Let's just face it/admit it--blogs are not worth saving and are not going to be saved.  They are basically PSAs, emphemera...What gets saved in hardcopy and microfilm?  Newspapers?  Ironically, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has it's own hard time:

PreservationNation Blog Maintenance

by Sarah Heffern on July 29th, 2008

Today, July 29, the PreservationNation blog is getting a much-needed software upgrade. We expect that, once it is complete, everything will function as it should. However, there are often unexpected surprises with software updates, so please bear with us if things are slightly wonky for a day or two. And, in the event that you stop receiving updates via RSS, please visit the site to re-subscribe.

Many thanks for your patience and understanding — we really appreciate it!

Update: The upgrade went (mostly) without a hitch. The only thing we seem to have lost is our categories, which means navigation is a bit scarce at the moment and we’ve had to temporarily eliminate the topic-specific RSS feeds. We’re working on getting these back as quickly as possible. Thanks again for your patience.

You got that right, sister :) 

I was watching "Feagler and Friends" yesterday, which was all about PoolGate. Feagler interviewed Lawson Jones and said he must have expected something to come down... there must have been some buzz about FBI inquiries at the county level, etc. Lawson Jones looked like a deer in headlights and said he hadn't a clue anything was being investigated, or needed to be investigated. After the Lawson Jones interview segments, Feagler had his panel of political wonks, including Tom Beres, from channel 3 news. Beres said he was surprised by what Lawson Jones had said as there was lots of buzz about investigations over the last few months. So I don't sense we are getting honest facts from politicians nor hard reporting from the Mainstream Media on this matter - the reporters are not pushing the facts, even when the facts and conflicts of fact are presented to them on their own forums - the coverage is all hindsight fluff so far, and I don't think the I-Team is looking for anything more than dirty pictures for sweeps.

I believe what will be the biggest problem with news coverage going forward will be that the mainstream media has so adored and gushed over these people and initiatives now under investigation... the media has been so drunk with love of rich developers, celebrities (e.g. "King James" and some chef on E. 4th Street, who they love to eat) and powerbrokers who pay their bills... for so long, they consider themselves all part of one elite club, and do not want to rock the yacht. How to protect Hagan and Mason... how to protect taxes and MedCon... my how the spin doctors must be spinning... great time to be a power-PR wonk!!! I wonder where Nancy Lesic fits into all of this?

I think REALNEO, Scene, the Free Times and citizens in general have provided far better coverage of the Crisis at the County, over the past three years, than anyone in the mainstream media, at all! The lack of hard journalism by the PD and other well paid news outlets is what has allowed the crisis at the county to happen in the first place, and continue for so long. I do not now expect the Mainstream Media to help solve the crisis... they will continue in wine, dine, hobnob and play their PR role for local power brokers, institutions and remaining political bosses, as paid to do.

Feagler & Friends airs: WVIZ/PBS: Fridays - 8:30 PM, Saturdays - 8:00 PM, Sundays - 11:30 AM; The Ohio Channel: Mondays - 1:30 PM | 9:30 PM, Tuesdays - 5:30 AM

Disrupt IT

Scene Magazine again covers the story ignored by the Plain Dealer--the gross inequity and institutionalized racism inherent in sentences handed out to drug convictions--city vs. suburban offenders. 

Norm: Let's not mix up TV news, especially Feagler, with what I wrote about the need for newspapers.

The Plain Dealer has expended a lot of energy and continues to do so on this story thus far.  If I know reporters they would like to do even more. They need to get some encouragement to be even more aggressive and go beyond the greed of public officials to the people feeding and nourishing them. In other words, the to real meat of this story.

We know all this could not happen without major developers and contractors feeding into this system of corruption.

There should be a team of reporters going after the Forest Cities, the Dick Jacobs, the Rismans. How much have they gotten in subsidies? What tax reductions have they gotten in the value of their properties. I remember researching one city subsidy deal with Robert Risman's involvement and the city's file I examined mistakenly had given his net value - as I remember it - at $100 million. So there's plenty more to be done and we ought to be encouraging the troops to force their bosses to allow them to get further into the muck.

Saving our history doesn't come easy.  Right Mrs. Peak :) 

Norm: I think the PD realizes it has a newspaper sales bonanza in the Dimora/Russo story. Good that they are covering it. Not good that they are overdoing some of it by making a joke of the two culprits, even if they lend themselves to such description.

However, there is no investigation of the med mart/convention center deal. This is most needed.

That's the next corruption barrel. And by Thursday it will be a bigger corruption barrel than it is today.

However, exposing its problems would force the PD to take on the private sector here and they are not about to do it.

So I have very mixed feelings about the rabid coverage of the Dimora/Russo story, which so lends itself to easy mockery.

But that's been the way here as long as I can remember. They went after the bad, sometime silly, behavior of Kucinich but didn't examine the banks that put the city into default, after having rolled over the same loans by Ralph Perk without even a question.

And so it goes...

Roldo, why is no one examining the feeding frenzy on unloaded HUD properties in NEO and the revolving door of LLC transfers that bury the trail of demolition liens on foreclosed properties?  The rumor mill in Ward 15 has some favored residents being allowed to pick up some of these HUD properties that are going to revert to the CDCs or councilpersons for $1.00.  If these are rumors, I don't hear any one disputing the rumor. 

Stopped into a Cleveland Planning Commission meeting last spring to see what was up, and on the agenda was a presentation about the $1 homes being offered to the city by HUD. I think that it was the day that Barb Shergalis popped up unannounced on the agenda so I went down to get an update on the County Administration Project.

Members of the CPC had never heard of this - HUD sells the homes to the city for $1 and the city gives them to CDCs to renovate. It breezed through of course...

I know it doesn't answer your question directly, but these things are out there online. thing 1 and thing 2.