The Observation Deck

For those of you who love to hate on Jim O'Bryan and The Lakewood Observer, please take note that Eric Sandy with Cleveland Scene also calls out Team Summers in his article entitled, "Ed FitzGerald Started A Fake Newspaper in the Days Leading up to Election," which can be viewed at http://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-hea ... o-election.

There should be no further doubt ... after the fake "newspaper" folly ... that FitzGerald is the "master" and Summers is the mere "apprentice" ... so ... in anticipation of the much awaited "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" release ...





... indeed ...

We must all be very cautious of this FitzGerald and Summers reign.

Wow, look at the fonts on the headlines, look at the layout--- it seems like this paper is trying to look just like the Lakewood Observer. Maybe they want people to be confused. I guess the LO should take it as a compliment.

Hint: the way you can tell an Observer paper is that there are articles from ALL SIDES of an issue. It's COMMUNITY-WRITTEN. As one of its editors, let me tell you, it is a big headache sometimes, but it is one of the things I'm proudest of.

Betsy Voinovich

With all due respect, the claim that a newspaper is "community written" is not an assurance that it fairly represents the issues and conflicts of that community. That is; someone decides what to print and where to put it and at least on the hospital and election issues my otherwise beloved LO and its committed and hard working staff have pretty clearly placed their obviously strong, personal political preferences over their duty to publish a newspaper that strives to present a fair representation of both sides of an emotional and important issue. I worry that the LO has or will lose its reputation as a vehicle that fairly presents all sides of an issue and that shop owners, for example, will begin to say, "No, I will not buy an ad .. and please don't leave the LO here anymore".

Thomas C Wagner wrote:With all due respect, the claim that a newspaper is "community written" is not an assurance that it fairly represents the issues and conflicts of that community. That is; someone decides what to print and where to put it and at least on the hospital and election issues my otherwise beloved LO and its committed and hard working staff have pretty clearly placed their obviously strong, personal political preferences over their duty to publish a newspaper that strives to present a fair representation of both sides of an emotional and important issue. I worry that the LO has or will lose its reputation as a vehicle that fairly presents all sides of an issue and that shop owners, for example, will begin to say, "No, I will not buy an ad .. and please don't leave the LO here anymore".

Thanks for the comment. The editors have bent over backwards to be fair to everyone, often to my chagrin.

As Jim and Margaret can tell you (and some Deck members may have noticed), I complain about story selection a LOT, and I'm obviously on the pro-hospital side.
Frankly, this publication has been far too kind to the anti-hospital folks, giving them lots and lots of print space even as Team Summers trashes the Observer project online.

This season we moved football coverage here to the Deck, in part to make room for more political stories.
I've had some very good articles of mine not make print due to space given to Summers propaganda.
What has bothered me most is a couple instances where our CCLAS "Adopt-A-Pet", which is a great thing, has been bumped in order to present all sides of political issues.

I wonder when the publishers of this campaign mailing disguised as a newspaper will update its web site and reprint the paper edition of its only "issue," to acknowledge things like who paid for it, who created the content, and the fact that it was not really a newspaper.

Presumably they can count on entirely sincere thanks when they do.