The Rake Magazine

Author: Brian Lambert

  • Lost Files of the Star Trib Readers' Rep

    Sunday morning’s aren’t nearly as much fun anymore. Not long ago I’d heft the Strib off the doorstep, chuck out the ads, the news and the sports and dig right into my favorite column, "The Readers’ Representative." Having worked for a decade and a half at a daily newspaper, I miss hearing first hand the way self-criticism is transformed in to self-congratulation, the way dense curtains fall over assurances of transparency, the way anyone and everyone higher up the company ladder is not only always right, but right and brave. And especially I missed the way a big, high-profile media company saved a bundle on PR flackery by having a compliant middle manager wallpaper over the corpses hanging in the living room.

    But now I just miss the Reader’s Rep. Back in early October the kids up the ladder decided that, gosh, they were just so committed to giving us the latest health news — not so much on dark, complicated stuff like how local health insurance billionaires have goosed the cost of medical care and our collective stress level — but rather the importance of eating vegetables and getting annual exams, they "reassigned" the old Readers’ Rep to the health section and replaced her with … well nobody, apparently.

    The last two Sundays have featured columns by the Strib’s top editor, Nancy Barnes. In the first one she displayed a lot of comaraderie with veterans like Paul McEnroe, a.k.a. "Mac", as she called him, much like she does when they bowl together every Tuesday and Thursday night, I’m guessing. This week she gave out a number that’ll connect you to an editor somewhere in the building (maybe) whenever you’re pissed off at Nick Coleman, want to give Katherine Kersten a wet kiss or point out that someone, maybe one of the new (and cheaper) hires on the suburban team had Stillwater on the banks of the Mississippi in the morning’s East Metro edition.

    Somehow this isn’t as appealing to me. Obviously the old Readers’ Rep wasn’t actually "representing" readers so much as she was taking bullets for her paymasters, the now beached Par Ridder in particular. Not that Mr. Ridder’s myriad problems; a near complete lack of awareness of business ethics being just one, were ever addressed mind you. But the sheer spectacle of the Readers’ Rep’s elephant-in-the-room avoidance and the frenetic patter of her happy feet scurrying back and forth in search of any vantage point to laud the wisdom and bravery of her colleagues was reliably entertaining. You could read her and think to yourself, "Goddamit, I may have to spend eight hours in a cubicle working for psychotic nerds, but at least I don’t have to sign my name to that!"

     

     

     

  • Who Doesn’t Love Sam & Sylvia Kaplan?

    Years ago, comedian Bill Murray was
    talking with the press about great careers, longevity, and what really
    defines success. Murray had had several hits at the time, made good
    money, was considered for practically every big-budget comedy script in
    town, and by any Hollywood standard was the envy of his peers.

    "But I want to last," Murray said with almost existential emphasis. "I want to be like the great old dogs of this business. Gary Cooper, Jimmy Stewart, and Kirk Douglas. People who built these life-long careers and did it with good work, not just a cameo in High Noon: The Teen Years
    for a check to remind people they were still breathing. But it’s
    tricky. You’ve got to choose the right things. Dignity is essential to
    a great career and you can blow that pretty easy in this business."

    Murray’s
    boozy Swedish golf cart ride notwithstanding, his quote kept crossing
    my mind as I kicked around town talking to friends, colleagues, and
    sometimes adversaries of Sam and Sylvia Kaplan, the remarkably
    influential and durable couple often dubbed "political kingmakers" by
    the media and their peers. I don’t know if Murray has had a political
    thought in his life, but he was clearly searching for the qualities
    that acquire and sustain credibility and influence.

    In the case
    of the Kaplans, as Murray did with the long-time Hollywood players he
    referred to, you come to understand that their demeanor and choices
    have defined them. Their personal qualities, both sweet and sour, as
    expressed toward each other, friends, politicos, and foes, and played
    out in the rarified, often acidic spotlight of the political and
    moneyed elite of the Twin Cities, have contributed in no small part to
    their image-an image other influence traders might consider using as a
    model, if they can balance the same combination of ideological passion
    and emotional maturity.

    I first sat down with Sam and Sylvia Kaplan on a brutally cold morning last February. By the crack of dawn they were seated at their table in a corner of the Minneapolis Club,
    where they are almost every weekday morning. There was a steady flow of
    people, including the likes of former councilman Dennis Schulstad,
    stopping by to greet them and trade news of the previous twenty-four
    hours, jump-starting the new day. The Kaplans make a good visual pair.
    Sam projects both the appearance and demeanor of a Hollywood patriarch.
    The full head of tousled-to-unruly silver hair and the athletic trim of
    a man twenty-five years younger than his seventy years complement an
    attentiveness, charm, and unflappability so composed it wavers between
    being reassuring and unnerving. Sylvia, sixty-nine, is attractive,
    though she is emphatically not a member of upper society’s obsessively
    primped grande-dame school. Her intense commitment to social issues of
    truth and fairness, as she describes it, seems more credible because
    she eschews the more artificial cosmetic blandishments wealthy women
    her age so often seize upon. That, I guess, is another way of saying
    that she uses the informality of an unapologetic ’60s radical to her
    advantage.

    Of course, this couple didn’t get to be political
    kingmakers on looks alone. Their way with people-and they know
    absolutely everybody-is unbeatable. Sam is unfailingly engaging and
    solicitous. It is Sylvia who peppers their interlocutors with
    questions. What came out of that Regents’ meeting? Did they know
    So-and-So was considering a run for City Council? As the respect-payers
    depart, Sylvia makes blunt cracks about who this one supported in a
    recent race, or why that one is so dead wrong about some issue-never
    mind the strange guy with the pen sitting across the table from her.

    At
    Sylvia’s indiscretions, most of which are so spot-on you can only
    laugh, Sam exchanges glances with me, as though asking, "What can I do?
    She says what she wants."

    Everyone, including Sylvia herself,
    describes her as the more "acerbic" or "sharp" of the two. Their worst
    adversaries-none of whom cared to speak on record-prefer the word
    "rude," although "blunt" actually seems the best compromise. She likes
    to get to the point. This fits with their friends’ description of them
    as inveterate "busybodies," people with a compulsion, as Sylvia says,
    "to know what is really going on."

    "I’m just always fascinated
    when people aren’t curious about people," she tells me. "How can you
    not be curious and interested in what’s going on? How do you live like
    that?"

    Appetites for constantly up-to-date information require
    ceaseless interaction with literally hundreds of plugged-in
    people-something the two have managed to pull off for decades. Sylvia
    measures and assesses new people closely, in a way that seems
    simultaneously wary, skeptical, and almost shy. She is more ears than
    eyes, and often avoids direct visual contact until she’s figured out
    your game. When she finally does meet your gaze it comes like
    punctuation to an assertion-that, for example, John Edwards‘s moment has come and gone. That Hillary Clinton is all wrong for the changes that have to be made. And that Barack Obama, who is their guy for ’08, is the rare politician to have heightened her understanding of key issues and not vice versa.

  • What Will Dan Barreiro Do?

    You want to feel a cone of silence? Call around to KFAN and KSTP and ask what’s up with Dan Barreiro? You gotta hope the U.S. spy satellite program has security this tight.

    As has been reported here and by Judd Zulgad over at the Strib, Barreiro is at that rare moment in a broadcaster’s career when he has maximum leverage to close a sweet, long-term deal with either of two eager employers. (I was going to strain the usual "seduction" and "suitor" analogies, but lifelong bachelor Dan just got married — finally — so it seems in bad taste to suggest some kind of reckless promiscuity.)

    What can be said is this; KSTP AM 1500 has made Barreiro a handsome offer for six years, most likely in the 11-to-2 slot, and KFAN — which is to say the suits in Clear Channel’s San Antonio office — have roughly another week to meet or beat that offer. Whatever Barreiro decides will have serious impact on both stations since it hard to say which needs him more.

    For the unaware, Barreiro’s 4 to 7 p.m. KFAN show is something of an oasis of literacy in Twin Cities commercial talk. While the basic stratagem for holding male audiences continues to depend heavily on feeding the ill-informed near toxic amounts of bullshit and candy, Barreiro’s act routinely reflects someone who reads material heavier than NewsMax, the deep thoughts of Hugh Hewitt and Fantasy Football websites. The ex-Strib sports columnist appears to actually read — gasp! — books, novels and more than one newspaper. What’s more, his show reflects something more evolved than a supermarket check-out line intelligence level.

    KSTP badly needs Barreiro to add octane to an act that was slumping before the departure of their right-wing marquee attractions, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, to Clear Channel’s KTLK two years ago. (Jason Lewis departed prior to that, and signed with KTLK in large part because Clear Channel didn’t want him rebuilding right-wing talk back at AM 1500). The station’s much publicized and very expensive deal to bring the Twins in — $1 million a year for four years, with virtually all ad revenue accruing to the Twins– did not deliver anywhere near the kind of ratings boost they hoped it would give the rest of the line-up. Other than Joe Soucheray, the station’s other personalities just aren’t pinging many radars.

    KFAN does well among men, but should be doing better. If Barreiro left they would no doubt consider shifting P.A. and Dubay, their all-football all-the-time mid-morning act to afternoon drive. They might — or at least they should consider giving Barreiro’s long-time sidekick, Joe "Mr. Phun" Anderson his own show … if he doesn’t follow Barreiro to KSTP. (Anderson’s contract expired at the end of September. Word is he has been told to stay cool until the Barreiro deal is settled.)

    Even earlier this year, with Mick Anselmo running KFAN and the other local Clear Channel operations, Barreiro most likely would have been sewn up long before by now. But the perception now is that none of the surviving managers here in Minnesota have anywhere near the pull with San Antonio to make this deal happen via their own influence.

    Anselmo hired Barreiro years ago and, with Dan Seeman, cultivated Barreiro’s game. Seeman was fired in late ’05 and Anselmo was canned earlier this year. The fact that Seeman — whose support and insight Barreiro values — is now only one office door away from AM 1500, running Hubbard Broadcasting’s FM 107, has to make the offer from KSTP all that more appealing.

    Another thing that must be playing in Barreiro’s mind is the ever-tightening clutch Clear Channel corporate has around the necks of all its local operations.

    Formal approval of the Clear Channel empire’s move back into private ownership will almost certainly mean another round of budget-tightening and even less local-level decision-making. The joke in the business is that where Clear Channel is a company with almost no patience (never mind that the KFAN line-up has been unchanged for years), Hubbard Broadcasting is a place with far too much patience. Change comes at a very pre-global warming glacial pace at Hubbard radio. The upside, if you’re Barreiro, is that once you’re in you tend to stick for quite a while. A deal at AM 1500 has to be seen as significantly more secure, all things considered.

    Finally, there is the matter of the notorious Clear Channel "basic contract", which in truth is less contract than a series of medieval dictates of no value whatsoever to the employee. The standard language allows the company to do pretty much whatever it wants whenever it wants. As much leverage as Barreiro has, there is always the question whether he has enough to push Clear Channel into a for-real guaranteed contract. That is to say, a contract with language so specific that "meet" actually means "meet" in terms of matching every detail of KSTP’s offer.

    Put another way, there is every good reason to be highly, intensely skeptical of anything Clear Channel promises. Three years down the line they could get bored with his "literate" act and all that book and reading stuff and demand a shift to all Vikings talk all the time (like a real sports station) and, if Barreiro rebelled, the big firm could whack him, a la John Hines, leaving him paid but in professional limbo.

    Finally, as I mentioned in a previous post. There is the Soochie factor at AM-1500. As most listeners and all his colleagues know, Soochie ain’t exactly Mr. Cuddly. More to the point, I seriously doubt there is anyone in the Hubbard building who dares even ask Soochie if he’d consider moving into the old Limbaugh slot in order to make a better fit for Barreiro.

    If there is anyone foolish enough to pipe up, "Uh, uh, Joe … I mean, Mr. Soucheray … could … uh … uh … I mean … " I want to be there to see what happens.

  • Randy, The Reader's Rep …

    (A semi-regular Q&A with "Randy" the new Star Tribune Reader’s Representative, most frequently found on the corner stool at the Dry Dock roadhouse, in the shadow of the big microwave tower, Chaffey, Wisconsin.)

    Randy, Your Reader’s Rep: Dang but stuff piles up. I come back from baitin’ a few bear traps, havin’ a couple beers and getting old Jonsered ready for cuttin’ season and look at all this mail. Sheeeit. When the Star Tribune hired me back, I had no idea they really meant a weekly gig. I thought with little Par out sun-bathin’ it’d quiet down.

    Guess not. So here goes.

    Question: I heard that the staff at the Star Tribune all got flu shots the other
    day? Is this true? Where did this happen? Were these shots administered in a sanitary way? And did the top executives
    join in?

    Randy, Your Reader’s Rep: That is definitely true. Flu season is coming on pretty strong, and Avista Capital Partners, the really fine folks that own the paper want all their Full Time Employee Units running like a big pack of Dodge Hemis. There are a lot of very big stories that are going to mean plenty to the Avista folks’ year-end numbers. Like for example, ‘Who is going to buy them damned parking lots?’, and whether the folks in Eveleth and Granite Falls are going to pitch in to build a new stadium for the Vi-Queens, which would mean Avista might have half a chance of selling the main building to what’s his name, the billionaire dude from New Jersey.

    As for "where it happened"; it wasn’t in the butt, Bob.

    I know. I know. I heard some pretty risque jokes about everyone standing up, dropping trow and bending over at their desks while Chris Harte went down the line pokin’ tushies. But the truth is everyone took it in the arm.

    Don’t know about the sanitary thing. I suppose a bunch of $4 coffee drinkers like that crowd used … ooooo … pre-moistened towelettes, like you get at Famous Dave’s. But I’m not sure. I mean, hell, I usually just wave a butane lighter under my buck knife to cut out slivers.

    But yeah. Chris Harte himself took a pokin’. Right there in line like he was a normal person or something. Ain’t that something?

    Funny though how happy and agreeable everyone was for the rest of the day.

    Question: I was reading that bastard Nick Coleman’s column a couple days ago and I noticed that right next to his little picture, the one where he doesn’t look anything like George Clooney, it said, "One view". Was that a typo or something? I mean, he’s writing a column, right? Who else’s view were we supposed to think it was? And does this mean that all the other columnists, like Katherine Kersten and C.J. and Sid Hartman and Reusse are going to have "One View" next to their pictures. (And none of them look much like George Clooney, either.)

    Randy, Your Reader’s Rep: That’s a good question. Tell you the truth, I didn’t notice until you brought it up. So I sent a note asking what the deal was. Nobody wrote back. But I hear through the old company grapevine that no one told Coleman about it and no one knew who put it there. But come on, there are so many brave and courageous editors at the Star Tribune doing so many important things to, you know, enhance the quality of life in the better zip codes of Minneapolis they probably just overlooked it.

    My guess is all whoever stuck it there meant to say is that, "This is that commie prick Coleman’s view, not our view." In fact, I gotta check and see if it says, "Our View" next to Kersten’s and Sid’s pictures the next time they write.

    Question: That blonde Republican babe, Sarah Janecek, wrote a story this week saying how a couple of your reporters used some pretty foul language talking to the MnDOT people. Those guys McEnroe and Kennedy sounded like jerks. I suppose they were pretty ashamed when that story came out, and they must really be pissed that people know how obnoxious they are.

    Randy, Your Reader’s Rep: Oh yeah, and how. I tell you, nothing
    makes those two stick their tales between their legs more than everyone in town knowing they shout in the phone and use words like, "bullshit". I don’t know what they were smiling about after that thing ran.

    Because, we have a very strict policy about bad language here at the Star Tribune. Penalties, too. If you’re heard saying, "This place is total bullshit", you have to put a dollar in the Save Par jar. If you say, "I’m going to cap the next a**hole who assigns me an Eagan Sewer Commission story", you have put in $5. Of course if you say something like, "These Avista douche bags wouldn’t know a paragraph from a parsnip," you have a choice between hurling yourself off the roof or editing a Katherine Kersten column.

    Question: I see that you are starting to run more editorials supporting a new Vikings stadium, which would be built practically right next door and most likely goose up your real estate value pretty nicely. Don’t you think you need to at least mention that fact every time you write opinion pieces? You know, maybe a standard little box at the top that says something like, "If you stupid chumps bite on this deal we’ll make a shitload of dough."

    Randy, Your Reader’s Rep: Man, I’ve heard cynical. But you about take the jelly donut. You got something against football? You want to see a place without a team I suggest you come up to Superior, because that’s what you’re going to end up with if you don’t close ranks and play to win, pally.

    The folks at Avista Capital Partners, some of whom have even heard of Green Bay, are actually doing you one shiny ripe favor. They are looking out for your interests when obviously you won’t. They are family people just like you, and they know that special feeling fans get when they contribute a little bit extra out of every pay check to have a place where, you know, if they cut their coupons and save up a couple months they might be able to take their kid to see a game. Three months if they want to park and have a beer.

    Until next time. Think transparent thoughts.

  • Last Night's Debate: Bite Me, Wolf.

    Now that we’ve more or less cleared up that "illegal immigrants with driver licenses" issue, the line I was pleading for one of the Democrats to throw back last night was, "Wolf, do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound? Do you ever get tired of this ‘gotcha’ crap?"

    Something like that probably would have to come from Joe Biden, whose demeanor these days suggests a guy drifting well into, "Aw, f**k it" mode, since debate moderator after debate moderator has effectively reaffirmed the polls and consigned him, Chris Dodd, Bill Richardson and Dennis Kucinich to side show acts.

    In actual fact it was Kucinich who said to Blitzer, referring to the yes/no driver license bit, "I take exception to the way you framed that question." Thank you, Dennis. But you should have added, "What’s with the week-old beard thing, Wolf?"

    My beef with Blitzer, who aside from the vaudevillians on Fox News, may be the most implausible "news man" on television, is that the guy not only takes the bait and over-works the meme — ad nauseum — but that he does it with such humorless, halting verbosity. Aaron Brown may not have had the Upper West Side pedigree or the promotable cover boy look of Anderson Cooper, but the guy could ask an intelligent question in less than five paragraphs, and maybe even flash a little wit.

    Last night’s debate in Vegas — was irresistible viewing after two weeks — TWO SOLID WEEKS — of Blitzer, Hannity, O’Reilly et al — burying their bloody snouts in "Hillary’s Flop", the aforementioned immigrant driver license "issue" from the Oct. 28 debate. (And did anyone think of staging this debate in the Mandalay Bay sports book
    instead of some anonymous field house? I mean, how about a slice of
    Americana while we ridicule our candidates?)

    The real issue of course was Clintonian parsing. Her Bubba-ness. A resumption of that famous, "A little something for everyone" act. The horror! Because, God help us, the worst thing that could ever happen to this country is to have more Clinton-style government. You know with balanced budgets, respect for the Constitution, no troops getting shot up in some medieval hellhole and … oh, christ, don’t get me started. So yeah, the point was parsing and the ticking clock on someone else, Obama or (my guy) Edwards, to bust a move with an effective attack on the little lady.

    And its not like I don’t understand the ratings imperative of getting the blood on the ground early to hold viewer eyeballs. Come on! We’re putting on a show here, people! But after the cornball NBA-style introduction bit with the candidates half-trotting out from the wings, (I expected Blitzer to swat Biden on the ass and shout, "go get ’em, Stud."), the potential leaders of the free world had barely settled behind their podiums when Blitzer — with neither style nor wit — began angling for someone to lob a grenade Hillary’s way.

    According to a Google search there are approximately 8,543,907 web sites currently analyzing last night’s debare performances. So I’ll spare you mine, other than to state the obvious.

    1: Clinton learned her lesson from the Oct. 28 "flop" and was not only completely composed, she nailed Campbell Brown’s question about "playing with the boys". There isn’t a woman over 30 in this country who doesn’t understand — viscerally — Clinton’s point about "impediments".

    2. Obama clearly doesn’t have a shiv side to his act, and can’t really compete with Clinton or Biden on foreign affairs savvy … not a good sign for "looking into the soul" of Vladimir Putin or the next Chinese trade minister.

    3. Bill Richardson seems a likable sap, but he should probably head back to New Mexico before he totally screws a shot at another cabinet job.

    4. My guy Edwards is still saying most of the right things — about the broken, corrupt system and how we get nowhere replacing "corporate Republicans with corporate Democrats" — but he’s getting out on thin ice with his obsessive Hillary-focus. Also John, you really didn’t answer the question about voting for all those free trade acts. That bothers me.

    Lame and predictable as the driver license bit was, Blitzer jumped the shark completely with his other "gotcha" question, the one demanding to know — yes or no — whether candidates would put human rights ahead of the security of the country. Yeah Wolf, there’s an on/off dilemma. I mean, you’re either with us or against us, right? That act is working pretty well, isn’t?

    The candidates may be tiring of this debate circus, and with the preening stage craft of Tim Russert last time and the ham-fisted pomposity of Blitzer this time you can understand their frustration, but if you’re a media/political junkie I have to concede it is great theater/farce.

    On the 28th the Republicans — at long last, and after first refusing — will submit to a CNN/YouTube debate, (hosted by Cooper, possibly in a tight t-shirt). This holds the possibility of an average citizen asking any or all of the creationists, I mean candidates, how exactly the Grand Canyon was carved in six days, how far out from California you have to go before you fall off the edge of the Earth and whether they are prepared to protect America by personally strangling each and every suspected jihadi with their bare hands.

     

     

     

     

  • The TV Writers Strike: Reverb into Newsrooms?

    The average couch tuber probably isn’t tracking this TV writers strike too much. Not beyond fretting over an early end to Heroes and no new Daily Shows. Beyond that the affected "workers," a lot of smart-ass Bimmer-driving West L.A. espresso sippers, are never going to win an outpouring of empathy from the people who obsessively consume their programming.

    I’m not going to argue that this is the moral equivalent of the Harlan County coal miners, but as so many businesses, media in particular, try to find a way to monetize the Internet, this particular strike seems likely to set some important precedents for a lot of industries, possibly even newspapers.

    For a short (and funny) primer on the basics of the TV strike, check out this video posted yesterday by The Daily Show writers.

    The central claim is this: On one hand a media tycoon like Viacom’s Sumner Redstone, (Viacom owns Paramount Pictures, CBS, MTV, Blockbuster video, etc.), will sue YouTube for $1 billion based on its perceived effect — financial — to his value, while simultaneously arguing that there isn’t enough value on the Net to justify sharing …. ANYTHING … brought in via new technologies with the people who created it.

    No one knows for sure what tomorrow will bring, but the TV writers are smart enough to know that unless they nail down every possibility today they will continue seeing zip tomorrow … as billions in value pile up around the feet of the Redstones, and Rupert Murdochs of the planet.

    Ron Moore, showrunner for the series, Battlestar Galactica gave an interview offering a tangible example of how the media empires are overplaying their hand.

    He says:

    "Fundamentally this is about the internet, and this is about whether
    writers get paid for material that is made for the internet or if
    they’re paid for material that is broadcast on the internet that was
    developed for TV or movies.

    "I had a situation last year on Battlestar Galactica where we were asked by Universal to do webisodes, which at that point were very new and ‘Oooh, webisodes! What does that
    mean?’ It was all very new stuff. And it was very eye opening, because
    the studio’s position was ‘Oh, we’re not going to pay anybody to do
    this. You have to do this, because you work on the show. And we’re not
    going to pay you to write it. We’re not going to pay the director, and
    we’re not going to pay the actors.’ At which point we said ‘No thanks,
    we won’t do it.’"

    "We got in this long, protracted thing and eventually they agreed to
    pay everybody involved. But then, as we got deeper into it, they said
    ‘But we’re not going to put any credits on it. You’re not going to be
    credited for this work. And we can use it later, in any fashion that we
    want.’ At which point I said ‘Well, then we’re done and I’m not going
    to deliver the webisodes to you.’ And they came and they took them out
    of the editing room anyway — which they have every right to do. They
    own the material — But it was that experience that really showed me
    that that’s what this is all about. If there’s not an agreement with
    the studios about the internet, that specifically says ‘This is covered
    material, you have to pay us a formula – whatever that formula turns
    out to be – for use of the material and how it’s all done,’ the studios
    will simply rape and pillage."

    If you missed it, Damon Lindelhof, co-creator/writer of NBC’s Lost, wrote an Op-Ed piece in last Sunday’s New York Times, a key assertion of his was this:

    "Twenty percent of American homes now contain hard drives that store
    movies and television shows indefinitely and allows you to fast-forward
    through commercials. These devices will probably proliferate at a
    significant rate and soon, almost everyone will have them. They’ll also
    get smaller and smaller, rendering the box that holds them obsolete,
    and the rectangular screen in your living room won’t really be a
    television anymore, it’ll be a computer. And running into the back of
    that computer, the wire that delivers unto you everything you watch? It
    won’t be cable; it will be the Internet."

    He adds:

    "My show, Lost, has been streamed hundreds of millions of times
    since it was made available on ABC’s website. The downloads require
    the viewer to first watch an advertisement, from which the network
    obviously generates some income. The writers of the episodes get
    nothing. We’re also a hit on iTunes (where shows are sold for $1.99
    each). Again, we get nothing.

    If this strike lasts longer than
    three months, an entire season of television will end this December. No
    dramas. No comedies. No Daily Show. The strike will also prevent any
    pilots from being shot in the spring, so even if the strike is settled
    by then, you won’t see any new shows until the following January. As in
    2009. Both the guild and the studios we are negotiating with do agree
    on one thing: this situation would be brutal."

    With talk that a long strike, relegating viewers to 52-week runs of Dog the Bounty Hunter and Tila Tecquila (and worse) could do for internet "programming" what the 1988 writers strike did for cable programming this Los Angeles Times piece, with a quote from Twin Cities-based media guru, John Rash, lays out the consumer conundrum. In short, pulp TV junkies though we may be, most of us have been spoiled by the production values of scripted television.

    Personally, I’ve got a stack of unwatched DVDs six feet high, college basketball will soon be in high gear and I can happily spend months without a fresh episode of Two and a Half Men.

    But the somewhat out-of-left field relation to newspaper writers is not so much that Katherine Kersten deserves a cut of every dollar Avista Capital Partners might make re-packaging her "Worst of the Flying Imams" columns for dowloading, but rather the pressure to add blogging and other web-related work to the existing job description … without additional compensation.

    It goes without saying that there aren’t more than a half dozen writers at either paper with the leverage to demand more compensation for anything, even if they agreed to spit polish the publisher’s car. But the point is … the future, man.

    The Pioneer Press recently wrapped a new contract with Dean Singleton’s Media News group and Guild officer/reporter Alex Friedrich says discussions of additional duties were pretty much brushed away in the rush to conclude negotiations quickly.

    "There is no new language in the contract that forces us provide any new work for the web," says Friedrich. There was also no discussion of anyone getting paid more for blogging and taking pictures, etc.

    Friedrich says the Guild made the point that they see a need to "get this thing laid out" in the not -too distant future, but that it just didn’t happen this time around.

    "Our big thing," he says, "is what ‘What are we going to judged on?’ All of us recognize that things are changing, and I know I don’t mind taking a picture. But I want some assurance that I won’t be dinged if it takes time away from my main job."

    The bet here is that, win or lose, the TV writers will establish precedents for a lot of other "creative" industries.

  • Banana Republic Fades into the Sunset

    Damn! Over here I keep a list of great story ideas and names of people I’ve really got to get around to catching up with, just to see what their story is today. Like MPR’s Bill Kling. Like all the guys who played in The Warheads years ago. And like Kirk Anderson, the former cartoonist for the Pioneer Press whose heave-ho in April 2003 was early, solid confirmation that "local, local" was going to have more to do with "money, money" and "innocuous, innocuous" than reader appeal.

    So what happens? That bastard, David Brauer at MinnPost.com, posts the news that Anderson’s weekly, spot-on evisceration of the myriad Bush follies, "Banana Republic: Adventures in Amnesia" is being dropped by the Star Tribune. (Brauer likes being called a bastard when he beats someone on a story.)

    Much to my disappointment, when I called Anderson was not raging against the machine. "It had to happen sooner or later," he said. "I’m thankful to the Star Tribune for giving me the opportunity." And, "I wish that it could have gone on endlessly." Well, you and me both, Kirk.

    With 70% of the public saying they believe the country has jumped the rails and is wandering in a profoundly bad direction (not to mention seriously considering a 180 degree change next year) you would assume the topics Anderson was trading in — gross abuse of executive power, officially sanctioned torture, the decline of our international reputation, etc. — would be thoroughly mainstream fare — and in a novel, entertaining concept.

    Obviously the quarter page the Strib had been giving Anderson will not go to a Denny Hecker ad — (but let’s not give them ideas) — and most likely will be filled with … well what? More deep thoughts from Debra Saunders and Jonah Goldberg?

    Anderson is very complimentary to opinion exchange editor, Eric Ringham. The feeling is mutuial.

    "I think Kirk’s a genius," says Ringham. "I really hope we can find a way to work together again. I just wish his fans were more vocal than they were. I loved it. But I didn’t hear the kind of buzz I wanted to hear. But the decision was strictly about money."

    Being a classier guy than me Anderson wouldn’t
    divulge how much the Strib was paying him, (I’m guessing
    somewhere between a free-lance music review and a quarter the monster
    salary of one of those sweet old switchboard ladies). He did put it in
    perspective saying that he and his wife aren’t big spenders and "pretty
    much live like college kids".

    Ringham likewise insists that the decision to drop, "Banana Republic" was, "not content driven." And, as for the money involved, the intention, he says, really is to hire a part time writer with the Anderson money, someone who will have to be paid at Guild rates. (If Captain Fishsticks or John Hinderaker gets the job the Strib will take unholy hell from this quarter.)

    As Ringham describes it he approached Anderson around the time of the Strib’s expensive re-design with the idea of doing some kind of "graphic novel", (as Brauer also pointed out). "In very short order Kirk brought back four different proposals, all of them very professional."

    The decision to drop "Banana Republic", he says, was made by interim editor for the editorial page, Scott Gillespie, who was recently elevated (some say "pushed") into the Op-Ed department in the wake of the paper’s not exactly cheery parting with Susan Albright.

    "But," says Ringham, "I don’t know that I fault him for the decision, and I may very well have made the same decision were it mine to make."

    It is my opinion that Steve Sack does a very good job as the paper’s official cartoonist. But in an age of declining readership … yadda yadda .. when papers are supposedly on high alert for topics and concepts that attract the mythical "younger reader", the decision to drop a sharp-edged, "Daily Show"-worthy weekly cartoon strip/graphic novel arouses suspicions (again) that the new, "local, local, hyper-local" Strib’s idea of irresistible fare for "younger readers" and people hip to "new media" are celebrity consumer features on Hannah Montana, reviews of "Halo 3" and of course, the latest sighting of Josh Hartnett.

    Anderson also has no bitter rip for the PiPress, although literally everyone who might have had a hand in "right-sizing" him out of that building in ’03 are now gone themselves. (For all intents and purposes the PiPress editorial "department" has been reduced to a staff of one, Jim Ragsdale. He’ll be local enough.) Neither paper, Anderson says, rode him hard to mushify his cartoons, even in the run-up to the war in ’03, when almost every paper in the country (with the notable exception of deputy editor Jim Boyd at the Strib) was swallowing the Bush administration bit and charging hard for freedom and glory, shock and awe.

    "Of course," he says, "as a staffer at the Pioneer Press my cartoon ideas got shaped a lot more than as a freelancer for the Star Tribune. I’d be told to ‘tweak this’ and ‘change that’. But it wasn’t that bad. I look at some of the ideas I had and I’m grateful they said, ‘No’."

    This despite the prevailing mood at the recent Association of American Editorial Cartoonists, where, he says, most of the complaining was about "the push toward the mushy middle" and the "local, local" gimmick, the latter of which — as has often been said — serves to discreetly remove the biggest and most provocative themes and material of the moment from the playlist of editorial writers and satirists.

    "The war in Iraq is a huge national story and provides a lot of ideas," says Anderson, who by the way is free to re-launch "Banana Republic" anywhere he chooses. "It’s tougher doing a cartoon on the Chamber of Commerce. It’s not nearly as juicy."

    No kidding.

     

     

  • Prominent Local Attorney Wins "Golden Wingnut" Award!

    Not being much of a fan of show biz and media award shows –
    I mean, what explains WCCO’s “Good Question” guy beating out Pat Kessler for “Best
    Political Reporting” or whatever it was called at this year’s local Emmys? – I usually
    just ignore the latest Winner du Jour.

    Except … when the news gets as good as the news this morning.

    I mean
    we here at The Slaughter are nothing if not (also) local-local, hyper-local,
    and when a prominent local attorney walks away with the championship in a
    national media competition we have an obligation – to you – to report the good
    news.

    I am a fan of Kevin Drum, who blogs as “The Political Animal”
    for The Washington Monthly, and I admit that I have both followed avidly and
    voted in his contest for the “Golden Wingnut Awards”, his first annual
    competition to honor the most unhinged, delusional, delirious, no-relation-to-anything-on-this-planet
    nut-baggery posted in all the blogs in all the world … which I think is saying
    something. Furthermore, this year’s award is uniquely prestigious by virtue of being the 1st Annual competition, meaning it includes every astoundingly lunatic, over-the-top thing ever written in the history of the Internet up until this year.

    Now do you appreciate the depth of this competition?

    But enough with the suspense. Ladies and gentlemen a huge round
    of applause for Minneapolis
    attorney, John Hinderaker, a.k.a. “Hind Rocket”, the sharpest shiv at Powerlineblog.com,
    Time magazine’s 2004 “Blog of the Year” for his July 2005 posting titled, “Stroke
    of Genius?” The guy smoked serious wingers like — the National Review’s Jonah Goldberg, Michelle Malkin and Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds — by 2-to-1!

    The breathless opening to Hinderaker’s Wingnut Hall of Fame post:

    A Stroke of Genius?

    It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision
    and brilliance approaching to genius, he can’t get anyone to notice. He is like
    a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one
    masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.

     

    Now that is what I call separating yourself from the herd.

    Mr. Hinderaker is notable for being both a highly influential far right-wing
    blogger, (the giddy intellectual chops on display in the above quote clearly demonstrate his
    appeal to the echo chamber crowd), and, historically, a huge source of concern
    to the upper managers of the Star Tribune, at least under the leadership of
    Anders Gyllenhaal.

    Powerline’s persistent, high national-profile ridiculing of the paper’s
    alleged “liberal bias” and “political correctness” was – despite Gyllenhaal’s
    denials – a key motivating factor in the ascension of Katherine Kersten from
    Op-Ed think tank contributor to metro columnist. Moreover Powerline’s call-and-shout
    alliance/mentorship with Kersten continues to make them important, albeit un-credited
    contributors to the paper’s new, uh, “balanced” tone.

    Anyway, nice going, John. You’re a credit to the local culture. We couldn’t
    be more proud.

    Here is a complete list of all the other contenders in Drum’s contest, none of whom, as I say, really
    came close to topping Hinderaker for sheer, I-can-no-longer-feel-my-body hyperbole.

  • Meet the New Readers' Rep. — Same as the Old

    RYBAK: Oh gosh, that Nancy Barnes. How does the girl do it? She’s editor of the Star Tribune and still found time these past two weeks to write a Sunday column filling us in on all the neat goings-on at the paper, just like the old readers’ reps used to do.

    Why, last week she introduced to some of the nice people still on her staff. Like Paul McEnroe, who has been there for almost 30 years.

    And then this Sunday, that thoughtful Nancy took us up on our suggestion of a month ago (because we try to be caring, helpful Scouts here at Slaughter Central) and printed all the names and phone numbers of the Strib’s assistant managing editors so that readers with questions could call them directly. She mentioned that maybe a lot of readers were mad that she didn’t do that earlier. Nancy also wrote about another reporter, Pam Louwagie, and said Pam’s story was just so neat, it was her very favorite of the day.

    I guess Nancy was so excited about Paul McEnroe, Pam Louwagie and all those other swell, talented people she works with that she just plain forgot the other big news that happened in the Star Tribune yesterday. That would be the fact that there was no weekly TV guide. Why? Because Nancy Barnes killed it off. I guess maybe she didn’t think anyone would notice.

    It was funny, though, because they did. They noticed so much that the paper had to bring in extra news assistants on Monday to answer all the phone calls that poured in from the angry readers. Uh, oh.

    Well, at least Nancy was smart enough to print the phone number of the new Features editor, Christine Ledbetter, because the readers sure liked calling her, too—so much that they crashed her voicemail.

    But gee, Nancy is so darn busy in that important job of hers that I don’t think we can blame her. But, you know, I think she probably could use the help of a new readers’ rep.

    Brian, tell our nice readers what we found.

    LAMBERT: I’ll get to that in just a minute. But first, I can tell you from personal experience that as much as you hear readers complain about crazed, whiny liberals and boring Minnetonka city council stories nothing … NOTHING … sets them off like when you mess with the weekly TV guide. Basically, you order up 50 more rent-a-cops just to protect you from irate senior citizens.

    But I have to get something off my chest. As an avid newspaper reader, I’m finding that Sunday mornings aren’t nearly as much fun anymore. Not long ago I’d heft the Strib off the doorstep, toss aside the ads, the news and the sports, and dig right into my favorite column, "The Readers’ Representative." Damn, it was always good stuff.

    It’s weird, but after 15 years at a daily newspaper, I actually miss hearing first-hand the way self-criticism is transformed into self-congratulation, the way thick, dense curtains fall over assurances of transparency, the way anyone and everyone higher up the company ladder was not only always right, but right and brave. And especially I missed the way a big, high-profile newspaper company could save a bundle on PR flackery by having a compliant middle-manager wallpaper over the corpses hanging in the living room.

    But you know what, Deborah? Now I just miss the Readers’ Rep. Back in early October the kids in Strib management decided that, gosh, they were just so committed to giving us the latest health news — not so much news about dark, complicated stuff like the ways local health insurance billionaires have gamed the cost of medical care and with it our collective stress level, but rather the importance of eating vegetables and getting annual exams — that they "reassigned" the old Readers’ Rep to the health section and replaced her with—well–nobody and everybody.

    As you say, the last two Sundays have featured columns by the Strib’s current top editor, Nancy Barnes. In the first one, I enjoyed her display of camaraderie with veterans like Paul McEnroe. I like the way she called him "Mac," just like she does when they bowl together every Tuesday and Thursday night, I’m guessing. Then this week she gave out numbers that’ll supposedly connect you to an editor somewhere in the building (maybe) every time you get pissed off at Nick Coleman, or want to give Katherine Kersten a wet kiss or point out that someone, maybe one of the new (and cheaper) hires on the suburban team managed to re-locate Stillwater to the banks of the Mississippi in the morning’s East Metro edition.

    I don’t like this Barnes-itorial Valentine thing. It isn’t as appealing to me. Obviously the last Readers’ Rep wasn’t actually "representing" readers as much as she was taking bullets for her paymasters, in particular the now beached Par Ridder. And it wasn’t like Mr. Ridder’s myriad problems — a near complete lack of awareness of business ethics being just one — were ever addressed by her. But that was part of the fun. The denial. The sheer spectacle of the Readers’ Rep avoiding the elephant in the room and the frenetic patter of her happy feet scurrying back and forth in search of any vantage point from which to laud the wisdom and bravery of her colleagues was pretty damned amusing. You could read her and think to yourself, "Goddammit, I may have to spend eight hours in a cubicle working for psychotic nerds, but at least I don’t have to sign my name to that!"

    So what we have to tell folks is that, here at the Slaughter, we too wondered about whatever happened to all those letters to the editor about young Par’s ethics problems, and all those calls to the Readers’ Rep asking when she was going to say something about the fiasco, other than, you know, how hard she and other editors were working to report great news in a great paper for a great community. So, we started poking around. We looked into the whereabouts of all those questions and, quite frankly, what we found shocked us.

    We were aware of the various jobs and departments the new Strib — your local, local, hyper-local paper — has outsourced to India, not to mention the way young Par whacked those sweet old ladies who used to answer the telephones. But after scouring the phone logs, we were stunned to see an extended, expensive series of calls between the Star Tribune and a pay phone at a roadhouse called the Dry Dock Bar in Chaffey, Wisconsin.

    That’s right. Wis-f**kin’-consin.

    Home of cheeseheads, the world’s sickest serial killers and turpentine-swilling bear baiters. WTF?

    One call connected us to a gentleman–we’ll call him “Randy”– who confirmed to our satisfaction that for beer money he in fact took over for the Strib’s exhausted Readers’ Rep last summer, about the time Par was taking a dive over in Ramsey County Court. She was strung out and mumbling in the hallways. It seems Randy actually "ghost dictated" the column for months, right up until it was killed off completely. He had some credentials, too: Apparently he was good at handling complaints for the septic company he works at, and his brother built a deer stand for a Strib sales guy hunting up north last fall. Moreover, he said he’d happily do it all again. "That was easy money," he told us. "You ain’t seen pissed until you got a guy with six inches of shit backed up in his basement."

    This time, though, he demanded enough cash up front for a hunting license and a differential flush for his ’89 F-250. We tapped the Rake hedge fund account and called it a deal. We told Randy to get back to work ASAP. Here’s his first report.

    Question: Hi. I’m wondering when you’re going to say anything about the behavior of your publisher, Mr. Ridder? The way I always thought it was supposed to go, a big city newspaper like yours was in the business of digging up dirt on politicians and business scoundrels, uncovering people ripping off the system and making life tougher for the average guy. T
    hen after you reported it, you were supposed to analyze and comment the hell out of it, and then your editorial department was supposed to write a few tut-tutting pieces wondering what in the name of Enron the world was coming to when crass punks like this end up in positions of such influence? But, I gotta tell you, other than the usual perfunctory who, what and where stories, I haven’t read any editorials or anything else really from you. What gives? I mean, if I can’t trust you to be completely candid about the dirt in your own house, why should I trust you to be honest about the dirt in anyone else’s?

    Randy, Your Readers’ Rep: Look dude, I don’t know what you do for a living, but where I come from there isn’t much upside to ripping the boss. Mr. Ridder had a pretty bad summer. You want to pile on, go ahead. But I got a trailer payment, two ATV payments, a bass boat and alimony to cover. I ain’t kickin’ him while he’s down.

    What’s more, the last time I checked, this whole thing boiled down to the opinion of one guy — some judge in St. Paul — against the opinion of a bunch of other guys, namely Mr. Ridder and his lawyers. More importantly, this is an ongoing legal matter. Which means, if I have to spell it out for you, that I can’t say anything until it gets all resolved out, and that’ll only happen when that Dean Singleton guy in Colorado gets handed a fat ass check to shut up and go away. Then, at that point, the whole thing will switch from an ongoing legal matter to "old news" and something we’re "putting behind us" as we "move forward."

    Ka-peach-ay?

    And as for tut-tutting from the editorial department, well, we’re a little under-gunned right now. One little downside to Mr. Ridder’s courageous "right-sizing" campaign, (i.e. "Less for you, but more for Avista Capital Partners"), is that we’ve thinned out about two-thirds of the deadwood up there, and the two who are left have been pretty busy re-thinking their brave but well, you know, hysterical editorials calling for a reliable funding process for roads and bridges. They’ve been told to look for something that doesn’t raise taxes on any of the Avista Capital Partners team or those lawyers at Powerline.

    Question: I am a big, big fan of Katherine Kersten. I can’t tell you how overdue the Red Star was in getting someone in there who understands regular Minnesotans, people who change their own oil, play snowmobile poker, don’t buy all the liberal claptrap about melting glaciers and practice small animal taxidermy in their basements. People like me have had it with these rich, elitist, ivory tower pricks like Nick Coleman constantly taking pot shots at hard-working guys like Carl Pohlad and Bill Cooper. So thanks for Katherine. She is a breath of fresh air.

    But as I read her story titled, "Pariahs on Campus", the one where all these clean cut kids are getting beat over the heads with leftover hippie liberal bullshit about habeas corpses, mal-distribution of wealth (whatever that means) and French ticklers, I kept thinking about that Bethany Dorobiala kid Katherine mentioned. I know her, and I think Katherine’s story would have been a lot stronger if she had mentioned that Bethany is no run of the mill kid. She’s the goddam chairman of Minnesota College Republicans! I mean, come on. Bethany’s one smart little lady. She’s hip to all the liberal tricks. You might even say she is on "high alert" for their crap. I think saying right out front that Bethany was a big cheese with every kid who still loves freedom would have been a knock-out punch for that story. So where are your editors? How come someone didn’t get that kind of important detail in Katherine’s story?

    Randy, Your Readers’ Rep: You make many excellent points. It goes without saying that Katherine, as the only person on our staff that anyone north of 694 can relate to, has a special mission, namely to point out the shocking conflicts of interest and bias … in liberal professors and kids. But in the case of straight-ahead, unbiased kids like Bethany, pointing out details like her titles in some campus club is kind of irrelevant isn’t it? I mean, what else? Do readers need to know if she prefers Pepsi or Coke?

    In fairness to Katherine, who works so very very hard drawing readers’ attention to the often murky terroristic links between the Flying Imams, anarchist bicycle groups and public schools, there’s only so much of her to go around. We agree though that she is a jewel. Kind of like that bracelet I won for my wife out of that machine down at Hole in the Wall in Danbury.

    Question: I hear odd rumors all the time. But this latest one seems pretty unfair. It says that your new editor, what’s her name, Lacey Barnes? wants to blow this frozen popstand and get back on track with an actual newspaper company, and that she’s decided her ticket out of Avista Cap … I mean, Minnesota, is winning a Pulitzer for your coverage of the bridge collapse. I’ve read a lot of your stories and they’re pretty good. But I don’t think they are exactly the New Orleans Times-Picayune covering Katrina. You know what I mean? Don’t you think you need a blockbuster? If so, can you hint at anything that might be in the pipeline?

    Randy, Your Readers’ Rep: Our very courageous editor’s name is Nancy Barnes, and she has not said anything directly to the staff about being pissed off at the McClatchy gang for leaving her marooned in Minnesota while Anders Gyllenhaal is catting around Coconut Grove in Miami. I know I couldn’t blame her if she was a little PO’d. I mean, try finding a decent mojito up here, and by "up here" I mean Minneapolis, not Superior. What’s with all that syrup crap? Besides, as she’s said before, she hates that people here look at her funny when she runs around in her favorite summer short-shorts.

    As for possible Pulitzers, we fully expect that several of our bravest, hardest-working teams will be major contenders for next year’s awards. The team that handles Sid Hartman should be in the running for his series of exclusives with Zygi Wilf, and the courageous editors shaping Kneel Justin’s new Monday media columns, especially the one where he got Frank Vascellaro to break his long, self-imposed silence will also be given serious consideration.

    As far as our bridge coverage goes, we’re working courageously and tenaciously digging for the smoking gun. Obviously we’d love nothing more than for someone out there in the public to come forward with a grainy cellphone photo, or, hell, rank hearsay showing a tax and spend liberal with 10 sticks of dynamite and a plunger next to the bridge last August. But even if it’s just video of Lt. Gov. Carol Molnau jumping up and down on the overloaded bridge deck, we’ll take it. After that the awards will take care of themselves.

    (A favor though, if I could. If you or anyone you know is down in Miami this winter and spot something for sale on the Intracoastal, maybe Fisher or Star Island, please don’t hesitate to drop Nancy a note, at nbarnes@startribune.com. Thanks.)

    Question: I’m 83 years old. Where in hell is the TV Weekly, and what is this cable crap you’re always talking about?

    Randy, Your Readers’ Rep: Our editors made two brave and courageous decisons. One, they killed, I mean they "right-sized" the TV Weekly, and two, they didn’t say anything about it. Cable is a kind of sweater. Up here we go with the dish.

    If you have questions for Randy, the Star Tribune’s Readers’ Rep, please feel free to submit them here at Lambert & Rybak to the Slaughter. (E-mail addresses are visible next to this blog. We’ll make sure they’re passed on … before the big Sunday All You Can Drink NASCAR Happy Hour.)

  • John Hines Out at KTLK

    John Hines’ 17 year-run with Clear Channel and what Clear Channel was before it was Clear Channel ended this morning — a Monday, go figure — when he was told he was being removed from his morning job at KTLK (100.3-FM). Hines was a standard at Clear Channel’s country music K102 until this past March when he shifted over — by his choice — to add a little mainstream professional sheen to ratings-deprived KTLK, an all right-wing talk station.

    Hines shrugged off the move when reached by phone around noon today. "It’s a part of the business. I accept that. They said we’re going in a different direction, and I get that."

    He said his six-month non-compete and six-month severance will tie him over, and until then he will happily entertain offers from other stations in the market. The most obvious of those being KSTP AM 1500, where rumors are swirling about their interest in KFAN’s Dan Barreiro — most likely for afternoon drive, were Barreiro to leave Clear Channel, and were Joe Soucheray agree to earlier tee-times — and where the usual, often clueless "experts" believe KSTP could use help in mornings.

    AM-1500’s program director, Steve Konrad, hadn’t heard about the Hines move when I called. "Hines? Really?" Konrad avoided any direct mention of Barreiro other than to state the obvious. "He’s a talent". On any possible interest in Hines, he said, "A well known, popular host? You always have to be open to someone like that."

    We are awaiting a response to our call to Hines’ boss, Steve Versnick.

    The first question to him being, "What new direction?" KTLK was originally pitched as a 21st century version of WCCO. Almost immediately it took an entirely familiar, hard right-wing turn and has stayed there despite consistently disappointing ratings.

    The hiring of Hines suggested to some that the station, then supervised by regional boss, Mick Anselmo, was beginning an evolution into something more mainstream. Another rumor floating in the wind last week was that Anselmo’s replacement, Mike Crusham, had decided the time had finally come to "blow up" the struggling FM talk experiment, supposedly to go in that more WCCO-like direction, with bona fide news.

    The problem there being that bona fide news would require bona fide reporters out on bona fide streets, something Clear Channel has been unwilling to do until now and, with the entire 1200-station company about to return to private ownership, it seems even less likely to bother with in the future. (Reporters cost money, and separating themselves from Hines’ hefty salary — likely in the $250K range — is an early example of 5% to 8% expense cutting expected across the Clear Channel empire.)

    More likely — another bit of gabble on the grapevine — is moving comparatively cheap Dan Conry into morning drive and dropping yet another (cheap) syndicated act, Glenn Beck, etc, into the 8 to 11 slot.