Publicity for the Hood

In a previous post comments were made about concerns regarding an article in the Tribune about the Seminole Heights Mobile Crime Patrol and publicity.

Since I have moved in the neighborhood 5 1/2 years ago I have heard some of the same concerns raised about negative news about the neigborhood. 5 1/2 years ago some residents did not want to read about prostitution and the neighborhood preferring just to have positive news.

That philosophy brought us nohere. At that time Nebraska Avenue had more prostitutes than Ronda Storms has insults.

Instead of hiding the problem, residents plastered the problem across front pages and TV screens and shoved it in the faces of our government leaders. An early embarrament for the Police Department was that residents were walking up and down Nebraska Ave. confronting prostitutes, without police support. Some bad apple police officers were seemingly (or actually) taking the side of the prostitutes.

As a consequence of this in your face activity, the work of the SE Seminole Heights Exercise Club and then the Old Seminole Heights residents who joined the group, the Prostitution Town Hall Meeting with residents and government officials, the Hillsborough County Prostitution Task Force and finally the Old Seminole Heights and Southeast Seminole Heights Neighborhood Watch Vehicle Patrols, things changed. Goverment got on board with the residents. City Hall Departments, State Attorney, City Council, State Legislators and others. A treatment program was started with a Seminole Heights ex-offender treatment program. Status quo deadwood retired from the police department. The Police Department became very energized and proactive themselves on the issue. Law were changed to increase penalities and offer treatment. Prostitution has decreased dramatically.

One of the things I always tried to stress and create a positive spin during all of this was that Seminole Heights does not simply complain about problems, but offers solutions and tries to help implement them, and that Seminole Heights is a very organized and activist neighborhood and it is that activism that should cause people to move here.

I think the press about the transgender prostitutes getting arrested is a good thing because it lets the transgender prostitutes know we are serious about removing all prostitution from our neighborhood and will get them arrested any way we can, if they choose to practice here.

Having said all of that, I do agree we need more positive press. I just don't think we need to supress the negative aspects. To me any press is good press, just depends on how you spin it. For example the Steve Lorenzo thing has had people across the nation come to my blog as I mentioned something about it once (actually about A Living Hominid's story on it). I know some of these same people read other positive posts on my blog, thus getting a better idea of what Seminole Heights is. I'll bet that almost everyone in Tampa Bay area has heard of Seminole Heights. How many have heard of V.M.Ybor, Ybor Heights, Riverside Heights, Wellswood, Forest Hills and others?

One of the things people need to know about positive press is that the press needs to know about the positive activity in order to write about it. And it has to be interesting or have some sort of hook.

We do not do a good enough job about getting the positive stories out. All of us need to find these stories and get them out. These stories do not just have to be about big events like home tours. Any positive story will do. A story on a 102 year old resident having a birthday, some new store opening up, some new drive by a non profit organization, someone with an interesting hobby, yard, past life experience. Anything people will want to read. There are thousands of stories out there. We just have to get other people to hear them.

In SE Sem Hts we get a lot of stories written about us. One reason is that we have representives from the media on our email list. Warren Ely from Channel 13. Kathy Steele from Tribune. Sherri Day and Elizabeth Bettendorf from the St. Pete Times. Also before the blog I used to call Kathy Steele or her predecesor Sean Lengell up to give them stories all the time. Some they would use and some they would not.

When we come up with these stories we need to think broadly about where these stories go. Obviously the local TV, radio and newspapers. However should the story go the the news reporters, to the columnists and or to the events sections? What about getting pictures of the event in the society section? I will often see a story about an event get written up in the paper but not find it in the coming events section. Don't forget the smaller newsoutlets like Florida Sentinel Bulletin, the Penny Saver, Channel 38 and others. What about WUSF Radio and WMNF radio? WMNF also has a community bulletin board on their website that they will also read on the air. What about local magazines, such as Florida Trend? What about specialty magazines and periodicals such as The Watermark or a trade publication? How about putting some of these stories on the neighborhood websites or sending them to selected bloggers?

In Seminole Heights we have an advantage over other parts of Tampa in that we have some great reporters who live here and experience some of these stories themselves. And also because we are a more interesting part of town than New Tampa or Brandon.

Here are some Tampa media listings off of Mondo Times
Bay News 9 TV
St. Petersburg Times newspaper
Tampa Tribune newspaper
USF Oracle (university) newspaper
Tampa Bay Business Journal newspaper
Accent On Tampa Bay magazine
CitiLife magazine
Event (city guides) magazine
Tampa Bay Metro (city guides) magazine
WEDU TV 3 (PBS) TV
Weekly Planet Tampa Bay (city guides) newspaper
WFLA TV 8 (NBC) TV
WFTS TV 28 (ABC) TV
WMNF FM 88.5 radio
WMOR TV 32 (IND) TV
WTSP TV 10 (CBS) TV
WTTA TV 38 (WB) TV
WTVT TV 13 (FOX) TV
WUSF FM 89.7 (NPR) radio
WUSF TV 16 (PBS) TV