The first casualty of public relations is the truth. And Blue Sky News, the in-house PR organ of the Allegheny County Airport Authority, has a regular, and bad, habit of confirming that aphorism.
Consider this passage — with the subheading of “A city on the rise” — from a recent “news story” on how crews of the taxpayer-subsidized British Airways (BA) flights have chosen Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) as among their “favorite airports”:
“While PIT inches closer to opening its brand-new terminal in 2025, the city mimics its progress. Pittsburgh is a city on the rise – and not just because it’s known for its hills and inclines.
“National Geographic’s ‘Here Not There’ by Andrew Nelson presents 100 alternatives to popular travel destinations, and Pittsburgh is one of those 100.
“Nelson compares Pittsburgh to San Francisco, recommending travelers trade the latter for the former next time they plan a vacation.
“Pittsburgh shares San Francisco’s hilly landscapes and booming tech sector. Nelson’s book entry highlights Pittsburgh’s growth over the past century – emerging as a blue-collar steel city and blossoming into what VisitPittsburgh calls a ‘green, forward-thinking technology hub.’
“’For those that haven’t been, Pittsburgh is a revelation,’ Nelson writes. ‘Like San Francisco, it’s a mix of forward-thinking technology sectors mixed with some of the most historic and community-minded 19th-century neighborhoods found anywhere. And, of course, hills.’”
Reasonable, thinking people might have a few issues with this passage.
The first thing that comes to mind is that the current airport supposedly is among the BA crews’ favorite airports – in a piece that toggles to sing the virtues of the coming new airport terminal.
Guess we’ll have to wait and see if the BA crews like it as much. Ahem.
But that’s a piddling thing compared to the article’s overall “city on the rise” contention.
For cities “on the rise” are characterized by economic and population growth. Pittsburgh has neither.
Pittsburgh Golden Triangle downtown isn’t so golden anymore.
Office vacancy rates soon could hit 30 percent.
Unsavory elements continue to have a grip on the once-bustling center of commerce.
The city’s public schools are, with few exceptions, a failure.
“Progress” erroneously is measured in terms of what private enterprises taxpayers subsidize.
The property tax system lies in shambles.
Public transit is a massively over-expensive farce.
Instead of shaking hands with the positive economic forces that there are, government leaders all too often shake their fists at them.
In too many ways, Pittsburgh continues to sacrifice bona fide progress at the altar of slavish devotion to organized labor.
And we could go on and on.
These are not characteristics of a city on the rise but in demise. And no amount of incongruous cheerleading – or outright lies –can change that fact. That we allow ourselves to be deluded otherwise is the tragedy that befalls sheeple.
And shame on those who continually apply a new, fresh shade of lipstick on the pig. And shame on the body politic for putting up with it for so long.
Pittsburgh, and cities like it, must face the truth and act. For if it continues to believe the scores of years filled with scores of lies, it surely will die.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
