Tag Archives: Pioneer Press

Never Mind The New York Times, The Local Press is Still Giving Klobuchar a Pass

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How’s that old saying go? “Even a mental picture is worth 10,000 words”? In an image-conscious world there are pictures that stick in your head, pretty much obliterating, you know, balanced reasoning.

Here in Minnesota we’re very familiar with the picture of pre-Senatorial Al Franken pretending to accost the ample bosom of a sleeping colleague, a colleague who was on his USO trip largely for the thrills her ample bosom gave our fighting troops in the Middle East. Later accusations that Franken was also accosting buttocks (ample or otherwise) while taking photos with constituents of course went uninvestigated. But those charges didn’t have to be proven true. Franken’s judges and jury — here’s looking at you presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand — had the frat boy photo with the sleeping bosom.

 

That was all they really needed. Franken was guilty of, well, contempt for womanhood, to put it one way. We couldn’t think of anything more dehumanizing or revolting! What an ogre! He simply had to go!

And now we have … Amy Klobuchar eating a salad with a comb. No photographic evidence is needed. We all get the picture. A picture that invariably comes with the GIF-like image of a woman sticking a groaty comb with teetering salad in her mouth … just to spite a terrified staffer. (I still don’t buy that a U.S. airline didn’t have so much as a plastic fork on board for — for a US Senator — for a flight from South Carolina to DC.) But, whatever.

I’ve already said what I think about the not-dead-yet stories of Klobuchar mistreating her staff. (Short answer: I don’t care.) And I understand that most readers don’t give a damn about how Minnesota’s local media did — or in this case didn’t –– cover the first round of accusations against Our Favorite Senator. Likewise, I am well aware that for many women, these attacks on Klobuchar are pure sexism — women being held to different, higher standard than piggish males — period. Full stop.

But as someone who was once a member of “the media”, and who wrote about “the media” and is still intrigued by the editorial choices made by “the media”, I have to say, again, that the locals’ performance in this sideshow to the Klobuchar campaign roll-out was remarkably … weak. Or “lame”, if you prefer. And still is.

It’s one thing to play the PR homer for the local sports teams. And it’s one thing to fill half your news hole day in and day out with “Service Journalism” entertainment-irrelevancy. But when that policy is directed at an elected official strategizing for the White House, it’s just not excusable. Again … period. Full stop.

When the first accusations were thrown at Klobuchar by reporters at The Huffington Post, an attitude among the local press corps was something akin to sniffing dismissal. “The Huffington Post! Please! Since when is that real journalism! Why half their news hole every day is filled with entertainment and irrelevancy! Movie stars and cutsie-poo singers we’ve never heard of! We are Serious. We have standards! Everything on the record or we don’t run it! Anonymous sources? Not us in a billion years!”

As a result, there was practically no reference to The Huffington Post story in the days leading up to and immediately following Klobuchar’s kick-off. The “sourcing” standards at The Huffington Post simply didn’t meet the standards of The Star Tribune, or Minnesota Public Radio or the Pioneer Press or our local TV news rooms, (the primary news sources for most of us.)

There were exceptions, and good on them. But the prevailing editorial decision (likely based on the fact that literally dozens of other unimpeachably Serious news organizations, like the Boston Globe, Bloomberg News, etc. were comfortable enough with The Huffington Post’s sourcing to run the story) was to make a fleeting reference to “on-line” and “anonymous” accusations deep in the Strib’s mostly “hail and hallelujah” copy. Further, when Klobuchar finally responded to the “on-line” accusations by conceding that she can be a tough boss — because her “grit”, you understand — the matter was relegated down to nothing more than predictable reaction to a “demanding” boss.

Things changed just a wee bit this Friday when The New York Times picked up where The Huffington Post left off and did their own reporting, which churned up the story of the groaty comb and the salad. Apparently accepting that The New York Times’ sourcing standards are at least as lofty as theirs’, the Strib on Saturday ran the Times piece (not their own reporting to be sure) under the headline, “Klobuchar seen as tough boss.” (Worth noting is that the hed for on-line version was: “Former Amy Klobuchar staffers describe work environment of volatility, distrust.” I’d like to think someone in the Strib newsroom complained about that soft-core dead tree version.)

Let me repeat, I don’t care if Klobuchar rants and berates her staff or eats salads with groaty combs. That’s not why I vote for her.

But gross sexism withstanding, this was a campaign issue when The Huffington Post first reported it and is more so now that The New York Times has put its stamp on it. It matters.  It looks very much like something that could prove problematic for Klobuchar, a lot like Howard Dean’s manic yell was for him in Iowa years ago, not to mention the underlying character issue with Klobuchar is a lot more potent.

Contrary to the way the Strib, MPR and others around town hoped to play this at the get-go, the issue isn’t merely whether Klobuchar is a “demanding”, or “tough” boss, which suggests someone who yells a lot when stuff goes wrong. It’s whether she’s chronically abusive and demeaning to her staff of mostly lowly-paid young people. There’s a very big difference there.

Frankly, I’m not convinced the accusations against Klobuchar are only rank sexism. And I do think there’s an interesting conversation to be had on that question.

My point here is that the local press is still failing a basic obligation to report out a clear obstacle in Klobuchar’s campaign.

 

 

 

 

 

So Apparently Amy “The Mean Boss” is Not a Story in Minnesota

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As I begin writing this it 10 :27 on Friday morning, and we’re getting an object lesson in what is and isn’t news … in hometown Minnesota.

At this moment none of the major news organizations in the Twin Cities have said anything about The Huffington Post story on Amy Klobuchar (i.e. Amy’s a bad boss) other than pieces by Esme Murphy at WCCO-TV and Bob Collins at MPR, the latter generally sympathetic to the dilemma of female candidates having to be more “likable” than the usual brow-beating, desk-pounding male tyrants.

Now there are several possible reasons why the “local media” (to lump them all together) sees no value in so much as a bottom-of-page 22 two-paragraph item. Let me list them:

1: No local reporter or editor is yet aware of this story/accusation. They are not regularly following The Huffington Post, The Boston Globe, Esquire, Bloomberg, PoliticalWire, The Daily Beast, Slate, Talking Points Memo, New York magazine  and … well, you get the idea. If this explanation is true and the local press corps lives in some kind of Minnesota-Only hibernaculum, well that does not speak well of them, does it?

2: No local reporter or editor sees any news value in this story. “It’s just crazy ranting on Twitter!” “The sourcing is anonymous.” “Huffington Post is bullshit.” All those arguments can be made, but how many times have the same reporters and editors — who require Twitter as much as oxygen — dropped in a story purely on the grounds that “it is out there”? Or, if The Huffington Post’s sourcing — which included several loyal Klobuchar staffers obviously concerned enough to rally to their boss’s defense and attach their names vouching for her management style — is good enough for Bloomberg, The Boston Globe, Esquire and New York magazine (and dozens of others) why isn’t it good enough for The Star Tribune, MPR or the Pioneer Press? All of them have/are running featherweight promotional stories touting her likely presidential announcement this Sunday.

3: Every local reporter, editor and publisher would be in deep do-do with not just Klobuchar, but her deep, wide and influential support base in Minnesota if they touch this story. So much as whisper that people “out there” are talking about Amy the Bad Boss, (which quite a few have described as “an open secret”), and good luck the next time you try to access the Senator’s office, or have a cozy drink with that influential kingmaker/benefactor who has always been such a valuable source of insider DFL gossip.

4: Speaking of “everyone already knows this” … . Any political reporter with two ears and a note pad has heard tales of Klobuchar’s “management style” going way back in her career … and is now dismissing it as … normal. As just the same sort of thing you hear about every political office. You know, near psychotic levels of second-guessing, in-fighting, mis-judgments, blame-placing and paranoia. Same old same old. She may be marginally worse than Al Franken or Norm Coleman or Rod Grams or Paul Wellstone (?!), but not enough to count for anything, not even a tiny item casually mentioning that a significant chunk of the national press has taken note of this and is undoubtably asking more questions, some of them possibly uncomfortable.

As I’ve said before, whether Klobuchar is the harridan anonymous sources claim is not something that concerns me much, on a wholly selfish level. As long she does most of want I want done, she can lock her staff up in public stocks, hang them in gibbets and/or demand they clip her toe-nails. I don’t care.

But as nasty as politics is on a good day, presidential politics are like the Russians overrunning Berlin in 1945.

Closer to the political dilemma for Klobuchar, “mean bosses”, like sex with interns, is something everyone believes they understand and has an opinion about. If this becomes an identifying characteristic of Klobuchar the candidate it’ll be very difficult to overcome.

As for our local press, I’m yet again reminded of a chat I had with old pal David Carr a couple years after he landed at the New York Times. I was ranting about some study showing how little the general public knew about the financial stress on newspapers and how the whole business was being eaten away by private equity vipers … and Carr interrupted.

“Brian,” he said in the avuncular, vaguely patronizing tone he adopted in his later years, “no one cares about newspapers. I can write a column about some paper and all I get is crickets. No one cares.”

This “Nothing to See Here, Folks” Klobuchar episode may have something to do with that.

 

The Nick I Knew

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I don’t want to belabor the similarities between Tom Wolfe and Nick Coleman, but since they’ve both passed within the same moment there are a couple qualities worth offering up for inspection.

There’s no question Wolfe and Coleman shared a distaste often bordering on contempt for meek and restrained conventional journalism. The world was more vibrant and nuanced and, hell, theatrical than what your average daily broad sheet was describing to you.

They also shared a level of self-confidence that egged them on to conflicts with peers and cultural figures they regarded as too immune to fair comment. A good, righteous battle required an adversary of substance.

Nick was a friend I met back in the early Eighties when he was still the TV critic for the Tribune. I had been reading him faithfully for sometime before our mutual friend David Carr got us together, most likely for drinks, most likely at Moby Dick’s or some other unsanitized dungeon Carr was patronizing at the time.

 

 

Unlike every other TV critic I read as I kicked around the country, Coleman was scabrously funny. He didn’t see his role as a stenographic PR desk for the “stars”, be they Hollywood sitcom starlets or local TV anchors. His job description said “critic” and he flashed that license with relish.

I know it earned him a red circle around his name with the Hollywood PR machine. Nick Coleman: Not a reliable asset, if you know what I mean. (Long after he left the beat former colleagues around the country were telling hilarious stories of Coleman, in big ballroom interview sessions, commandeering the mic and gleefully vivisecting some pompous network executive or creative wunderkind du jour.)

He and I grew closer in the two years Carr, Eric Eskola and I produced a weekly half hour media talk show, “The Facts As We Know Them”, on cable access. Coleman was a regular guest, and as you’d expect from a guy whose father was a prominent politician, the most dangerous place in the studio was between Nick and the camera.

But we kept asking him back because, A: Preening for the camera was what we were all doing, B: Coleman could tell a damn good story and therefore hold the room, and C: His factuality was way better than average, even allowing for plenty of righteous hyperbole.

Like Wolfe, Nick was genetically coded for center stage. That fact of character may well have been to key to his undoing as time passed and newspaper managers became steadily less comfortable with big, in-your-face personalities with lots of thoughts on every imaginable topic.

The guy had a very unique career path. As dyed-in-the-green Kerry wool a son-of-St. Paul as you’ll ever find, Nick leveraged his popularity (among readers, if not editors and disapproving, convention-bound newsroom colleagues) over to the Pioneer Press and then back to the Strib yeas later.

While at the Pioneer Press, we shared, with cronies like Katherine Lanpher and Rick Shefchik, long lunches that were basically competitions to see who could say what that would make the others blow coffee out their noses. (Nick, as his closest, dearest friends will tell you, not only kept the most astonishingly cluttered desk, a teetering slum of paper, tchotchkes and long dead paper cups, but was also the world’s messiest diner. His corner of the table at the end of lunch looked like it had been hit by an ISIS mortar attack. A 40% tip couldn’t begin to compensate whoever had to clean up after him.)

As Nick saw it, a metro columnist’s license was like a diploma from the Mike Royko/Jimmy Breslin school of full contact journalism. Far from getting a pass because of their social standing, and the high likelihood they would soon be making cocktail circuit chatter with newspaper bosses, the plump and entitled of the city were irresistible targets for attack, or even a classic Irish feud, as Coleman’s brawls with Garrison Keillor proved.

Moreover, righteous liberal politics were baked into the gig. The fat cats could hire platoons of flacks to spin their saintliness. But the people they were constantly screwing over needed someone with a big public pulpit to argue their case. Nick saw himself as that guy.

Unfortunately as he found out, the game was shifting. The well-fed, glory days of newspapering – where indignant, bull moose-like columnists could lay regular siege to the thin humanitarian veneer of community leaders — were being replaced with an ever more corporatized editorial culture.

Never exactly a hot bed of provocateurs, (other than the sports department), as the internet squeezed their parent companies (i.e. private equity bandits) regional papers like the Star Tribune and Pioneer Press subtly but steadily migrated toward an institutional voice that was less personal and less confrontational and more committed to what we’ll euphemistically call “consensus building”.

Stoking partisan anger with columns attacking the slick cynicism of sitting governors – Coleman v. Pawlenty for example – was, uh, discomfiting to managers charged with sustaining circulation and ad revenue in conservative, outer ring suburbs and maintaining good relations with major, usually Republican business owners.

The key admonition to writers inclined to batter the revenue class was to avoid being “needlessly provocative”. What writers like Nick Coleman weren’t supposed to say out loud to their editors’ faces was that they were such pathetic wimps a “needless provocation” could be as little as saying “shit” when you stepped in it.

Nick knew the old newspaper mule of his youth had gone terminally lame when the Star Tribune, with conservative columnist Katherine Kersten and him exchanging (heavily read) volleys over the 2008 presidential election, issued instructions to both to avoid any further comment on the election until it was over. Because you know, that’s when readers want to argue over politics.

Based entirely on Nick’s telling of the, uh, conversations he had with Star Tribune management over that one, it was clear his Obsequious/Deference Deficiency Disorder had gotten him in hotter water than ever before.

No one doubts Nick could be annoying as all hell, and that’s coming from people like me who didn’t have to supervise him. As far as employee-to-employer subservience went, Nick’s basic message to any editor telling him what to do was: “Look, all you need to know is that I’m damned good at what I do, and thousands of people read this paper because of me. So go find someone else to fuck with.”

Classic old school bosses might have yelled back at him and made perfunctory threats, before in the end conceding (to themselves) that he was right and that passionate characters like “that asshole Coleman” were vital to any relevant, healthy newspaper. But the newer crowd, fresh from six months of the corporate management academy, had a much lower threshold for blowback. A big, blustering bear like Nick was seen as a direct threat to their authority.

He had to be controlled.

Nick and I bonded anew in the mid-aughts as the Star Tribune began dropping the hammer on him.

Just as every crisis is an opportunity, the paper’s financial distress presented managers ideal cover to finally deal with “problem” employees. Officially, nothing could be further from the truth. For the record, it It was all about “right-sizing.” But in reality, any news reporter who failed to see what was happening for what it was was too credulous by half and really needed to find a different line of work.

As the Star Tribune tightened the screws, Nick would call two, sometimes three times a day, reporting on the latest ultimatum, squirrely management-speak verbiage and outright insults … at least as he saw them.

It was painful just to hear it. As I say, Nick was a fiercely proud, intensely competitive guy. Moreover he had substantial bottom line proof, in terms of readership, that his talents and distinctive voice were driving eyeballs to the paper. But as he told it, the paper wanted him to either confine himself to a far more modulated tone, you know, emphasizing “the good things that bind us together” instead of, to quote Nick, “the fucking scumbags looting the public coffers”, or give up the columnist gig completely and move over to some straight reporting beat.

The lame mule would also have had to have been blind not to see what they really wanted. Every option would be a public humiliation for such a proud, high-profile writer. The unspoken message to him was: just to go away.

And so he did.

Frankly, based on all the conversations as the shit was coming down, I was worried for him, and I told him so. The biggest difference between the two of us, besides reporting talent, was Nick’s investment in being a public figure. Loved or hated, it didn’t matter to him. He was in the game. He was a player. But removed from the action entirely? I didn’t like the potent.

He was of course a lot tougher and had a deeper pool of resources than I gave him credit for. (Some of my expressions of concern were a way of signaling that people – especially his enemies — would be watching to see how he handled it all, and not to feed the bastards’ lust for schadenfreude.)

In the months after he left the paper we met several times to kick around ideas that might approximate a return to the public stage.

He had tried a radio gig with ultra-lefty AM 950. It quickly went south when the not exactly progressive owner-operator, who was barely paying him gas money, melted down and handed him a list of edicts designed to muzzle The Full Coleman fury of his act.

The only thing missing from her list was a traumatic castration.

(Nick the proud, unrepentant liberal was so reviled by some commercial broadcasters he was literally forced out of the studio when I had him on as a guest on my show at right-wing KTLK.)

When I got the call telling me about his stroke and imminent death I felt a rush of remorse. I hadn’t had any contact with him in five years. Heading out on a camping trip, I crossed paths with his family and him at a sporting goods store in Grand Marais. The formality of the interaction accentuated an underlying tension. What exactly it was, I’m still not exactly sure.

I recall being annoyed when he showed no enthusiasm for a dual-headed media/politics blog, a kind dual exhaust rant fest. I thought it could be fun. It might even attract some attention and some walking round cash. We both agreed that other than celebrity foo-foo and collegial, transactional reporting, media coverage was a gaping hole in the Twin Cities news menu.

I took his disinterest as a reluctance to co-brand with me. Such are my insecurities. What he really thought, I never knew. But suddenly years had gone by and now he’s dead.

Over the years I was often struck when people who knew I knew Nick would ask, “Why do you like that guy?” (My wife adored him BTW. It was all that pained-poetic Irish crap, I’m certain.)

What I couldn’t understand was what they weren’t seeing in what he wrote, and if they bothered to get to know him, the gracious and informal way he treated most people.

The guy plainly had a big heart and a soul. He cared, truly and deeply about the people and causes he wrote about. The obvious converse of caring is that is he saw no good reason to coddle the other crowd, the goddam soulless stooges and jackals making life more difficult for the decent folks.

Yeah, beers with Nick meant listening to a lot of Nick. It’s true what they say about the Irish, “You can tell ‘em, but you can’t tell ‘em much.” But as a dominating force Nick had the immense benefit of being well-informed, damned funny and sincere about the people and things he cared about.

If the trade-off was learning not to wait for him to ask, “So, what’s up with you?” The whole package, the whole experience all put together was well worth your time.

There’s no shortage of boorish egos polluting the landscape. (Lord, if Nick had a column and free rein in the era of Trump!)  But there are far too few of the big ego people who thicken and season the (Irish) stew with talent, conscience and, you gotta love it, the theatrical flourish of genuine righteous anger.

Rest easy, Nick. You’ve served your fellow man well.

 

Why Do Big Newspapers Still Allow Ugly, Racist Comments?

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Lambert_to_the_SlaughterOne of the things that comes with a writer’s territory is a story that never gets published, for reasons that are not entirely clear. This is one of those. The topic of public comments on newspaper web sites is interesting for a number of reasons, among them the way anonymity may (or may not) encourage truly ugly racial invective, something you’d think a large newspaper with a sense of civic responsibility would seek to avoid whenever possible and at the very least edit out prior to publication, particularly in times of racial tensions, such we’ve seen here in Minneapolis this fall.

Anyway, as I say, this media column didn’t pass muster, so I’m  posting it here. Because I believe it’s a discussion worth having.

IT BEGINS:

Anyone even remotely familiar with the internet is aware of and frequently appalled by how quickly any “discussion” among website commenters, especially a big city newspaper’s site, degenerates into juvenile name-calling and worse. It was definitely worse recently when Star Tribune readers piled in on what was, ironically, an uplifting story by John Reinan about a Muslim family’s successful home-owning experience with the help of Habitat for Humanity.

Rather than embrace an opportunity for some holiday season good-will-among-men, the Strib’s commenters immediately, predictably, descended into all-too familiar hostility and racist epithets. (The Strib has removed that particular comment thread.) The waves of vitriol, mainly against the family featured in the story, led Abdi Mohamed, the homeowner to respond with a letter to the Strib several days later.

“I don’t think this awful name-calling would have happened had we had American-sounding names,” he wrote. “We have always considered ourselves American, by any measure, and have been good citizens, paying our fair share of taxes and volunteering in our community. But my faith as a Minnesotan is shaken. I have been calling Minnesota my home for the last 17 years, and my kids were born right here in Minneapolis. My take from the readers is that ‘you don’t belong here in America’.” Dozens wrote in in support. But very soon a minor flame war broke out even on that thread over one anonymous commenter’s admonition to Muslims like Mohammed’s wife, to “lose the costume.”

In other words, all-in-all, real edifying, high-caliber stuff.

Comment sections have an undeniable voyeuristic appeal. Commenters say things most of us would never imagine ourselves saying, much less in public. Our reaction varies between snorts of derision, guffaws and utter dismay.

The conventional argument in favor of comment sections is that they offer an unfiltered vox populi. Like it or not, delighted or horrified, this is what your neighbors are thinking. The question though is this: Is there a point where reader comments become too ugly and cruel that a large public entity like a daily newspaper has a civic obligation to turn them off? Does an important community asset like the Star Tribune have a responsibility to re-assess its attitude toward commenters and draw a line at the point where a vicious, repugnant and — key word here — anonymous few hijack the paper’s social media heft to incite others to spasms of racist verbal attack?

In a perfect world someone among the Strib’s top editorial echelon would offer an answer to this question, or more specifically, as I asked, “What is your best argument for keeping the Star Tribune’s comment policy as it is?” Unfortunately, calls and e-mails to editor Rene Sanchez, Sr. Managing editor Suki Dardarian were not returned. Only Asst. Managing Editor Eric Wieffering responded, and then only to confirm that Strib editorial management had no interest in discussing the topic. So much for an informed, civil dialogue.

If the topic ever does interest them we’ll revisit it. Until that time the conversation is this: The Strib might strongly consider adjusting its comment policy and following the lead of either us here at MinnPost or, failing that, Popular Science, (or USA Today, or The Wall Street Journal).

Recognizing the near inevitability that anonymous commenting will quickly degenerate into a battle of flaming trolls and grossly under-informed invective, MinnPost’s policy from the get go requires commenters to, A: Register and post using their full, real name and, B: Submit to moderation. No doubt the policy seriously diminishes the quantity of comments. But the upside is that commenters maintain a dramatically higher level of civility while arguing their ideological points. If they don’t they’re deleted before they are published.

A case may also be made that a full-disclosure, moderated comment forum provides a safer harbor for the articulate if fainter-hearted souls who recoil at the thought of being assaulted in public by some unidentified CAPS-LOCKING!!! troll.

Or, if moderation, which would require a pretty much full-time employee, is a step too far, the Strib may consider the path Popular Science took two years ago and disconnect the comment option entirely. At the time, the venerable tech and DIY magazine essentially threw up its hands at the way anonymous commenters regularly hijacked discussions of god-knows-what, — hyper-sonic jets graphene or climate change — with rants about Barack Obama … the Kenyan Muslim terrorist sympathizer.

Said Suzanne LaBarre for the magazine, “A politically motivated, decades-long war on expertise has eroded the popular consensus on a wide variety of scientifically validated topics. Everything, from evolution to the origins of climate change, is mistakenly up for grabs again. Scientific certainty is just another thing for two people to ‘debate’ on television. And because comments sections tend to be a grotesque reflection of the media culture surrounding them, the cynical work of undermining bedrock scientific doctrine is now being done beneath our own stories, within a website devoted to championing science.”

LaBarre referred to a University of Wisconsin study on the peculiar psychological effect anonymity has on people, on-line commenters in particular. Among the findings, which come as no surprise to anyone who follows this stuff, the loudest and most active of the anonymous commenters were also those in least possession of accurate information about a given topic and yet the most certain — defiantly certain — of their point of view. (Her central point was that the study also showed how ugly, defiantly ignorant comments had the effect of eroding casual readers’ trust in the accuracy of the story itself.)

Writing about Popular Science’s decision, Maria Konnikova in The New Yorker a month later added, “Multiple studies have also illustrated that when people don’t think they are going to be held immediately accountable for their words they are more likely to fall back on mental shortcuts in their thinking and writing, processing information less thoroughly. They become, as a result, more likely to resort to simplistic evaluations of complicated issues, as the psychologist Philip Tetlock has repeatedly found over several decades of research on accountability.”

Konnikova also cites a couple studies suggesting that the most vitriolic of the anonymous crowd are, thank god for small blessings, given less credence by the sum of all readers. But the response to that, from a large broadly-marketed community entity like the Star Tribune, should be a concern for the effect vitriol has the smaller, shall we say, “most impressionable” fraction of their audience.

Over at the Pioneer Press, editor Mike Burbach found time and sufficient interest to return the call and refer me to Jen Westphal, the paper’s Deputy Editor for Digital News and Social Media. She explained that the PiPress, while requiring registration with a valid IP and e-mail address making the commenter known to the paper, still permits anonymity as well post-publication moderation, which is to say someone at the PiPress steps in only when alerted to egregious behavior.

The Star Tribune policy appears to be much the same, although as I say, no one in the paper’s editorial management or its digital services department would discuss it. Clearly though, given the ugly flame wars that break out with depressing regularity, no one is moderating/approving comments prior to publication.

There are also filters a the PiPress, Westphal says, for certain key words — the usual cussing — and the obvious racial/ethnic invective. But otherwise vox populi rules.

“We used to use Facebook commenting,” she says, “which theoretically required them to use their real name, even though there are ways to get around that, too. We used it for about two years, I think. But we found it didn’t help with what you’re talking about. People said things just as bad as when they were anonymous.”

Coincidentally, Facebook was under criticism this past week for prohibiting anonymity. “Vulnerable communities” demanded a special exemption, to avoid being targeted by trolls.

Facebook consented, but reiterated it’s policy. “We require people to use the name their friends and family know them by. the company said. When people use the names they are known by, their actions and words carry more weight because they are more accountable for what they say. We’re firmly committed to this policy, and it is not changing. However, after hearing feedback from our community, we recognise that it’s also important that this policy works for everyone, especially for communities who are marginalised or face discrimination.”

Sad Westphal at the PiPress, “We prefer to keep comments, at least for now, things can always change, and we have talked about it, because we still see them as a valuable forum for public discussion. It’s the best place a normal resident of St. Paul can go to discuss parking meters on Grand Avenue or whatever.

The flare-up over the Reinan story erupted simultaneous with racial tensions spiking in Minneapolis following the terror attacks in Paris and the police shooting of Jamar Clark. Far too much demagoguery was already in the air. Which is why it is fair to ask whether responsible establishments with broad and deep community roots, like a daily newspaper, are reexamining the role they play in churning the cesspool.

Essentially: Why offer a venue for adding fuel to these fires?

None of which is to say that if the Strib pulls the plug on comments, vitriolic anonymous trolls will slink away and observe some kind of monastic silence. There are literally millions of other websites where they can and do collect. Fringy places where they can huddle and out-vitriol each other and whoever stumbles in. But those sites aren’t hosted by an organization of professional journalists, a company speaking to and representing hundreds of thousands of reader/citizens more interested in information than hyperbolic attack.

MN Loses A Treasure: Reporter Jim Ragsdale

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Jim_RagsdaleVeteran Twin Cities political reporter Jim Ragsdale was smart, decent, savvy, warm, and oh-so witty. Pancreatic fucking cancer got him today at 64 years old, and I’m going to miss him like mad.

Great musicians get their most heartfelt ovations when they come out to present one of their masterpieces as an encore.  So, the best way I can think of to honor my pal Rags is to feature one of his many masterpieces as an encore:

Minnesota — broke, a little bloated, and now looking for a new love

By Jim Ragsdale

Updated: 05/20/2010 05:58:46 PM CDT

He goes on long trips without explanation. He comes home and criticizes my appearance, even as he pays greater attention to his own image. Where there once was fondness and love, now all I get is, ‘Your taxes are too high! You’re spending too much! You have to cut back!’

I hate to say it after seven wonderful years, but I, Minnesota, can avoid the truth no longer. My governor, Tim Pawlenty, is seeing someone else.

Am I the last to figure this out? My neighbors, particularly, Iowa, said he has been seen there often, giving their presidential voters the affection I once received. Bigshot pundits who are on the make for a new star delight when he trashes me. But I thought that was, you know, just business, and not really serious.

I admit I have problems. My taxes and spending are on the heavy side — although I’m not as bulky as he likes to say. But hey, I’m Minnesota. I think I carry the weight well. And he knew all this going in back in ’03, when all was kisses and hugs. Why is he dumping me now for slimmer, sexier states?

Sorry — my bitterness occasionally gets the best of me. Deep breaths — in, out. Now, let me give you the whole sad story.

Gov. Tim was born and raised in Minnesota. He has lived and studied and worked here his whole life and he seemed to really care about me. We both knew there were things he didn’t like. He’s “red” and I always go “blue” in presidential years. He’s a fiscal conservative and I have a long tradition of high taxes and generous services.

But he was so cute back when he became governor in 2003. He had a charming way of saying he would try to nudge me in his direction, understanding that I was Minnesota, after all, and would never be, say, Texas or Mississippi. And he did just that. He pushed and prodded and battled and got me shaped up pretty good.

He said he loved my forests and lakes and trees and blue skies, and he was very protective and passionate. Green — good heavens the man was green!

That’s why I loved him back then, despite our differences, and why voters put him back in office for a second term, beginning in 2007. We were pretty happy for a while longer, at least as far as I knew. I never failed to deliver the goods on walleye opener — how ’bout that 22-incher at Kabetogama on Saturday? — and I know he appreciated that.

Then, almost overnight, everything changed.

That bigshot John McCain put him on the V.P. shortlist in 2008, getting him around the nation to red-hot audiences. And right after that, Jan. 20, 2009, happened. A new president — a blue president — took office. Gov. Tim began talking more about national politics and about running for president himself.

He began wandering. First to Iowa. Then New Hampshire. The South. Even the West. States that were trimmer and more red-hot than me.

I saw it but I didn’t see it — know what I mean?

Those floozy states were filling his head with ideas about how great he is, how good-looking and smart and presidential. I couldn’t compete with that. I was broke and a little bloated — just trying to keep home and hearth together — and when he came back, I could tell he no longer had that gleam in his eye.

I’d display my woods and waters and he’d be on the cell-phone with someone in South Carolina. We’d run into our usual budget problems and all he do is scold me to reduce eligibility here, cut benefits there, slim down all over. “Stop snacking on Local Government Aid!” he’d say. “They’re just empty calories!

I am so tired of hearing that.I thought of hiring a private investigator. But then I saw the evidence in black and white, from Eastern pundits. They said the only way he can get love from them is to withdraw it from me. It’s right here in the Wall Street Journal — every time he calls me fat and ugly, he wins points with them.

And trust me, the verbal abuse makes it worse, because when I’m stressed, I tend to binge on the K-12 funding formula.

Well, I may be dowdy and past my prime. I will always suffer through seasonal cold and hot flashes. But I’m not ignorant. The last thing I need, in the middle of a severe bout of economic recession, is my governor trashing me.

So I hereby free him to transfer his affections to those red-state red-hots, those governor-grabbing gigolos, those low-tax lovergirls who have turned his head.

As for me, I’ll survive. I’m getting my budget balanced and I’m having some work done on the out-biennium. But like I said, I’m Minnesota. I’ll always have big bones.

There are a lot of fish in the political sea, of the blue and red and even purplish variety, who will be darn proud to be seen with me. I wish him well in his quest for national stardom. And I hereby issue this request for proposals: I’m looking for a new Gov to be my true love.

No one will ever do “politics on wry” quite like Jim Ragsdale.  Rest in peace JImbo.

Loveland

Democrips, Rebloodlicans and the Venturattentionaddict

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The scorpions in Jesse Ventura’s Baja backyard must not be giving him enough attention, so a predictably surly Jesse Ventura is back in the news this week.

What shocking news does Jesse’s new book bring to the world?  Jesse dislikes political parties.

This will come as an enormous surprise to Minnesotans, and readers of Ventura’s last four books.  After all, Jesse has never said THAT before.

So, it’s easy to see how that revelation landed him on the front page of the Pioneer Press.  Once again, Jesse has perfected the art of bashing the news media as a sure fire way of getting himself nearly unlimited news media coverage.

I haven’t read the book, Democrips and Rebloodlicans, but it sounds like a tour de force of false equivalency cop outs.  All politicians and all parties (i.e. all non-Jesses) are equally guilty of fighting too much, like the street gangs the Crips and the Bloods, get it?  This from a Governor who was so thin skinned that he was constantly at war with just about everyone in Minnesota, except for members of his Independence Party.

Until now.  Seemingly the only news made in this book is that former Governor Ventura now is denouncing the Independence Party as well.  Their unforgiveable sin?  They seek contributions.  In Jesse’s conspiracy-obsessed mind, this means that they are bought and paid for.  This makes perfect sense.  After all, Jesse has never sought to raise money for himself.

“We already have a two-headed monster. Why would we need a three-headed one?”

Jesse is also done with the Tea Party, because they are funded by corporations.  But so far, he is okay with Occupy Wall Street protesters.   After all, you have to save someone new to denounce…in the next book.

This is what the world looks like with Jesse Goggles on:  Everyone is a monster, gangster, or jackal out to get him.  That outlook of the world is many things — simplistic, delusional, and a cop out, among them.

But at this stage in Jesse’s career, there is one thing that such predictable ranting most assuredly is not.  News.

– Loveland

Note:  This post also was featured as a “best of the best” on Minnpost’s Blog Cabin feature.