It’s not like any of us have to search far for something infuriating. But this business with KARE-TV firing a morning weatherman for … re-tweeting something a rabbi said … presses all of my buttons.

Now, I don’t personally know any of the characters involved in this remarkably spineless drama, other than John Remes, KARE’s general manager. According to the very minimal reporting on the incident to date, it was Remes who, um, enforced company policy. But everything that is visible about the firing of Sven Sundgaard is too familiar to the innocuous-oriented world of local TV news to ignore.

In an official statement — posted on Facebook, not delivered directly by Remes — the station GM makes no specific reference to the re-tweet, but instead justifies Sundgaard’s firing on “continued violations of KARE 11’s news ethics and other policies”. No further explanation. Thereby leaving the impression that the weatherman is guilty of a series of offenses, none of which can be mentioned because of, wait for it, corporate privacy policies.

The basic story is that Sundgaard, a Twin Cities native and 11-year employee (for whatever that’s worth), retweeted a comment by Michael Latz, head rabbi for Shir Tikvah, a temple in southwest Minneapolis well known for its commitment to liberal social issues.

Latz’ tweet read:

“Morning Consult, a reputable polling firm dropped a poll last week that stated 81% of Americans support our governor’s [sic] Stay At Home directives in oirder to save lives and slow the spread of COVID-19. 81% of Americans is approximately 272,000,000 people. I understand the press has an obligation to cover rallies at state capitols by the “liberate the state” white nationalist Nazi sympathizer gun fetishist miscreants. We must pay attention to armed extremists. And. Despite support from the President & the Chair of the Republican National Committee there were less than 10,000 of these protestors across the nation. Keep perspective.”

So okay, the rabbi may be admonished for the line about “white nationalist Nazi sympathizer”. But given any educated Jew’s familiarity with the Holocaust and the faces of incipient fascism, he gets a pass from me for jumping to that particular conclusion. As for the business about “gun fetishist”, and “miscreants” and “armed extremist”, what’s to debate? Would Mr. Remes care to step into the bright light of a public forum and disagree with any of those characterizations?

The Star Tribune story included a telling bit about increasingly desperate and subservient GOP Senate candidate/former talk-radio “host”, Jason Lewis tweeting on the very day Remes fired Sundgaard. Said Lewis, ” ‘Today’s forecast: mostly sunny w/ a chance of idiocy’, ‘#Covid_19 models are about as accurate as his forecasts. @kare11 should fire him’!”

Which Remes then did.

It is too facile to conclude that Lewis drove the decision, (especially since he let the anti-Sundgaard wave build in the right-wing fever swamps for 11 days before boldly leaping in to exploit the rage). But Lewis very much represents the all-too familiar existential fear of commercial news managers, TV in particular.

In the best of times, local TV executives are disproportionately reactive to anger and rage from the right wing echo chamber. Employees in any newsroom you care to ask are all too familiar with the eerily uniform flood of calls, e-mails and tweets from, as the rabbi put it, “white nationalist … gun fetishist miscreants.” (They get calls from angry minority and liberal groups as well, but rarely if ever in as great a number or in such disturbing cult-like lockstep.)

And with advertising revenue cratering faster than 2008, these are far from the best of times.

Local TV news is a low denominator game. It is constructed to offend … no one. Ever. It remains in business by assiduously avoiding conflict and controversy. It long, long ago even stopped offering regular editorial commentary on important issues. It’s business model requires marketing, along with the attractiveness of its anchors, a bland, edge-free variety of news reporting. A variety in which the station itself has no thoughts about, concerns over or stake in the appearance of … “armed extremists” on public streets.

Since Remes and KARE (owned by Gannett under it’s TEGNA umbrella) will hide behind their company’s “personnel privacy” policies as long as they can, we may never learn what other, if any, “ethics policies” Sundgaard continually violated. But until then you know, in the interest of protecting the former valued employee’s privacy, let the public’s imagination run wild! What else? Pedophilia? Embezzlement? Racketeering? Parking in Remes’ assigned spot?

It’s important to note that Sundgaard also declined comment on his firing. I suspect there is contract severance language requiring non-disparagment if not total silence.

Given the absence of any consistent media reporting or analysis in Minnesota, (a self-serving reference), it’ll be interesting to see if any entity of influence — the Strib editorial page, a pubic letter from a prominent local TV news “leader” — steps up in Sundgaard’s defense? Or at the very least to defend the right of employees to also be citizens and express concerns and opinions — about armed extremists — on their personal social media.

Far better though would be that mythical person(s) of influence examine the root of employers’ fears over First Amendment expression by citizen-employees? Is it really as shallow and cowardly as a potential loss of ad revenue?

Lacking even a minimum level of transparency — for a business based on the emotional appeal of its personalities — the public’s imagination will continue to harbor suspicions. Namely that KARE fired Sundgaard for retweeting what the majority of Minnesotans think when they see a small bunch of astro-turfed miscreants waving guns on public property.