The Bright Side
It started as Bacon-fest, then went on to Taco-fest and the city has now added Jazz-fest.
These three events, each year, add thirty-thousand dollars, or thereabouts, to the coffers of the Lake Geneva Regional News, under the auspices of the holding company that owns it. Ostensibly, the money is to go for advertising, in order to make these events the kind of events that bring people to Lake Geneva, and hence the reason that a sort of ‘arm’s length’ organization like the Tourism Board finances them. What’s really going on?
The Regional News is the official newspaper of Lake Geneva, so designated and approved by the city council. The paper also receives some measure of five figures to be the official place where the city can put in official notifications and advertisements. At what point does the fact that newspapers are not ‘fest’ organizations dealing in music and food, come into play? At what point does the simple fact that paying so much money to the official newspaper have to affect the content of the news and editorial of such a supposedly objective media operation?
How does the Regional News get used to getting so much cash from the city, on a regular basis, and then write stuff that the city might take offense to, and then stop paying for fests? What then? Is not the Regional News becoming less of a newspaper and more of a spoke’s organization for the city’s administration? Yes, the tourism commission is somewhat independent, but it’s still organized around tax money collected under the authority of the city.
How does such simple logic get so easily overlooked in our current news and ‘fake news’ environment?
