

What I don't get is how these 'truths' can seemingly endlessly be used as rationalizations for not showing some leadership, for not playing the role that -I believe- a community newspaper should be playing.

How can a floundering downtown possibly be ignored? How can it not be seen as a news item? How can it not be regarded as something worthy of -over the course of whatever time frame you feel inclined to suggest- motivating something on the part of the News that brings to light the fact that the Number One issue in Downtown Stoney Creek is not the much-whinged about 'paid parking' brouhaha, but the fact that the area is in dire need of some honest assessment, some vitality being invested in its resurrection?

This is the stuff of responsible journalism. It's the stuff of an active role of leadership in any community, something that goes hand-in-hand with what our elected officials are charged with doing, as well as what an engaged citizenry should be inclined to contribute.

Honestly, I don't know what pisses me off more: the fact that the handful of major players in Downtown Stoney Creek seem so mired in their own ambivalence, their entrenched inertia...or the fact that the Stoney Creek News seems to be either so out-to-lunch...or willfully refusing to play any part at all, save maybe to document an even worse slide into nothingness, when an even greater percentage of spots on King Street have been occupied by 'professionals', and it'll be time to offer up retrospectives on the situation, with articles entitled 'What Happened to Our Downtown?' and 'Remember When? A Series on How Things Used to Be, When We Actually Had a Downtown in Stoney Creek'.

Or maybe the time has come for another community newspaper in Stoney Creek.