When Gerald Frendt died, the people of St. Clair Country lost a true warrior. My last conversation with Jerry was last week when he called to gently press me to re-engage in local politics. He spoke to me with a quiet passion about the need to stand up for the right of the people who foot the bill to be heard. But today I’m not really concerned about the loss our county has experienced, because today a family mourns the loss of a husband, father and grandfather. The taxpayers may find another Gerald Frendt, but he is irreplaceable to his family.

At times it appears that some people do not understand the difference between news and commentary.  In the media we do both.  The news is all about what happened.  Generally, the news is about things out of the ordinary.  Man crosses the street safely is not news; man gets run over by a truck while crossing the street is news.  Typically, the facts of a story are backed up by reliable, verifiable sources.  Occasionally, the media gets the facts wrong and there is no excuse for that; however, given the huge volume news generates each day, the overwhelming majority of it is very accurate.  In the media we also do commentary.  By definition, commentary is an opinion about the news or the news-makers.  There is no right or wrong about it.  It is simply one person’s viewpoint.  Those in power often resent the commentary offered in the media by citizens and professional commentators alike.  That is exactly how it should be!  There should be a healthy tension between those in power and those who report on those in power.  It is fundamental to a free society. 

Love him or hate him, Cliff Schrader is St. Clair County’s most listened to radio  commentator and one of the area’s most well read newspaper columnists.  One of the most common complaints against Cliff is that the stories he tells are a big reason we do not have robust economic development.  It should be noted that Cliff’s views are actually quite reasonable.  For example, his concern that the taxpayers should not be funding a convention center may in fact represent the opinion of a majority of county residents.  A Times Herald unscientific survey revealed 83% of the respondents want the matter of public funding for the proposed convention center put before the county voters.   His concern that the partially public funded Sperry’s projected is vastly overpriced at 12 million dollars is a view widely held in the community.  Cliff’s repeated insistence that a casino for Port Huron is far from a reality has proved right time and time again.  I suspect the real reason people get frustrated with Cliff is his style.  He is an in-your-face, often irreverent commentator.  He is truly the man some people love to hate. 

Sometimes those of us in the media miss the real story. Recently, the county, with advice from the EDA, approved making application to join a number of other communities in becoming one of Michigan’s logistics hubs. The taxpayers would bear the cost. That story received fair coverage in the news. What we did not cover properly was the outrage of the taxpayers, who, within 45 days gathered more than 4400 signatures in an attempt to force the issue to a county wide vote. That is the real story – citizens rising in huge numbers to say stop the spending. Gathering that many signatures in such a short time is a remarkable event, and certainly very newsworthy. Until recently it has gone largely unreported. In the media we don’t always get it right.

You might be surprised with how much the news media knows and never reports. On a regular basis we are provided “inside information” that we determine is not newsworthy or sometimes cannot be independently verified. So what kinds of things do we generally consider off limits and not newsworthy? First and foremost are the details of the private lives of public people. While not everyone follows this standard, locally the media is careful to avoid the sometimes tawdry details of people’s private lives. Of course, if people break the law it is no longer a private matter. For as long as there has been a news media, people, especially public people, have sought to control what gets reported and what gets buried. That effort almost always backfires. My advice to people who don’t like the fact that they are today’s news: Let it pass, because tomorrow it will be another person’s turn in the spotlight and you will be yesterday’s news.