Author: Brian Lambert

You can only shake your head in dismayed amazement at the over-the-top-and-into-the-stratosphere reaction to Garrison Keillor’s March 14 Salon column. I only read the thing today, a week after the fact and a week after the eruption of anger from … and lets be careful here … a certain portion of the gay community, abetted and egged on, ironically enough by a smattering of gleeful righties always eager to push the “liberals do it too” hypocrisy argument.

In what was CLEARLY a standard issue, garden variety piece of Keillor satire basically riffing on the diminished roles of adults/parents in modern America’s child-oriented culture he spends a couple graphs batting around the cliched image of “flamboyant” gay parents adding to the increasingly complex family trees of 21st century families. Not only was it a friggin’ joke, but it was a variation on a thoroughly familiar joke I at least have seen thousands of times in movies and on TV. Flamboyant gays. Sardonic. Amusing … apparently not.

Of all people, Dan Savage, the normally very funny gay columnist/blogger jumped on the Keillor-is-a-bigot train, mugged the engineer, tore out of the station and has been driving it across the country all week blowing the whistle and flashing the lights. Check out the venom in his “comments” section for an object lesson in grim vituperation. One word that comes to mind as I scroll through it is, “Astonishing.”

A couple days later Keillor issued an apology in which he explained that in his world of literati and artists the type of satire he employed in Salon is well understood and accepted. I know very little about Keillor’s real world salon mates, but based on the show biz types I’ve met and hung around over the years that seems entirely accurate. Show biz is always trading in stereotypes for drama and comedy. The trick is in the tone and the performer, and Keillor long ago proved himself adept at both, if you care to actually read or listen.

In Keillor’s case I’m here to argue that as much as any public figure in the state he should be indemnified against charges of “bigotry” and homophobia. I don’t consider myself a big fan. I don’t make appointments with the radio show, but somehow I hear it fairly often. (How often does MPR re-run that thing?) We’re certainly not close. (Last time I checked I think Keillor was pissed at me for calling around checking about some minor personnel flap at Prairie Home Companion.) But, come on, people, over his career, through the guiding sensibility of his radio show, novels and columns and his outside work on behalf of hundreds of progressive candidates and causes the guy has demonstrated as full a commitment to building fair-mindedness into government and public institutions as any local celebrity I can think of. Put another way, he has walked the walk. Have you?

The newest theme in Keillor-ripping, post-apology, is the charge that he explained his satire on the basis that, “some of his best friends are gay”, which I’m willing to bet in his case is actually true. But the real point of cultural curiosity here … in this blog … isn’t Keillor at all, but the hair-trigger on the knee-jerk of his critics.

From my time in the media I can tell you there is a compulsive quality in the need of some people … of all races, persuasions, ideologies and genders … to achieve and display maximum indignation and pity-worthy personal offense in the shortest possible period of time, which is to say usually before they read something twice or stop and ask themselves, “Is this a joke?”

We see the commercial pay-off to instantaneous public indignation every day on cable TV and talk radio. Get angry! Get the viewers angry! Its an expression of passion! Do it well every day and make millions! Believe me, this exhausting bit has seeped into the citizen/consumer culture. But no matter what the level of commerce, the 0-to-60 indignation shtick requires a steady supply of enemies, old and new. In this case Garrison Keillor gets the casting call. Too bad about that. But to feed the indignation beast you occasionally have to vilify people who not only are fundamentally sympathetic to the cause you’re so incensed over, but very likely have devoted a higher percentage of their free hours to advancing that cause than you have.

Another theme running through comments to Keillor on the Prairie Home website is that he doesn’t fully understand the pain of being gay. And that too is indisputably true. Not to go totally Oprah here, but which of us ever fully appreciates another person’s pain? My folks taught me the best you can hope for is a friend who is there to help when you really need him/her, and with whom you’ve achieved enough comfort to trade back and forth the real work of buffering the bullshit and real dipshits of life with, you know, a little humor.

Bottom line: Your friends aren’t you, exactly, but know the difference between them and your real problems.

“Spot” questions the fanged female …

“Brian,

I do enjoy your blog; you obviously know a lot about the media scene in the Twins. However, Spot has to question your choice of a female lion as your avatar for the blog.”

Spot my man/(gal?). Ask yourself the fundamental question I ask myself every day. Is there anything more fearsome than a female intent on bloody vengeance? Then, by extension, is there any creature you’d rather model yourself on if you aspired to the status of supreme predator?

I am wondering if I should call The Rake graphics department and request more blood.

Great minds thinking alike, Pt. #38 … This “comment” came literally minutes after I read the piece in question.

“Any thoughts on Kate Parry’s pretty extraordinary column on how Strib editors either:

“A. Dumb down NYT stories for Strib readers, or
“B. Improve NYT stories for Strib readers.

“Depends on how you look at it, I suppose. But in general, watching Perry try to explain that cutting “12 inches” out of a story (god forbid, a story “run long,” as Parry puts it) is actually a good thing because it gets rid of all of that pesky “background and details.”

“There’s been a lot of whining and crying about the Strib’s new owners and how they’re going to potentially gut the paper. Fair enough. But I don’t think that there’s been near enough whining and crying from readers and journalists-who-should-know-better about how current Strib staff (and I’m not just talking about high-ranking editors, either) are just as culpable in destroying its journalistic credibility, mainly via dumb acts like “improving” NYT stories.”

I have no idea who the “commenter” is, but something tells me he/she has a working knowledge of the editing practices at America’s second-tier newspapers.

Parry’s column, available here is fairly typical Company Ombudsman-speak. Everything the company does is reasonable and thorough and beyond reproach. All decisions are made with intention of providing better information to Star Tribune readers, everyone involved works extraordinarily hard, (editors in these reports are always “scrambling” over last minute shifts in news flow, etc.).

But yeah, the idea of the hard-working Strib wire editors, (several of whom, like Parry, are Pioneer Press refugees), cleaning up, toning down, editing out and plugging in better copy than the New York Times original — especially on something like this US Attorneys scandal — smacks of the ever so slightly of professional hubris. (“Really. You know better?”)

Not that the Times is all-knowing and infallible, mind you, (we all remember Judy Miller, right?), or that new, tastier items aren’t available from other sources. But 95 times out of 100, I’m just fine with reading THE ENTIRE Times reporting job on a story like this … which is why I have the Times’ lead stories e-mailed to me every morning, and why I buy the paper version two-three times a week. (I subscribe to the Wall St. Journal, because I really want to know when to roll my hedge fund winnings.) Speaking for myself, I don’t need the Strib’s truncated, re-arranged version of these stories at all. In most cases I’ve read it all the day before … in its’ entirety.

But then, they’re not publishing the Star Tribune for me.

What’s ironic here of course is that the Strib cuts and pastes dozens of New York Times stories a week because it long ago stopped pretending to regularly cover national and international events as part of its’ own personal mission. They’ve farmed out all that fundamental, big-story action.

But then, because of its constricted newshole, it compounds the problem by retreating even further. By slicing and dicing the work of news organizations that are still devoting resources to national/international coverage the paper isn’t even providing the full-service of the best aggregator websites/internet competition.

Put another way, this repackaging and compacting, (and based on experience I can assure you these stories rarely if ever INCREASE in length … shorter is always better), just gives voracious news consumers — once thought to be every paper’s most loyal customers — another reason to seek the original reporting at its’ source.

But then, I suspect the Strib wire desk isn’t cutting this stuff up for its “voracious” readers, if you know what I mean. At the risk of sounding wholly elitist, there is a significant difference in the Times’ and Star Tribune’s view of their target audience.

Here is a comment from reader Dave on yesterday’s post about blogs leading the mainstream press to the US Attorney’s story …

“Brian I agree with you that stories are missed by the mainstream press and also agree that this is a worthwhile topic for discussion. But you owe your readers a small disclosure on your source.

“The Center for American Progress is a left-leaning group with seed money from George Soros. Of course any opinions from them will be anti-Bush and in complete agreement with the Dems.

“I tend to be moderate, and have my own issues with the Bush administration. The danger of the blogsphere is exactly what you just did, you did not describe your source. You made is sound like fact when your source has their own bias.

“I have no problem at all with your own left-leaning opinion and take on topics. I enjoy reading your thoughts. But do your readers a favor and give a little background on your sources.

“What would be an interesting topic is the mix of politics and justice. We all know that presidents nominate supreme court justices based on their political leanings. I wouldn’t be surprised if the same thing happened with the Attorney General’s staff throughout history. That makes for an interesting discussion and debate.”

First, let me say, Dave, that I appreciate the civil tone. It would be nice, not to mention more productive, if the various sides in ideological disputes could always interact like adults instead of barroom brawlers. So, thanks.

But while, yes, I could (and maybe should) have identified Eric Alterman and the Center for American Progress as a “left of center columnist for a left of center think tank as well as the left of center magazine, The Nation”, and Josh Marshall’s “TPM Muckraker” as a “left of center news blog” and the Project for Excellence in Journalism as, “a non-partisan, non-ideological and non-political media research organization funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts”, I consciously short-circuited all the descriptors and qualifiers because my point was basically that a certain prominent blog, (Marshall’s TPM Muckraker), had persisted mightily, done its own reportorial footwork in places and succeeded in pushing the commercialized mainstream press to recognize and cover a story of far greater relevance than Anna Nicole Smith, Britney Spears, etc.

Now, okay, Dave, you got me on me, a proud liberal, patting fellow travellers like Alterman and Marshall on the back for their insights and hard work. “My team” scored. But for the record, back last spring when Michael Brodkorb of MinnesotaDemocratsExposed.com was dropping a series of “scoops” about Keith Ellison I … grudgingly … complimented him on his work. And that was to his face and on the public airwaves.

Do I think this US Attorneys matter is a far bigger fish than Ellison’s parking tickets/messy paperwork? You bet I do. And I defy anyone to make the case it isn’t. Never the less, Brodkorb did the footwork, (or had it dropped on him … and that counts), and the mainstream press piled on afterwards. In the end the public decided, resoundingly, that they didn’t much give a damn about Ellison’s parking tickets. But they at least had information on which to base their judgment.

I’ll grant you the obvious that Alterman and Marshall are no fans of the Bush administration. But neither are they particularly star struck by the big foot mainstream media. Pick three or four of their most recent columns or postings and decide how badly the allegedly liberally-biased press is under-performing in their estimation.

More to the point, the fact that they are partisans, in the same way Brodkorb is a partisan, doesn’t automatically render their information inaccurate. What is true is true. Whether it is George Soros or Richard Scaife throwing money into the budget, all that should matter is whether the information is true. (I’ll take Soros’ record on that count over Scaife’s every day of the week.)

I should add, that IMHO, the public’s ability to assess truth as it is presented by the mainstream press has been seriously clouded by hyper-partisan performers who incessantly accuse the NBCs and Star Tribunes of the world of sloppiness and “bias” while offering only the quintessence of commercialized, bowdlerized information themselves. By that of course I mean the crowd that will say anything and pander to any degree of ignorance to make another buck.

Alterman and Marshall are not playing the Hugh Hewitt-Sean Hannity agitator-entertainer game. Facts are critical to their credibility, and part of being a discerning citizen/news consumer is developing the ability to concede a fact regardless of who provides it.

As for the Supreme Court Justices point. Various anything-for-a-buck
bloviators are trying to push the argument that “everyone replaces US Attorneys”. This is a conscious smokescreen. Aka: bullshit. As Marshall has been reporting for some time, and as the mainstream press is now confirming and adding to its reporting, the idea of flushing out eight US Attorneys in one fell swoop … in mid-administration … , (much less all 93), is completely and totally unprecedented. And that is a fact.

Eric Alterman offers a valuable, and as far as I can tell, entirely accurate timeline of reporting on the U.S. Attorneys scandal. His essential point being that this fascinating episode of ham-fisted politicizing would have been ignored, as so many other stories have been, were it not for REPORTING work done by prominent blogs, principally Josh Marshall’s TPM Muckraker.

Reading this as I slog through the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s dispiriting 2007 State of the Press report, I’m reminded again of commercialized news’ numerous self-inflicted wounds. Forget Anna Nicole Smith — if you can — the sheer volume of inconsequential, excuse me, “repetitively inconsequential” news plugged into both newspapers and TV as a marketing strategy is a fundamental factor in the declining appeal of that style of mainstream journalism. Put another way, all of us so-called “busy news consumers” have less and less time for junk information and are hungrily searching for reliable sources of information that is relevant to something other than small talk with a barista. Hence the growth in public radio.

There is no shortage of junk information. In modern American culture you acquire knowledge of Anna Nicole and Britney’s dysfunction by osmosis, like a virus. Its appearance in the mainstream press as anything other than an analysis of a cultural phenomenon is properly taken as signs of desperation and lack of imagination. And the influence of otherwise serious news venues decreases in moments when someone contrasts the sluggish response to something as valid, though complex, as the US Attorney’s story to what editors and news directors regarded instead as a more palatable mix of topics.

The headline says it all. The Twin Cities’ omnipresent food guru is a freakin’ master of self-promotion.

I am certain there will be more than a couple “clarifications” regarding this morning’s announcement on voluntary buyouts..

Among the first: Star Tribune Guild reps say sports writer Steve Aschburner will stay on past Friday until the end of the current Timberwolves season. (As one crank has already posted on this blog’s “comments” section, “Hasn’t the Timberwolves season already ended?”)

Not to diminish the contributions of anyone else among this morning’s 24 but Aschburner will be loss to local sports fans/readers.
Aschburner is as good and entertaining to read as the Wolves are rotten.

Apparently three others among the 24 will also stay on past Friday for one reason or another.

The Guild does not yet have answer to whether Aschburner and the others who linger will be granted the two extra “grace weeks” tossed to those who leave Friday. The more immediate question to those remaining in the newsroom is, “Come next Monday, who is going to do the work The Departed have been doing?” As of this morning that mildly relevant question had not been answered.

Also, Strib Guild reps say that there are 375 Guild members in the newsroom PRIOR to this Friday’s departure of the 24, and that, to their best reckoning, there have been 25 other positions left unfilled over the past couple years, for a total of nearly 50.

What continues to eat at the nerves of those who remain is the absolute vacuum of information coming from new owners, Avista Capital Partners, or their new front man, (former Pioneer Press) publisher, Par Ridder. Guild reps met with middle-upper managers Scott Gillespie and Bob Schafer approximately a month ago and were politely told … we don’t have anything to tell you.

Among questions the paper’s professional information hunter/gatherers would like answered are these: Is another 24 fewer employees enough? And if so, for how long? Or should we immediately begin assuming that Avista needs an even smaller workforce to meet its ‘financial goals? If further down-sizing is the plan, does anyone in management have even a glimmer of an idea how to restructure the remaining staff to insure coverage of the most vital beats? What is Avista/Ridder’s idea of “vital”? Does the posting for D.C. bureau replacements for Rob Hotakainen and Kevin Diaz … at significantly lower rates of pay … offer a hint of Avista’s attitudes toward other “vital” beats?

Somebody owes these otherwise loyal … adults … better explanations than they are getting.

A total of 24 Stribbers took the voluntary buy-out allowed under the present Guild contract. The names were released this morning. They are:

Judy Arginteanu
Bill Arthur
Steve Aschburner
Mike Carroll
Bob Franklin
Grethchen Gramenz
Doug Halliday
Jeremy Iggers
Jocelina Joiner
Tom Jones
Jim Lundberg
Bob Lutsey
Ron Meador
Richard Parker
Darlene Prois
John Reinan
Pam Schmid
Al Sicherman
David Silk
Derek Simmons
Tom Simon
Dane Smith
Brad Stokman
Margaret Zack

In contrast to the abrupt, pre-holiday severings the Pioneer Press levelled on its’ employees last year, where the company also niggled over start dates to reduce the compensation to a few employees, the 24 Star Tribune people listed above will be paid an additional two weeks — until March 30 — in addition to their accrued compensation. Under the heading of “Thanking God for Small Favors”, its a small grace note.

The final work day for all will be … Friday.

I spent a good chunk of the day tending various hooks in the water, hoping to catch word of the names of reporters on the voluntary buy-out list at the Star Tribune. But it was dead quiet. Not even a nibble. Even though there was word of a 10 AM meeting of Strib brain wizards to review said list.

As we waited we chuckled over the letter published in the Pioneer Press from its’ former editor-in-chief, Walker Lundy, who is now happily retired in North Carolina, and I suspect wakes up every day delighted to no longer be playing pitiable henchman for Knight-Ridder executives. (Lundy left the PiPress for the Philadelphia Inquirer and a short, very bumpy ride.)

Lundy took young Par Ridder to task for disloyalty to his former paper by hopping across town to “The Enemy Paper” literally over a weekend.

The joke now is that Lundy, who was once considered a bit of an odd bird, an old school Southerner afoot on the passive-aggressive tundra, is now viewed as a kind of hokey savant. Lundy at least thought of himself as a journalist … and a character … and he liked characters in return. (God help him he loved mixing it up with Jesse Ventura.) Mostly though, Lundy achieves his new pedestal relative to everything that followed him into the Pioneer Press and what is now going down at the Star Tribune; a funeral march led by the bland and blander.

Frankly, the loyalty “thing” in the context of rival newspapers was always a little suspect, even back in the fat and happy days of the late ’90s.

In his letter Lundy reminded his readers of the various PiPressers who jumped ship for the Strib during his reign. Treasonous curs! To his credit he acknowledges that during his reign most PiPressers were earning significantly less than their Strib colleagues and the Strib had nearly double the circulation. (Add to that the fact the PiPress was and is essentially invisible west of the river.) Reminding some way too much of old Gophers football coach, Jim Wacker, Lundy always loved a good rah-rah about how, “Forget all that other stuff. We’re better, damn it!”

The problem then and now is that money talks.

I called Brian Bonner, a PiPress veteran and a member of the paper’s Guild pension committee. Sometime in May, at the latest, the PiPress will commence contract negotiations with the new management group, headed by Dean Singleton of Denver-based MediaNews, a man and a company with a reputation for getting what they want at the expense of their employees.

“Yes,” said Bonner, “there was feeling of disloyalty [in the Ridder leap]. An audible gasp went up when it was announced. His move severed the last connection this place had to a long family tradition. Some of us really were stunned by it. I mean, these sorts of things aren’t supposed to happen. Brezhnev never jumped from the Soviet Union to America.” (Bonner spent a chunk of time in Russia). “No one expected [Ridder] to stay long. But I thought at the very least he’d launder himself through some other paper before coming back here.”

“But, I never had the feeling [Ridder] was really emotionally involved in the place. The two pillars of his term here were our new geographic focus, [toward booming east metro suburbs, mainly] and cost containment.” If you don’t hear anything in there about producing a better, fuller, more complete and appealing newspaper, there’s a reason for that.

Bonner credits Ridder for keeping his staff in the loop on the paper’s business situation … vis a vis the Star Tribune, in large part. But then, that is essentially all of what Ridder knows … and, sadly, pretty much all modern editors-in-chief and managing editors need to know. (God help those who remain at the Star Tribune though if Par Ridder starts making the calls on who best fits into the next marketing strategy over there.)

Bonner also gives Ridder thanks for bringing in the paper’s current editor, Thom Fladung. “A huge improvement over what came before him, wouldn’t you say?” (A not even thinly veiled shot at Vicki Gowler, who Knight-Ridder promoted up to the 63,000 circulation Idaho Statesman.)

Singleton has already asserted that a freeze on pension contributions is his primary/sole objective in the forthcoming contract negotiations. The Guild has said it will not agree to a freeze as proposed by Singleton, particularly since Singleton has sent out orders that no facet of the contract other than a pension freeze will be considered for negotiation. In other words, forget about trying to make up the money anyway or anywhere else. Nice.

For the record though, when Singleton stopped by the paper the day Ridder’s departure was announced, he declared himself, “Not anti-union.” Why any professional skeptic would take him at his word, I don’t know, but some PiPressers seemed charmed.

I caught John Hines at an awkward moment. The local radio and TV vet was just about to step in to give a deposition. “Its a ‘D-I-V-O-R-C-E’ thing,” he said.

I told him I was sorry to hear that. Those things are always some degree of gruesome. “Ah, what the hell,” Hines replied, “I’m getting used to it.”

The guy has bounced around town and the broadcast business long enough and often enough to know a thing or two about surviving traumatic transition … which will help him as he leaves K102, Clear Channel’s cash-cow country station for morning drive duties at KTLK, about 60 feet down the hall.

Hines’ arrival is scheduled for the Monday after next, March 19, and he’ll get an extra hour, working 5 to 9 am, as the station cuts back one hour of Dan Conry’s show. The move was announced earlier this week after the station parted ways with Andrew Colton, a TV news guy who was recruited for KTLK out of Florida by Clear Channel brain wizards. Colton was lured up, and given the title of “news director” on the now farcical premise that KTLK was going to offer a bona fide news product.

(And yes — full disclosure again — I briefly worked there. Which is why I can assure you the idea that the station was ever serious about hiring reporters and going head to head with WCCO, much less MPR, was absurdly implausible from the get-go. No effort was ever made to do anything other than market Fox News and read wire copy.)

Post-deposition, Hines called back to say that, no, he has no specific agreement that he will continue on with local Clear Channel in the event KTLK’s ratings problems persist and notoriously impatient Clear Channel corporate, (who mandated the idea of an FM talker to local managers), decides enough is enough and flips it over to Smooth Jazz 3.0.

“You know how these contracts go,” said Hines. “Its basically just a wage agreement. I’m free to leave anytime I want, and they’re free to make their moves.”

One hopes Hines’ reputation as a broadcasting pro and as a reliable employee to the local empire will protect him from the combination of reckless fiat and/or incompetence afflicting the station thus far.

“For me, personally, its a challenge,” he says. “The station doesn’t have a, uh, ‘strong market position’, as they say, and after 16 years of doing what I was doing, I want to see if I can help turn the place around.”

Hines is one of those familiar personalities who has somehow managed not to register as any kind of political ideologue. But, I wondered, is that middle-of-the-road shtick viable on an unapologetically hard right-wing station like KTLK, an other-worldly realm realm where George W. Bush is still given the benefit of the doubt … when he is not being painted as a victim of scurrilous whiners?

Hines believes he can get away with being a straight morning radio jock. He says morning drive is, or can be, a separate beast entirely from everything else that follows. “There is not a station in town,” he says, “that has a morning show that mirrors exactly what goes on the rest of the day.” (Mmmmmmm. The key word there, John, would be, “exactly”.)

The previous show was doomed by being forced to pretend the station was some kind of legitimate news source. Hines says, “A lot of elements in the show, like the news clock, [the hourly schedule for traffic, weather, breaks, etc.] will probably change.” And he says he expects to draw in the show’s producer, Christopher Gabriel, a grossly underutilized talent in my estimation.

Fundamentally though, the issue is the audience KTLK has chosen for itself. By appealing solely and only to the hardest of the hard core Bush-nicks and echo chamber mushrooms, they are in a position where unless their hosts feed that crowd what they want — and regularly — their prospects become more and more limited.

Hines mentioned Jay Leno’s monologue as the sort of equal abuse comedy that draws a nice audience. And that may be true. But radio is played in tight demographic compartments, and talk radio’s is one of the tightest of all. Despite the overwhelming abundance of comic (tragi-comic?) material sloughing off the current administration you’re risking summary alienation from KTLK’s target demo if you put more than a toe down that path.

Bottom line though, Hines is a pro who at least knows and understands the true variety of opinion and humor lurking in these towns, and that is waaaay beyond Clear Channel’s usual knuckleheaded view that, “the Twin Cities are no different than any other place” — (a direct quote from one of their barnstorming consultant-gurus).

Good luck, John.