INVESTIGATING NEPA July 1, 2017
THREE DIFFERENT GOOD BYES
Clay LePard left WNEP this week for a reporter
position with the CBS TV station in Orlando.
He joins our former colleague at WNEP Matt Petrillo, and my former
teammate at WTSP in Tampa, Ginger Gadsden.
Clay was at WNEP for about two and a half
years, and made his mark. He showed a
great deal of insight and leadership in reporting AND helping put together team
coverage on that rogue weather blimp that floated across parts of our viewing
area in 2015, and the flash flooding in Sullivan and Lycoming counties last
year. Those were some of this station’s
best days in news, or as a former news director once said, “we made epic
television.”
He was an innovator, a unique individual, knew
instinctively how to incorporate social media with news, and was the only
person I’ve ever worked with that had a prep school education from the North
Shore of Massachusetts (like me,) and then a degree from Syracuse University. It is not a reach to say he will make a
difference in the Orlando television market which is one of the nation’s most
competitive.
While Clay is headed south, videographer
Kathleen Lueke is headed north to Elmira, NY which is a smaller TV market, but
offers her a full-time job. Kathleen
shot a few of my live shots, including a recent one involving medical marijuana
grow permit in Scranton, and she was always a joy to work with.
But with me, Kathleen did more to help me
learn the nearly infinite ways of our new video editing system, Final Cut Pro
X. I spent a couple of days last fall
going through the company’s training video, and learned very little. But after Kathleen graciously sat with me as
I edited a couple of Newswatch 16 Investigations, my work improved
immensely. She also showed me ways to
edit faster.
Kathleen is a Susquehanna County native, and
it is my gut feeling she will be working in this market, and hopefully this
station in the not-to-distant future.
LA Tarone is the hardest good bye. I was a guest on his radio show several
times, and it was exciting. He was one
of the few local journalists who excelled in radio, newspaper (columnist and
reporter), and television (former anchor/reporter WYLN). Talk radio has always been a challenge in
NEPA, and Tarone instinctually knew what issues to bring up, and when something
wasn’t working, he could nimbly change the conversation to something that did. He handled bad and boring callers with
courtesy, skill, and respect. He was
also a heck of a nice guy, and had a wicked sense of humor.
LA died last week after a battle with lung
cancer, and at 58, he is gone too soon.
His passing left me with a feeling of emptiness. Here was a hard-working journalist who worked
four decades in the media, and just recently took over the prime spot in talk
radio in the region, daytime 3-6PM. He
was just starting the job he worked his whole career for, the job he seemed
born to do, and in a blink of an eye, it ended before the seat was warm.
I believe that in the coming days, some of his
friends and colleagues will honor LA with something like a scholarship fund,
something perpetual. If something
develops, I will pass it on.
MEDICAL MARIJUANA
We’ve gotten a glimpse of the future of
medical marijuana in the past ten days when the state awarded grow permits, and
then dispensary permits. The grow
permits were issued to companies that will start operations in Scranton, White
Haven, Jersey Shore, and Danville. The
dispensaries, the retail outlets, will be in State College, Williamsport,
Edwardsville, Wilkes-Barre, Scranton, and Tobyhanna.
The process may not be smooth. Our Newswatch 16 Investigation into VireoHealth, the Minnesota company whose former officers are charged with smuggling
medical marijuana from Minnesota to New York state, because the company’s
medical marijuana facility in New York reportedly was not producing enough
cannabis oil to meet state-mandated levels.
The arrest report paints a picture of an elaborate ruse. It claimed the executives in Minnesota forged
paperwork an amount of marijuana oil needed to be destroyed (because all of the
product of grow facilities need to be accounted for). But instead of destroying the oil, a
half-million dollars worth of the product was loaded into a armored truck,
driven by the company’s medical director and head of security to New York State,
and delivered there to avoid sanctions and possible the loss of it’s grow
license in New York. As a result of the
arrest, lawmakers in Minnesota are considering a statute that would allow for
fines up to a million dollars for companies that engage in fraud. Maryland has suspended the medical marijuana
license to a subsidiary of Vireo Health.
Vireo’s responses to Newswatch 16 and everyone else is to say the two
executives suspended no longer work for the company. Is that good enough?
I wonder.
Our follow up investigation asked if the state would reconsider the
license because Vireo, doing business in Pennsylvania as PA Medical Solutions,
barely outscored Bright Star Biomedics, a Luzerne-based company that has a plan
to build a growing and processing facility in Laurel Run, a Luzerne County
community best known for being at the finish line of auto racing’s annual
Giant’s Despair Hill Climb. Bright Star
has not commented. I believe executives
have a tough decision. Does Bright Star
sue the state, considering it lost to a company with past executives facing a
felony trial for a fraudulent crime? Or
does the company wait a year or two, when it is likely more grow permits will
be awarded ?
The dispensary side is also interesting. I’m hoping to have a story soon with one of
the executives of a company that was awarded a local permit. One of the questions people in local shopping
centers had was, “What kind of people will it attract?” In short, very sick people, or people with
debilitating conditions. There are 17
conditions for which doctors will prescribe medical marijuana, including
cancer, multiple sclerosis, and epilepsy.
But those people in shopping centers with concerns have a valid
point. If marijuana, even in medically
processed form, is sitting in a store, what kind of around the clock security
must it provide?
Another question. What can these dispensaries sell? We know medical marijuana is available in
creams, oils, pills, gels, and tincture.
Tincture? For the record,
tincture is medical marijuana in the form of an alcohol rub, or alcoholic
beverage. What non-marijuana products
can be sold? That’s an answer I will be
looking for as well. What cannot be sold:
Marijuana in dry leaf form.
I am interested in the business part of this
as well. The dispensaries won’t be able
to sell any medical marijuana if the grow facilities cannot produce enough pot,
and make it into the sellable forms of the medicine. You remember the supply problem in New York
State that led to the alleged smuggling operation to meet a quota, there is no
guarantees that the growers and processors will grow and process enough
product. The other problem is
potentially on the demand side. Most medical experts agree that medical
marijuana will help a lot of people who need the help, but almost all insurance
policies do not cover medical marijuana.
Affordability may be an issue. We
don’t know the price of medical marijuana products at this time. We only know that Pennsylvania cannot set
prices, but can set price caps.
TEN SHOUT OUTS
·
My
daughters’ many friends at Hazleton Area High School. They put on a home run derby fundraiser to
help the family of Justin Pinzaru, who tragically died in a car crash in
June. Almost 500 showed up, most of them
wearing black T-shirts with the number 13, Justin’s baseball jersey number when
he played. I am proud to live in a
community where parents and teens show this kind of decency and spirit.
·
Summer. You came a little late, but you’re doing
great now. I love the hot weather, and will soon be headed to my native Cape
Cod to be with family, as I use up the lion’s share of my vacation time in
summer.
·
Major
League Baseball. I’m following you a
little closer, and liking the fact that the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry is
meaningful again. But the game is
changing in a direction I don’t like.
Too many home runs and strikeouts.
Not enough stolen bases, and great defensive plays.
·
TNT. I don’t invest myself in too many television
dramas or sitcoms. But TNT’s new and
highly promoted “Will” a drama about Shakespeare is something I am looking
forward to. Who knows, it just may make
Shakespeare interesting to teens.
·
Lazy
papers and TV stations. When news broke
of the state’s awarding medical marijuana dispensaries, several online versions
of newspapers and TV stations around the state showed pictures and ran video of
pot plants. The video and pictures
should have been of the pills, creams, and oils, etc. that these dispensaries
will sell. Showing a picture or video of
a pot plant when discussing a dispensary is like showing a dairy farm when
you’re doing a story about milk. Lazy,
and failing to serve readers/viewers.
·
Captain! The best new television ad I saw this week is
from Captain Morgan Rum. It features the
Captain Morgan walking into a dimly lit bar and greeting pirates, cops, airline
pilots, and hockey players with a “C” on their jersey with the phrase, “Captain,”
and ordering a “Captain.” Memorable.
·
Drink
of the Week: Baja Luna. It’s a mix of
black raspberry crème liquer infused with tequila. To die for.
My wife won a bottle at a recent fundraiser, and she doesn’t like
it. My gain.
·
Team
of the Week: Oklahoma City Thunder of
the NBA. Adding Paul George and Blake
Griffin to a team with Russell Westbrook and a few very good role players,
makes them exciting. I also have a place
in my heart for small market teams in professional sports. If championships could go to the Milwaukee
Brewers, Cincinnati Reds, Buffalo Bills, Green Bay Packers, Winnipeg Jets, Buffalo
Sabers, San Antonio Spurs, and the Oklahoma City Thunder, I’d be happy.
·
Bar
of the Week: Chatham Squire. I can
already taste the Narragansett on tap, and I will be celebrating a birthday
this week with my all-time favorite baseball teammate Craig Andrews. Haven’t seen him since the early 80’s.
·
Fourth
of July Place of the Week: Montrose,
PA. This community in Susquehanna County
feels so American. If I am chosen to
cover it’s parade July fourth, it will be a great week at work.
GOOD JOURNALISM MUST READ OF THE WEEK.
Great and sad story by the New York Times on former Major League Pitcher turned writer Jim Bouton. He is now suffering from stroke-related
dementia. Old age can be cruel. Bouton was a fireballing fastball pitcher
with the Yankees in the early 1960’s.
After losing zip on the fastball, he extended his career developing a
knuckleball and pitched with the awful expansion team, the Seattle Pilots. He wrote about his experiences in “Ball Four”
which was the first sports book to pull back the curtain on the wild times and
party life of pro athletes. Great book.
Bouton was also a guest speaker one night at
Syracuse University. I think it was my sophomore
year, and really challenged us college kids to diversify the way we look at
things. He criticized people like me who
joined fraternities, and hung out with people of similar interests and
backgrounds, and challenged everyone to get to know people with vastly
different backgrounds. He also said our
public education was misplaced because we never teach kids how to manage
finances. Great talk, and not what
anyone would expect from an ex-baseball pitcher. I wish him well as he endures his travails of
old age.
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