Greater Reading Convention & Visitors Bureau website is sadly out of touch

I’m Damien Hipster, and my job is to find a cool place for my software company in Delaware to hold its yearly convention. We do smart things all day and then want to go out at night. 

We like visiting small cities rather than stuffy resorts, and somewhere I heard about Reading, Pa. I’ll take a look at their tourism site, Greater Reading Convention & Visitors Bureau.

Take a Ride, is the logo. Right, the Reading Railroad! We’ll take a train ride! 

[Click, click, click, hmmmmm.] OK, I’ll look for that later.

I know I heard about an incredible arts center in Reading. I know we’d want to see that. Maybe buy some art. Here, “arts and culture.”

Hah! The Amish. No thanks. Done covered bridges, libraries and museums. Hmmm. What’s the name of that arts center? I’ll scroll down a bit … 

Daniel Boone … Ephrata Cloister? Forget this … maybe under “attractions” …

“If there is one word that best describes the attractions in Greater Reading, it would be ‘unique’.” [sic] 

This is getting pretty lame.

“We're home to North America's only pagoda, one of Pennsylvania's natural wonders, and a miniature man-made village.” Wow.

What’s wrong with this site?

Good news media know how to make numbers interesting

Many journalists know the best way to start researching a story is to find the data. Of course data have problems, but if everyone can agree at least on the numbers, you can start to get at the truth. Calling the Grand Poobahs for comment should be the last part of truth-gathering.

Data-driven reporting is kind of a buzz word in the news business, especially now that website technology provides beautiful ways to display and interact with numbers and graphics on tiny screens.

The Reading Eagle has missed this boat. Jason Brudereck is good at crunching Census numbers. Weather stats are sliced and diced to reveal surprising facts about Berk’s micro-climate.

But the use of graphs and charts is mostly ploddy in the print edition, and basically nonexistent on readingeagle.com.

The irony is that the Eagle’s crew of young reporters has probably studied data-driven reporting in college and would love to incorporate it. One drawback is it does take time.

The Reading Eagle is mum on Reading's Main Street woes

The state’s Main Street program helped West Reading become a regional place to shop, dine and meet friends.

What’s up with Reading’s Main Street program, which helps municipalities get state resources for economic development?

The Reading Eagle has the latest news, but it’s hard to find, in the third paragraph in a story by a stringer in the middle of the B section:

“[Reading Community Development Director Lenin] Agudo and Community Development Manager Crystal Edwards said the nine-member Main Street board hasn't had a quorum since its inception in 2010 and currently has only four members.”

How the city is handling the state designation seems like news to me. But the local newspaper ignores issues such as this.

KeystoneEdge has a big story about how leaders in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are using art to develop their cities.

“Across the state, artists help rebuild and unify up-and-coming neighborhoods.”

What’s going on with Ricktown, Reading’s proposed arts district?

The newspaper is mum.

It appears the paper gets pressure to have big front-page stories when these efforts begin, and pressure NOT to report on them when they fizzle.

I think the public needs to know about such failures and why they happen so the problems in leadership and planning can be fixed.

These are examples of how a lack of good journalism is contributing to Reading’s stagnation compared to other cities in Pennsylvania.

The newspaper should police the police in Berks County

Police are happy that a state Supreme Court ruling makes it easier for them to search vehicles, according to an article in Monday’s Reading Eagle.

Could you think of a duller slant for this story?

In their efforts to make the paper as boring as possible, it seems, whoever OKs the story angles consistently ignore the issues. Not only does that make for biased, one-sided news articles, it violates the first rule of narrative, fiction or non: explain the conflict.

The conflict in the police-search story is obvious. Considering anybody’s ability to search me or mine, start with the Fourth Amendment and work down from there. I’m very suspicious of laws that make it easier for government-paid people with guns to go through my glove box.

“With the ruling, there's no reason to get a judge out of bed just to sign a warrant in a case in which, for instance, an officer smells marijuana in a car stopped for running a stop sign,” police reporter Steve Henshaw writes.

Reasonable people would say there’s no reason to wake up a judge in this case, with or without the latest ruling.

I can understand why police reporters want to be gung-ho crimefighter. If the cops don’t like what they write, the cops clam up. But the editors should flag this.

Why not talk to a couple of defense attorneys and civil-rights supporters to balance the comments from the district attorney and three (count them) police leaders?

I can see why the idea would perhaps not occur to Editor Harry “Follow the Rules” Deitz.

But questioning expanding police power is one role of watchdog journalism.