I'm a frequent critic of the quality of television news reporting in this market when it comes to politics, government and public policy issues.
But I have to give credit to CBS 3 for an interesting, albeit short, package, in which "Bucks County reporter" Lesley Van Arsdall interviews folks in Doylestown for their reactions to Nutter's election.
Check out the transcription and the video here.
However, given the short length of such a piece, it becomes up to the judgement of the reporter to figure out what the storyline will be given the soundbites that she has at her disposal. It's pretty clear here that the reporter wanted to include the oft-told story of suburbanites who are afraid of the big bad city:
Many are waiting and hoping that his term will bring positive changes to a city in crisis.
"I would like to experience Philadelphia without wearing a bulletproof vest," Jim Wentzel of Doylestown said.
...
When the new mayor takes office at Broad and Market some aren't sure if they will be safe leaving State and Main, especially with children.
"I would be nervous to take these guys [gesturing to her kids] into the city but if it changes I would love to," Philippa Krautheim said.
The rest of the bites are basically impressions - mostly good - that folks have of the city's amenities and of Nutter.
As a former suburbanite/current city resident, I'm still both amazed yet unsuprised by the impressions that many of the region's residents have of the city. I'm amazed because I get the feeling that they must think that people like me have bars on our windows and don't go out after sundown (the second part is true but not because of my fear of crime, more because of my fear of spending money). I'm unsurprised because of course the "if it bleeds, it leads" news coverage that they watch is going to make an impression.
Anyway, to supplement an interesting piece by a commercial news station, I figured I'd point out the work we did to get opinions and impressions of the city from all over the 'burbs. These ran as part of our "Counter Intelligence" series. Click on the links to see what we heard in all of these different areas:
Bucks County | Newtown Borough
Chester County | Kennett Square
Their words, not ours.
Comments (4)
Dan as a former urbanite and now a suburbanite resident for sometime. I mean this in the purest form of partial reasoning.
Philadelphia can't give me another row-home . Now. This doesn't mean , I'm not proud to have been born and raised in Philly or wouldn't move back or under the impression crime doesn't exist in the burbs , because Lord knows it does.
We had a saying when I was growing up and it went like this , if someone asked you what school you went to. Most of the time the answer was the Philadelphia School Of Hard Knocks.
My point is no-one should have to wear a bullet-proof vest to experience Philadelphia , look through a window from behind bars or wish sundown could be eliminated. Philadelphia has a best friend and its Montco. All Philly and Montco need to learn is to get off term relationships of intentional false claims against each other and work for a providing region.
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