Columbus on the Record

Expert is such a relative term.

But OSU’s employee newspaper On Campus recently dubbed me the expert when it comes to the future of radio.

On Campus: Though many pundits have been sounding the death knell of newspapers because of new technology and people’s reading habits, it hasn’t happened yet. Does radio face a similar situation?

Mike Thompson: While every media organization is in a state of flux due to the changing ways listeners can access our services, radio probably has a little more time than the newspaper industry to adjust and take advantage of the opportunities new technology brings our way. For now nothing beats the convenience of hopping in your car and turning on the car radio to get a combination of music, news, weather, sports and traffic. But the car “radio” is definitely changing. Fairly soon every dashboard will feature a wireless Internet device that offers on-demand streaming audio from around the world. When those devices become ubiquitous and as easy to use as current over-the-air radios, if we don’t offer the unique programming that our listeners want, then we will face what newspapers competing with the web face now. We are already planning for that day by producing unique local content that will cause drivers and passengers to listen to WOSU rather than to web stream a public radio station in, say, Austin, Texas.

Read the rest of the column.

The Bexley-Contraband Affair takes center stage at the statehouse this week.  Ohio Public Safety director Cathy Collins-Taylor is set to testify before the senate criminal justice committee Wednesday.  Chairman Tim Grendell (R) will grill her on the decision to scuttle a planned sting at the governor’s mansion.

Cathy Collins-Taylor

Acting on a tip, the Ohio Highway Patrol in January was set to bust an inmate working at the mansion. Authorities say the inmate’s wife was scheduled to drop off a “six-pack” - prison slang for either tobacco or drugs.  But higher-ups at the patrol and/or the Strickland administration got wind of the sting and canceled it.

Inspector General Tom Charles alleges Collins-Taylor scrapped  the contraband sting to save the governor embarrassment and then lied to investigators.

Collins Taylor denies doing anything wrong and  she accuses Charles of bias. She’s going to the mat to defend herself. Despite speculation that she would withdraw her nomination for Public Safety Director (a paperwork mistake has slowed things down), she will take on Grendell and Tom Charles’ report at the hearing.

She’s drawing support. There is a facebook group urging supporters to contact senators.

It does not happen often at the Ohio Statehouse but it will be must -see-TV 10am Wednesday.
Of course, we’ll have a wrap-up Friday on Columbus on the Record.

- Mike Thompson

I’m not a luddite. Really, I’m not. I get the whole social media frenzy. We in broadcasting must engage with the tens of millions of people who tweet and post to facebook. Social Media is a legitimate force, it’s just not taken over the world – yet. Saturday was a great example of how the worlds are converging, but “old media” is still the primary force.

WOSU Saturday hosted a PubMedia Camp – a day devoted to exploring how facebook, twitter and other social media channels can build community and encourage engagement. It was a terrific event. Lots of brilliant creative thinkers came together to share ideas and force each other to communicate in new ways. We saw how tools like facebook and twitter have exploded and are now the media gateways of choice for millions of people around the world.

But there was an undercurrent of irony throughout the day.

As big as social media is, old media pays most of the bills. During an excellent opening session it was 40 minutes before the topic of a social media business model surfaced in the discussion. A participant pointed out that one social media guru who has found a way to make money on the web has a book on the New York Times Bestseller’s List and gives motivational speeches around the country. So this new media guru’s measure of success is the printed word and the spoken word – the two oldest forms of media we have.

One of the most popular sessions attended by the new media fans was how to pitch and produce a radio and TV program for WOSU. It seems our “old” media still has some cache.

The last bit of irony came after the camp, late in the evening- 11:35 to be exact. Betty White hosted Saturday Night Live. Her appearance came because more than a half million facebook users successfully demanded it. No doubt the campaign was an overwhelming social media success and showed how powerful facebook is. But think about it for a moment. The facebook movement began when Betty White reappeared on a television commercial during the Super Bowl. And what was the end result of this “new media“ crusade? Betty White performing on live, over-the-air network broadcast television – something she first did in 1952 on the sit-com Life with Elizabeth.

- Mike Thompson

Remember that little change to the Ohio Constitution voters approved last fall?  The one that gives two developers the right to build casinos at four locations:  Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo and of course the Arena District in Columbus?

The Planned Cleveland Casino

In that long amendment, the key words are - the right to build; they don’t have to build.

The constitution also says other casino developers cannot build- only those two- Dan Gilbert and Penn National.   And if the named developers don’t build, there are no construction jobs, no permanent casino jobs, no casino tax revenues.

Now comes word in The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer that developer Dan Gilbert has quietly pushed back the opening date for the Cleveland Casino.  During last year’s campaign the plan was to open it as early as late 2011.  Now it will open in mid 2013 or later.  Gilbert blames the delay on difficulty buying the land for the casino site.

Penn National, developers of the planned Columbus casino promise if voters approve moving it from The Arena District to the west side of Columbus the casino will be built sooner than it would be in its current location.  But while Penn National owns both sites and it promises to deal the first black-jack cards in 2012, the developer still only has the constitutional right to build, not the obligation.

Tonight (Wednesday, 4/21) WOSU TV airs the controversial film Food, Inc. which takes a critical look at how we get our meat, grains, fruit and vegetables.  The picture painted by the Oscar-nominated film is not pretty and it’s not universally accepted as fact.  Farm organizations sharply disagree with the premise of the program.

This is where WOSU helps bridge the divide by presenting alternate points of view and engaging you in conversation.

This morning WOSU Radio’s Tom Borgerding looked at how small local farmers fear new federal safety rules could hurt their business.   Listen to Tom’s report.

All Sides with Ann Fisher featured two guests with opposing views on agribusiness and welcomed calls and e-mails.  Listen to the show.

And tonight as you watch the documentary on WOSU TV at 9pm, please continue the conversation on WOSU’s facebook, and  twitter pages.

- Mike Thompson

WOSU reporter Mandie Trimble this week reports that Ohio’s maternal mortality rate has more than doubled in the past two decades.  In Ohio for every 100,000 births, 15 mothers die from pregnancy or labor related  complications. Ohio’s rate is very similar to the US rate, but both are much higher than those in most European nations.  (Listen to / read Mandie’s story.)

Why?

Some suggest the increasing average age of American mothers is a contributing factor.  Others point to racial disparities in health care; African American mom’s have an even higher death rate.  There could be a link to the increasing rate of births done by cesarean section.

Or we could be just keeping better records.

California has a team of doctors which reviews every case of maternal mortality and looks for trends.  Ohio has no such maternal mortality review team.

If we did, we might get some answers.

- Mike Thompson

In the past week two Columbus on the Record panelists published Op-Ed columns in Ohio Newspapers

Leah Sellers, conservative and Ohio Northern law professor wrote one for The Dispatch:

National Referendum Could Be Dicey
- Leah Sellers

What would happen if U.S. citizens could overturn the health-care bill by popular vote? Should U.S. citizens have the ability to overturn federal laws as Ohioans do state laws through the referendum process?

While a national referendum might enable us to kill the unpopular health-care bill, it is a double-edged sword. It could be used as a way to strike fear in the hearts of errant elected officials, but it also could unleash the “tyranny of the majority.”  Read more.

And Dale Butland, progressive and Democratic Strategist wrote a piece for the Akron Beacon Journal:

Unhinging the Republicans
-Dale Butland

COLUMBUS: On March 24, one of the nation’s most venerable public opinion organizations — the Harris Poll — released a national survey of 2,320 rank-and-file Republican voters concerning their views of President Obama. The findings were unnerving. Specifically:

• 67 percent of Republicans believe that President Obama is a socialist.

• 57 percent believe he is a Muslim.

•45 percent agree with the so-called ”Birthers” that Obama was ”not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president.”

• 38 percent say that the president is ”doing many of the things that Hitler did.”

• 24 percent say that Obama ”may be the Antichrist.”

Keep in mind that these respondents were not ”Tea Partyers,” John Birch Society members or mental patients. They are average Republicans.

Assuming Harris’ numbers are even close to being accurate, is it any mystery why bipartisanship is dead, legislative compromise in Washington is non-existent and threats of violence against the president and Democratic members of Congress are escalating? You don’t compromise with Hitler or make nice with the devil’s agent on Earth.   Read more.

Surprisingly most of our complaints come from liberals.

Fairly or unfairly, PBS has a perceived liberal bias, so when we started the show I figured to hear from conservatives unhappy with our topics and comments. But we seldom hear from conservatives.  Most the criticism comes from liberals who basically complain that we are not liberal enough.

Watchers of COTR know that we have four panelists - two media types (reporters, columnists) and two political types (consultants, activists) - one who leans left and one who leans right. Some lean more than others.

We also work to make sure each show’s panel is diverse, which is difficult because most of the statehouse reporting and consulting crowd has two things in common: whiteness and maleness.

I also hear criticism that so-and-so panelist is “not really a conservative” or “not really a liberal”. That’s because a person dares to disagree with her or his party on a certain issue or agree with the panelist on the opposite side of the table.

Those damn moderates are always mucking up the works.

And there’s the criticism that some panelists are too partisan or “just sticking to the party line”.  True, and we welcome those panelists as well.  But we try to put the more partisans opposite each other.

The bottom line goal is to feature panelists who know their stuff and reflect our community.  The men and women of Central Ohio come from different backgrounds and some hold or express their beliefs more strongly than others. With only so much room at the table, we do our best to mirror that diversity.

- Mike Thompson

Well, not really.   Mary Jo Kilroy just told WOSU’s Mandie Trimble that she will vote “YES” on the health care bill.

Not a big surprise, but her timing did not work out for Columbus on the Record.  We taped at 3:30 and she announced at 4:40.

As promised Mary Jo Kilroy and other House Democrats have posted to their websites a link to the house changes to the Senate health care bill.

This is the bill the House would use to make changes to the Senate bill House members must pass first (or approve as part of some other legislative maneuver).   Confused?  Wait until you read the bill.

Text of House Reconciliation Bill