Buddy and the Media, Pt. 1

Is the media too obsessed with Buddy Cianci?

Rhode Islanders have been innundated with Cianci news over the last week, and I'm as guilty as the next wretch in dishing it out on this blog. In this week's Phoenix, I take a look at the media frenzy surrounding Cianci's reemergence, and I'll post that link after it goes up.

In some ways, the media's fascination with Buddy is probably greater than that of the public at large, although he certainly is a legitimate story.

WPRI's Tim White has described this duality: on one hand, some people ask why the media won't leave Buddy alone; on the other hand, many of these same individuals certainly take a keen interest in the changed appearance of the former mayor and related details.

White, formerly the managing editor at Boston's WBZ-TV, has a unique perspective on this. He's a relatively newcomer in the Rhode Island media, but as the son of the late, great Jack White, he's also something of an old hand. (I make no secret of the fact that I am a big fan of the White family. It was Jack who first invited me to appear on WPRI-WNAC's Newsmakers, and I think Tim has been doing a fine job, following in his father's footsteps, as Channel 12's investigative reporter.)

So I was curious about what White would say when I asked him how much news value there was in being there at the Barnstable County Sheriff's Office when Cianci's electronic monitoring braclet was removed last Friday morning. White was the only reporter there -- and Channel 12 trumpeted its exclusive. "I do think there is news value in such an iconic figure," White says. "Any time he does anything, people are interested. It also has news value for me," since it's much easier when a reporter is ahead of a story, rather than pursuing it after the fact. As it happened, WPRI reported this news on its noon broadcast last Friday.

It wasn't until the next day when White actually got a chance to meet Cianci, the storied political figure about whom he'd heard so much, for so long. Since he was reared on tales of Cianci, from when his father was an investigative reporter at the ProJo, "I was looking forward to covering that story for that reason." White says he wrote letters to Cianci when the former mayor was imprisoned in New Jersey, but had not heard back.

Yet when White had a chance to introduce himself as Buddy stopped to chat with reporters before a Saturday night dinner at Cafe Nuovo, Cianci quickly recognized his name, expressing sympathy for the death of Jack White in 2005 and praising Jack as a great man. (When Cianci was indicted as part of the Operation Plunder Dome investigation, he memorably described learning about it from Jack White.)

While the media is mostly interested in Buddy Cianci because of who he is, this anecdote shows how the personal relationships that help to form community remain close at hand in the small place that is Rhode Island.