Letter: Pittsfield Gazette Founder's Passing Leaves Void in Pittsfield
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To the Editor:
There's an old saying that competition brings out the best of the competitors, so homage must be paid to Jonathan Levine. Over the past two decades, I have come to know Jonathan quite well, and have immense respect for his contributions to Pittsfield. Truth be known, Jonathan would cover things that The Eagle did not. This pertained to whether a subject was to be covered at all, or if covered, the detail to give it.
One local elected official, who I will keep anonymous but might point out that they went from the Pittsfield City Council to higher office, said that reading Jonathan's account of a Pittsfield City Council meeting in the Pittsfield Gazette was just like reading a transcript. This was said with the highest praise — it was truly objective journalism that these days is lacking. The tone and tenor of the article was set by those that attended the meeting, with salient quotes from all, and not from the personal predilections of the journalist.
I am not sure journalists today have an understanding just how opinionated their so-called "objective" news pieces really are. Jonathan was old school. He was not afraid to voice his opinion, but it was in well-defined opinion areas of the Pittsfield Gazette. Based upon innumerable conversations I had with him over the years, he was more conservative than the area (a fact not known to the general public), yet this did not show in his journalism. And it barely showed in his opinion pieces. Don't get me wrong, I know of a former mayor who could not stand his journalism. But this had more to do with specific criticisms of behavior while in office, rather than advancing a conservative or liberal agenda. Jonathan did have an uncanny ability to find legitimate faults in local government and was not afraid to say so.
Eagle articles, by choice and arguably necessity, were far less detailed, did not cover most City Council agenda items, and usually did not cover subcommittee meetings unless there was some hot topic. Nor does iBerkshires or local radio fill this void. Levin's absence constitutes a real "void," where that term is thrown around too often in a cliché manner after someone's death. What Jonathan did really will not be replicated. Quite literally, we will be less informed because of it. This is not to bash The Berkshire Eagle or iBerkshires or local radio, it is just that The Eagle covers all of Berkshire County, and a reader in Adams wants to hear about Adams, not the details of the Pittsfield Parks Commission.
While my columns have been published in numerous newspapers around the country, and too many to count have been published in The Eagle, I often turned to the Pittsfield Gazette to publish columns that were more in depth, or ruffled feathers The Eagle did not want to ruffle. From my numerous conversations I had with Jonathan, there was one criterion for which he did not waiver: it had to be about Pittsfield. This is not a given: just recently I read a "viewpoint" column in the Berkshire Edge, an internet newspaper (if that be the proper name) focusing on Great Barrington, which allowed a columnist to run a column on the New York gubernatorial race. Jonathan would never have allowed that stuff to fly and understood it was his mission to deliver news about Pittsfield that you couldn't get elsewhere.
A long time ago, I gave the former editor of the Eagle a Wall Street Journal column on one of the most successful local newspapers in the country. I am pretty sure he filed it in the circular file. The Wall Street Journal, when interviewing this newspaper, found that the secret to its success was the repeated mentioning of local names in a positive manner. Years ago, things such as my goal in inter-elementary school floor hockey made it to the Eagle. Eventually, this went away, and I believe to the detriment of this paper. But Jonathan never forgot that. He covered local high school plays. His editions with prom photos quickly sold old. Local, local, local. Names, names, names. And save for those holding public offices, these names were always in a positive light and made you want to pick up the newspaper.
When I was a young lad, I had an immensely powerful swing of the baseball bat. I had one major setback: I could never connect that powerful swing to the pitched baseball. Much of the spring of my youth was spent playing in a league for kids that did not make Little League — Minor League. Minor League baseball was around for over 50 years in Pittsfield, constituting countless memories for Pittsfield's men and some women. The Pittsfield Gazette had a long and detailed account of that league when it came to an end, along with photos of the past, which brought a tear to my eye. The Eagle did not cover the story. That was the difference Jonathan Levine brought.
Rinaldo Del Gallo
Pittsfield, Mass.
