Of Burrows and Bergs

I like the rodent.

Gotta love the beautiful turn of phrase in a blog. Jeff Horwich over at MPR got off a good one about MinnPost‘s staff yesterday in his piece on the pending competition between MinnPost and The Daily Mole. He described them thus: "[the staff list] reads like the manifest of lifeboats from the "Titanic" that appears to be the Twin Cities’ newspaper industry."

I can’t comment much on MinnPost because I haven’t seen anything yet more than the almost daily announcements of how serious they’re going to be: "A Thoughtful Approach to the News"?

Well maybe I can comment on that…

The Strib, the Pioneer Press aren’t thoughtful? Here’s a hint: not everybody jumped overboard. Some brains are still on the boat over there. They’re just younger brains who weren’t eligible for the buyouts and so have to stay and bail furiously. (Here’s another hint: their owners aren’t going to sit around and let you steal their online audience without a fight, but that’s for another day and another post.)

Steve Perry over at The Mole noticed the "Thoughtful" tagline, too. He put a motto up on The Mole the other day: "A Think-y Talk-y Approach to the News."

The comparison between MinnPost and Daily Mole is spurious, sort of like the difference between what’s looking a lot like oatmeal and what is already mindful of spicy Thai food. One will be good for you, if you can choke it down, and the other will be good for you too, and make you happy you ate it, and it goes really well with beer.

The Daily Mole is, of course, out there already being thinky and talky, and Steve tells me that there’s a lot more to come. Right now the staff is basically Steve and a weather guy who is a whole lot better than Paul Douglas. He’s got a couple of really good posts today: a conversation with Margaret Kelliher and a disection of the Strib’s bridge story.

People have asked me what I think the difference between MinnPost and The Mole is going to be. So far, I’ve been saying that I have no idea–other than I know Perry a lot better (we worked together at City Pages for ten years) and I would never underestimate his ability to come up with provocative and spot on commentary.

But as of yesterday, I’ve got even a better answer. Here it is.

Did I mention that Perry is also one of the funniest people I know?