I gathered a few photos from our archives for a little tour of Elyria. It’s not all that comprehensive but I thought some of the readers who have moved away might like to take a look at how some things have changed and in some cases stayed pretty much the same.

If people like this I will expand on it and post some new photos, so let me know.

I would hate to be the reporter or the editors working for a certain paper just north of The Chronicle.

That paper learned a valuable lesson about quoting random people in their stories. Sure they sold a few more papers Sunday by claiming that Midway Mall was closing, but at what cost? If you can’t believe what you read then why buy the paper?

I realize a lot of people don’t have the greatest amount of faith in the media and to a certain extent I don’t blame them. Although local reporters are a far different breed than the guys from the Fox Network, readers tend to paint them all with the same brush. And then there are so many outlets go with the easy story in the belief that people won’t know the difference.

Do we make mistakes? You bet we do. The mistakes made around here are the product of young reporters and the pressures of working under deadlines, and I’m darn sure that’s what happened to the reporter up north. But I can promise you that what you will never see here is a front page story under a banner headline that doesn’t have any of the key players commenting. Honestly, what would it have mattered to have held that story for a day to get the officials needed to confirm what random workers and shoppers at the mall were saying?

Around here, we put a pretty steep price on our credibility. When a reporter makes a mistake, they pay the price. Unfortunately, more than one person has gone on to a new career by making one too many mistakes in stories they wrote for The Chronicle.

With papers closing and readers turning to other sources, it’s time for editors to step up and avoid taking the easy route to a scoop. If you try to slip one through, you may find your headline splashed over tens of thousands of TV sets and your paper one step closer to insignificance.

I got a note from Big Chuck’s publicist about a book signing in Elyria.

If you are a fan or want to pick up an autographed book for Christmas, Big Chuck will be at the Midway Mall Borders Express Saturday, December 13th from 2:00-3:00 p.m. The book “Big Chuck! My Favorite Stories from
47 Years on Cleveland TV” has a lot of great stories from his long career. I’m pretty sure he didn’t write about the time he signed an autograph for a little kid at the old haunted house on Cleveland Street but it was a big moment for me.