Lanci buys Scene's cover

"There's a little piece of me," Ken Lanci told me not long ago, "thinking about starting my own newspaper."

No, the millionaire mayoral candidate hasn't bought Scene. At least, not yet.  But he did buy Scene's cover this week. 

About 44,000 copies of this giant Ohio-flag-colored fist are flying out of newsboxes and racks this week. "Surprise! There is a mayoral election on November 5th," the cover announces, as if the scrappy alt-weekly is publishing a cover story about the mayor's race. "Vote Lanci," it says, as if the paper is endorsing Frank Jackson's challenger.

But no, the actual Scene is writing about The Plain Dealer's owner.  

The alt-weekly sold a four-page wraparound ad, including the cover, to Lanci's campaign.  In it, Lanci calls the mayor a failure, slams The Plain Dealer, decries double-dipping and the state of the schools, defends himself against the charge he's a carpetbagger, and endorses himself.  

Or, to be precise, "The Lanci Tribune Editorial Board Endorses Ken Lanci for Mayor of Cleveland."

The ad is classic Lanci: flashy attention-seeking, blunt-force attacks on his opponent, a chutzpah-filled claim that Jackson is a "millionaire" (horrors!), thin-skinned lashing-out at critics in the media, and a confidence that a charity he supports, expanded to 550 times its size, will cure what ails the Cleveland schools. 

I expect no less from the guy.  More questionable is whether this fits Scene's character. 

The paper has been selling its cover a lot lately, but the deals have merely been annoying -- a sticker-ad marring the cover art -- or innocuously craven. Scene's young, nightlife-loving target audience is unlikely to object to a fake cover about Cleveland Beer Week.

Clearly, Scene's ad reps and publisher are getting desperate.  They know alt-weeklies can go out of business.  

Editorially, the paper seemed to bottom out a year or two ago, when it inaccurately predicted Bill Mason would be driven from office by scandal and then changed editors twice in a few months. This year, it's clawing to make a comeback, producing a strong Ariel Castro story 24 hours after his arrest and going where The Plain Dealer didn't go -- well, until today -- on the resignation of the art museum director.  The page counts seem to be bouncing back too.

But shouldn't a rebellious alt-weekly avoid a sleight-of-hand that suggests a millionaire political candidate can buy its endorsement?  

What sort of political coverage of the mayor's race will Scene offer up now?  "Premiere edition," declares the "Lanci Tribune."  Will the paper bite the hand that feeds in the next issue?  Or keep quiet about the mayor's race?

Update, 10/31: Nothing about the election in this week's Scene, though one of its writers definitely feels free to tweet his opinion on Lanci.

Update, 11/5: The mayor has bigger ideas: he unfurls a banner ad on cleveland.com's front page on Election Day.

Mean Scene piece slams Hagan; student asks if he's unaccountable

Scene's cover story today, slamming Tim Hagan on the Med Mart deal, is mean. How mean? It begins and ends with snarky references to Hagan's recent heart trouble!

Though the story doesn't call Hagan a pimp, like the Plain Dealer's Chris Evans did, the headline is, "How We Got Screwed," and a subhead says he has "had his way with you," the taxpayer. Switching to a hardware metaphor, the cover calls Hagan the "Med Mart's chief fixer." (I thought Fred Nance was the "fixer"!)

There isn't much new news in the piece. It's mostly an informative, one-sided, sarcastic recap of the convention center and Medical Mart saga, from Hagan's 2004 defeat of Tim McCormack to now. (A couple of corrections -- there are cost limitations in the Med Mart deal, though the story quotes someone saying otherwise. Also, the story says Hagan was a protégé of Bobby Kennedy -- who died in 1968, when Hagan was about 22. Hagan is a protégé of Teddy Kennedy.)

One tidbit I hadn't seen before: a Campbell Administration official reports that Campbell had a proposal in hand in 2005 to give MMPI the old convention center in exchange for "as much as 5 percent of the profits" from the new project. That didn't fly -- "talk soon shifted to MMPI [covering] overruns in exchange for keeping all the profits."

The most interesting part of the article comes on page 17, when writer Dan Harkins reports on a talk Hagan gave April 9 at Tri-C West. Hagan gets worked up when the students ask him about the Med Mart deal and the county corruption investigation. He also delivers his often-repeated lecture on representative democracy. A student responds by asking Hagan if, in his last term, he's now unaccountable:

"[W]e listen to the public's view," [Hagan] says, "but ultimately the responsibility rests with your elected officials."

... Since Hagan acknowledged he's not running for office again, a student inquires: What keeps him from doing whatever he wants now?

"I could do that," admits Hagan. ... "I have three years or so left, and you're absolutely right — that's the power you gave me when you elected me. I hope that I execute that with respect and thankfulness and responsibility."

More on Mason

If you're trying to decide who to vote for in the Cuyahoga County prosecutor's race, I recommend Scene's cover story on Bill Mason.

I also recommend skimming the parts about issues you don't care about. It's nine or so stories crammed into one exhaustive one.

In the story's most heated moment, Mason refuses to talk with Scene, saying he knows it'll be a "hit piece." He chastises lawyers in town who he thinks are talking to the reporters.

Actually, the article is critical but fair, a comprehensive guide to all the major controversies around Mason's office, from questions about racial disparities in drug cases to his friendship with Pat O'Malley. The only elements with a "hit piece" feel are the title, "Bill Mason's Mean Machine" (named after a kids' football team he sponsors) and the scorching sidebar about Mason campaign donors caught in scandal and controversy.

Mason's critics will like the story, but other readers may decide they agree with the prosecutor on the death penalty, drugs, and discovery.