Anybody Notice The 'Merge Wilmington With Philly' Thread?

[Al Johnson]

Separation Day? How many people showed up? (Dozens?)

Hundreds. The city of New Castle is jammed packed every year for this festival.

That's right. It was a "festival" (rides, food, face painting, concert), a type of event very popular in Wilmington. That's what people showed up for. Not the actual commemoration earlier at City Hall.

Last weekend Separation Day was celebrated in the city of New Castle. That was the day Delaware seperated from Pennsylvania. You folks in Philly may see us as a suburb, but Delawareans do not.

Whatever the festival's value as entertainment, Separation Day clearly fails as an educational event. Separation Day commemorates a Delaware Assembly proclamation declaring Delaware separate from Great Britain, not Pennsylvania.

No arguement that the News Journal isn't the greatest paper in the nation, but they do many indepth stories and continue to do investigative stories that affect Delaware. As we don't have an alternative the News Journal will have to do.

What in-depth or investigative stories? I haven't seen them. Gannett operates just like Clear Channel. They eliminate staff, reduce the local news hole, and rely on syndicated features (often localized). Local news coverage is events, meetings, press conferences, public service organization activities and police and fire stories. Investigative journalism and in-depth reporting take time, space and money, three things Gannett doesn't like to use.

Yes, there is value to having a local paper. Which is the local paper?

The Philadelphia Inquirer. Independent (co-owned with the Daily News; not part of a chain). Published by a regional company. Backed by the Toll Brothers, who own and develop property in Delaware. And headed by a former area PR executive, who had clients in Wilmington and who graduated from Wilmington's Widener University Law School.

The News-Journal. An international chain. Owns over 90 daily newspapers (plus close to 1000 weekly papers and 41 TV stations). Noted for cost cutting and dumbed down "McPapers" with standardized content.

There is an alternative to the News-Journal. The kind of localized edition the Inquirer publishes in South Jersey (against Gannett's Courier Post), in Chester County (against The Daily Local) and in other parts of the region. But you don't want to consider that. Pick up the Chester County edition of the Inquirer some morning. If they provided comparable coverage of New Castle County (compared to what they do for Chester County) and considering the whole package, as well, which paper would you prefer to read? (Honestly)

 

[MikefromDelaware]

This is the info for Separation Day taken from the city of New Castle's website. Note the underlined part in Blue.

Delaware’s Separation Day will be celebrated on Saturday, June 9, 2007 in historic New Castle, Delaware. Separation Day celebrates Delaware’s “separation” from the British Crown and the governance of the Penn Family in 1776. The event is sponsored by the State of Delaware through the Separation Day Committee. Planned Separation Day activities include:

Parade at 11:00 a.m. along Delaware Street featuring for the first time in New Castle:
The Reading Buccaneers Drum and Bugle Corps, The Original Hobo Band. Also featured The Citizens Hose Band of Smyrna and the Avalon String Band of Philadelphia,& DE Military Academy and back by popular demand The District of Columbia Fire Department Emerald Society Pipes & Drums. Also with us are Nur Temple Shriners, Irish Culture & Rocky Bluewinkle and much more.
Beautiful Baby Contest at Battery Park – sign up at the Jaycees tent from 10:00 to 2:00 For more information on the beautiful baby contest please call 983-1099;
Battery Park will also feature – for the first time – “Masters of the Chainsaw,” all day and evening Amusement rides, all day and evening bands. There will of course be a magic show, pony rides, moon bounce, dunk tank, family games, encampments, food, karate demo, cartoon characters, etc.
A host of non profit community and public service booths with demos;
Afternoon bands will be Realize Records/Paul Lewis, Laura Cheadle, and The Steve Ketterer Acoustic Trio.
The Evening festivities at Battery Park will include:

Concerts – featuring at 6:00 Salem County Brass Society and at 7:30 The Chesapeake Brass Band.
The evening ends with a grand finale of Fireworks by International Fireworks Manufacturing Company at 9:30 p.m.
Shuttle Bus service provided free by Lehanes Bus Company from First Baptist Academy, New Castle Middle School, and Carrie Downie.
For more info on this festive celebration of Delaware’s 231st birthday, please call The Separation Day Committee in care of the Mayor’s Office at (302) 322-9802 or E-mail – [email protected]

Based on past and present performance of Philly media (press/radio/TV) with their lack of or mediocre coverage of Delaware, no thanks, I'll stick with the News Journal, The Delaware State News (Dover), WDEL, WILM, WDOV (Dover), and WHYY-TV channel 12's Delaware Tonight newscast for Delaware news. All of these companies make their bread and butter in Delaware, they have a vested interest in Delaware. Yes even the Gannett and Clear Channel outlets want to make Delaware money so they'll serve this community with a local product. The Philly media doesn't need or care about Delaware and their lack of quality coverage demonstrates that.

 

[Al Johnson]

Thanks for having such an open mind.

Delaware became a separate colony in 1704. If Delaware had not been "separated" prior to June 15, 1776, why were Delaware delegations seated in the first and second Continental Congresses?

It's amazing how the rest of the country celebrates its "separation" from Great Britain on July 4th, but that's based on the date of a Philadelphia document, so of course Delaware has to have its own declaration. It's also interesting how two weeks after Delaware's so-called proclamation, Delaware delegate George Read hadn't gotten the word and attempted to deadlock the Delaware delegation to the second Continental Congress to keep Delaware from voting for the "Philadelphia Declaration." Maybe he wasn't opposed to independence; maybe he just couldn't bring himself to vote for a Philadelphia document. Of course, none of these declarations and proclamations actually brought about any "separation." The Southern state legislatures all passed similar documents in 1861 and they didn't amount to anything.

And what exactly is the point of all the seemingly extraneous website information, except to point out that "separation" is just another excuse for a Wilmington festival, sort of like St. Swithun's Day.

You are convincing me Delaware is a state with a collective inferiority complex. I can think of only two other states where people identify themselves with their state of residence. One is Texas, which has history, tradition and Western movies. The other is New Jersey (for very similar reasons). Most places people identify with the town or city where they live (and sometimes with the closest big city), not their state or county. The Delaware and New Jersey "identities" are artificial (since the Northern and Southern portions of each state have little in common and don't belong within the same geo-political entities) and both are premised on what each state is not: In New Jersey's case, it is "not New York; not Philadelphia." In Delaware's case, it's just "not Philadelphia." Of course, Wilmington's major talk station carries the Phillies and Iggles. You can get hoagies, cheesesteaks, and Tastycakes all over Wilmington. Shopping malls used to have Wanamaker's and Strawbridge's. There are more Wawas than 7-11s. But, no, Wilmington is not Philadelphia.

Clear Channel and Gannett have a vested interest in Delaware? I know you want to make a point but that statement is completely not credible. Do you read the State News (which is not distributed in Wilmington)? Both that paper and News-Journal are perfect examples of mediocrity. Almost all radio news everywhere is mediocre. The state-subsidized channel 12 news (an inherent conflict of interest) is mostly not news. And much of the so-called news is people talking about news, not news itself. It's amazing how little of the content is unique or specific to Delaware.

I fail to see your objection to the Philadelphia TV news (which I suspect from your comments that you don't watch much). Apparently you don't like the fact they include stories from New Jersey and Pennsylvania, too. Any Delaware story of significance (and a fair number without significance) get covered. Unlike the local radio stations which are desperate to fill time, the TV stations don't keep repeating stories when nothing new has happened. But just as 80 per cent of the Wilmington market prefers out of market radio (whether you do or not), TV viewers appear much to prefer the TV news from Philadelphia to channel 12's news. While I respect your right to your opinion, your opinion is just not typical or representative.

 

[MikefromDelaware]

Many Delawareans, get excited about the UofD Blue Hens Football, Wilmington Blue Rocks Baseball, just as they get excited about the Phils and Eagles. People here go to the "Bob" in Newark and the Grand Opera House and DuPont Theatre in Wilmington for shows and also go to Philly for shows. You'd be surprised how many folks here have "home town pride". I listen to WDEL, WILM, WXCY, but also listen to WHYY-FM, WRTI from Philly. We enjoy our local options, but also enjoy the "big city" attractions of Philly and Baltimore too, but we are NOT a suburb of Philly or Baltimore. Again as someone else pointed out earlier in this thread, IF the station format is available on a local station the local listeners tend to choose that, but if not then sure they'll tune in to Philly or Baltimore. I do the same thing. I may not be in the majority opinion on this topic, but I'm not alone either. We'll just have to agree to disagree. Good conversation, thanks.

 

[number one fan]

One small correction: Wilmington stations don't win over Philly stations in every format where they compete directly.

Classic Rock: Magic beats the River
Oldies: WOGL beats WVLT (and the late WAMS 1260)
Sports: WIP beats The Ticket
Urban: Power 99 beats 101 Kiss Delaware

 

[MikefromDelaware]

My guess is IF the old 1260 WAMS had a solid signal like WDEL's or if WAMS were an FM station, then WOGL may not have won the market for oldies, but most folks couldn't get 1260 except in their cars. WVLT has a similar problem, there signal isn't strong here so most can't get it at work, where as WOGL comes in great. This one isn't apples to apples, not a reasonable comparison.

Those other examples are true as all those stations do have solid signals in Wilmington. What makes Magic WMGK beat our the River 94.7. Is the selection of music different? Or does Magic have better jocks?

I can understand why WIP beats out WWTX 1290 the Ticket as most of their programming is simply Fox Sports Talk where as WIP is sports talk that is local (Philly local in this case which would be more interesting than national sports talk with the Philly teams only getting a small share of the talk time).

Power 99 and 101 Kiss Delaware, besides the weird name for 101.7 again is the music selection not as good or is the Power 99 jocks better or both?