We had a special opportunity yesterday to “marry” our ‘Live From the Newsroom weekly live-stream Internet broadcast with a special ‘On The Road’ edition of ‘Journalists Roundtable’ with the good folks at PCN, the Pennsylvania Cable Network.
First things first. These folks don’t travel lightly. You should see all the equipment they hauled into our library for the one-hour show, which you can watch tonight on PCN at 8.
Then there's the makeup. Yes, you heard it correctly. They broadcast in hi-def, and they needed to powder us down. They probably should have used a fire hose in my case.
Of course, since we were using this for our weekly ‘Live From the Newsroom’ show, you also can click here to check it out.
Our focus was on the city of Chester, which was fortuitous since just a couple of hours before, new Mayor John Linder delivered his first “State of the City” address to a Chamber of Commerce audience.
I was joined on the panel by reporter John Kopp, who covers Chester for the Daily Times, Paul Bennett of the weekly Chester Spirit newspaper, and my lead columnist Gil Spencer.
Heading our panel was PCN moderator Corinna Wilson, and for the second half of the show we were honored by presence of the mayor himself.
Linder strikes me as a thoughtful man, probably linked to his background in education.
That’s a good thing, since the education debacle that is the Chester Upland School District is one of the biggest crises facing the city. We talked about that a lot on the show.
Linder said he has a plan for the district, which just might involve the city taking over some element of control. He’s also well aware of the myriad problems the district faces, not the least of which is the increasing number of kids enrolling in charter schools. After all, he was one of the founders of the Village Charter School.
Linder touched on a number of topics, and our panel had a lively discussion of where Chester is now and where it’s going.
I happen to be an optimist. I look at some of the spectacular growth along the city’s riverfront, I see it starting to leach out into the downtown and neighborhoods, and I see good things in the city’s future.
But it still must deal with its education issue, and it must continue to aggressively attack a crime issue that tends to paint a picture of the city as a place that is unsafe, which may or may not necessarily be the case.
Check us out on PCN tonight at 8. Or watch the show now on DelcoTimes.com.
Comments