The Rake Magazine

Author: Deborah Rybak

  • Startribune.com Readers: Very Sticky Eyeballs

    Holy eyeballs Batman!  The latest newspaper website readership numbers were released today by Nielsen Online (and printed on the  Editor and Publisher website) and startribune.com placed third (behind the Arizona Republic and New York Times websites) in the amount of time readers spent on the site.  Readers in October spent an average of 27 minutes, 40 seconds on startribune.com as compared to 34 minutes, 53 seconds for the New York Times, and almost 40 minutes for AZcentral.com.

     

    Could it be, with circulation down, that readers are spending more time  reading the entire Strib online?  The website’s readership numbers (1.5 million unique readers per month) didn’t change all that much, ranking 26th out of 30.  The New York Times website ranked first , with more than 17.5 million unique monthly visitors, up from 14.5 million in September. 

  • Politics in Minnesota: MnDOT Suffering Under Strib Attack

    Whoa. Sarah Janecek’s Politics in Minnesota newsletter sure lobbed one into the Strib newsroom late Friday. In a Weekly Report item entitled “MnDOT Under Seige: The Star Tribune’s Agenda,” Janecek writes that MnDOT personnel are getting pretty fed up with certain pushy, expletive-spewing Strib reporters.

    According to an email sent by a MnDOT mucky-muck to an unnamed GOP legislator and passed along to Janecek, agency employees “have been subjected to professional and unnecessarily harsh name-calling, hostile phone conversations and phone and email harassment. MnDOT employees have come to me with reports of enduring profanity in phone conversationsand having their professional and personal integrity questioned.” Among other charges leveled: When MnDOT employees did grant interviews and provide information, “they feel their work has been mischaracterized in print and facts have been disregarded in lieu of predetermined story lines.”

    In particular, according to Janecek, employees singled out Strib investigative team members Tony Kennedy and Paul McEnroe as particularly egregious offenders in the offensive language category, uttering phrases like “bullshit,” “you’re lying” and “you’re stonewalling.”

    MnDOT has been under investigation on so many occasions by the Star Tribune that I wonder why its employees aren’t more desensitized by now to the journalistic speculum. However, another part of me sympathizes with MnDOT worker bees.

    Kennedy and McEnroe are not the warm and fuzzy feature writers the paper uses to staff the booth at the State Fair or provide whimsical insight into the paper at Rotary Club luncheons. No, Kennedy and McEnroe are the baying hounds from Hell that are released from their heavy chain link kennels by leather-gloved handlers when the prisoners escape.

    Thinking of them working a story brings to mind the description given Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator: “It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever.”

    That’s McEnroe and Kennedy. Especially McEnroe. This is the man the paper has sent to cover two wars—and not as an “embedded” correspondent. When rookie Minnesota Viking Dimitrius Underwood went AWOL to Philadelphia in 1999, McEnroe was dispatched with a pocketful of cash and orders to find him in that city, with no other information. He did. McEnroe is relentless. So is Kennedy—ask Northwest Airlines, which he covered like a blanket when assigned to that beat.

    That’s good news for Strib management, which has been reaping the benefits of their exhaustive, scoop-filled bridge collapse reporting and is gearing up to nominate the pair in all sorts of Pulitzer categories, according to staffers. The bad news is, when you unleash the dogs, sometimes people get bitten.

    In this case, according to Janecek’s report, the victims are MnDOT employees who are either potty-mouth adverse or just plain tired of being—pardon the pun—hounded by the pair. Is that a crime? Should the Stribsters be sent to journalistic charm school for a refresher course? It’s doubtful the paper will pay much attention to the PIM report, other than to write it off as political polemic.

    Neither McEnroe nor Kennedy responded Friday afternoon to an email containing the PIM story. Kennedy, reached at home Sunday night, seemed more poodle than pit bull. He said he hadn’t received the email, wasn’t aware of the PIM report and didn’t want to hear about it. "I work hard during the week; I don’t want to deal with anything on the weekends," said the reporter, who is well known for making calls at any time, day or night (or weekend), when he’s working on a story. "I’ll deal with it Monday, if I have to deal with it at all.

    Of course, I was tempted to yell at him, “Stop stonewalling me with that bullshit!” but I guess he wouldn’t have gotten the joke.

    However, the part of Janecek’s story that did gave me pause involved claims that story coordination at the Strib seems so poor that everybody and their mother at the paper appears to be asking for the same documents, which is making for costly extra work at MnDOT, an agency funded by tax dollars.

    That may be the point where this story rises above the partisan pool.

  • MinnPost Debut: A "Thoughtful" Approach to News

    RYBAK: Sigh.

    For some time, I’ve put off writing a post about today’s 11 a.m. debut of what’s being touted in some circles as the divine answer to the Twin Cities’ current Crisis in Journalism. I’m referring, of course, to the launch of MinnPost.com, the online newspaper creation of Joel Kramer, the former Star Tribune editor-turned-publisher-turned journalistic manumitter.

    Kramer stepped forward this summer to, I guess, rescue the Twin Cities from the ravages of PiPress owner Dean Singleton and the faceless Avista-owned Star Tribune. Both, you see, have condensed news, bought off and spit out reporters at such an alarming rate (well, alarming if you’re a reporter), that it seems Kramer decided it was his sacred duty to restore Twin Cities journalism to its illustrious past.

    I want to put some emphasis on the word “sacred.” It contributes to the fact that—as much as I’m trying to keep an open mind about MinnPost and as much as I would like to see it succeed as a kick-ass publication—the whole undertaking makes my teeth hurt.

    As Kramer makes clear in his rather dry lectures–um, presentations– (one of which I recently attended) that there will be nothing frivolous about MinnPost. No sports scores, no stocks, no movie, music or theater reviews. No oddball, newsy feature stories that gave newspapers of old their vibrancy. Instead, Kramer emphasized, his new publication is designed to attract “news-intense,” “civically-engaged” readers, the sort of readers “who like to read The Economist,” and who value news written by “high quality” “professional” reporters “who care about Minnesota.”

    Hence, his new publication’s motto: “A Thoughtful Approach to News.”

    That’s where my hackles really start heading north.

    Let’s talk about how Thoughtful it is to tout this new online/new media approach, then, just to be on the safe side, announce that you’ll be passing out 2,000 printed copies of the paper every day. They won’t look like a paper, mind you, (just eight sheets of 8×11 paper stapled together) and they’ll be handed out on street corners in downtown Minneapolis, St. Paul, the 494 strip and Edina. How Thoughtful is it, when you’re operating on a shoestring and paying only your editors full-time wages, to be spending 20 cents a copy on that endeavor, for a total of $104,000 per year? Oh, and then brag about the fact that, as a non-profit, you’ve already raised about $120,000. Guess we know where those Thoughtfully-donated dollars will be going.

    It just doesn’t make sense.

    Nor does it make sense to tout yourself as an online version of the extraordinarily popular Slate and Salon online journals where little similarity exists. Kramer has taken pains to distance his Thoughtful Approach to News from Thoughtless, opinionated outfits (well, like ours). However, Slate was just described recently in the New York Observer (probably not a Thoughtful enough publication to suit Kramer) as a fixture of “opinion journalism.” The San Francisco-based Salon is an online magazine (as opposed to a collection of tiny posts or news stories) which prominently features reviews and articles about music, books, and films.

    LAMBERT: Damn, talk about a tough crowd. I knew I needed a little sharper knife when I was alone in here, but you, girl, are one hard sell. Do you heckle funeral eulogies? … not to make any connection between funerals and the arrival of MinnPost.I’ve listened to more than a few of Kramer’s presentations, and I concede they aren’t exactly 20 minutes of Chris Rock. And I’m assuming he will steer MinnPost in a direction I wouldn’t go … entirely.

    But before anyone accuses me of being closed off and utterly negative to MinnPost I have to say I admire and will root for anyone who can deliver more credible content into the public news diet. Too many people consume too much fact-free bullshit. Anyone who is working to re-balance that situation has my support. Moreover, I admire someone who is willing to stick $250k of his own money into the venture and actively work at it, as Kramer has and is.

    I attended his open house, too. Remember? I was the one encouraging hugs between you and my old drinking buddy, Neal Justin, (who we told we were going to rip for his new Monday column, and which we did a couple days ago). The concept and the cost of this 2,000 stapled copies thing strikes me as kind of funky. The sort of thing that could be the first item red-lined when someone screams, “belt-tightening!” But I do recall Kramer talking about some kind of feature/analysis style sports coverage.

    In fact, one of the more interesting conversations I had over at the MinnPost office was with ex-Strib Timberwolves beat writer, Steve Aschburner, who will contribute stories to the site. Steve’s separation from the Strib was one of the most hamhanded of many hamhanded episodes. But he seems philosophical about it now.He said two things that I found interesting. One, he sees in Kramer – for all his wonkiness and lack of hip-hop cred – “an actual leader,” as he put it. A much overlooked factor in the struggles of modern newsrooms is that while the staffs may be aging-to-aged veterans, middle level editing/managing jobs – thankless eye-glazing jobs — are often handled by comparatively inexperienced people for whom budget control is as high or higher a priority than quality writing and reporting. Too many, in my experience, don’t even qualify as avid newspaper readers themselves. I’m paraphrasing here, but Aschburner’s view was that, “I’m tired of being told to respect and follow somebody just because they’ve been handed a title. With Joel, I have no proble
    m following his direction because he’s proven he can lead.”

    The other thing Aschburner mentioned was that as a sports writer he doubts he’ll have the difficulty making the transition to the less formal and freer style of the Web. Sports departments everywhere have long had a special license for language, attitude and commentary that newsroom managers in other departments – some for reasons of inexperience, others for reasons of incompetence and/or timidity – don’t allow their staffs.

    RYBAK: I truly am sorry. I don’t mean to be so nasty. But as a ratty-ass reporter, undue pretentiousness beckons like an overfull balloon to a pinholder. Oops, there I go again, not being Thoughtful.

    I want to say something nice about J-Kram, so you’ll get off my butt. I wasn’t working at the Strib when Joel was in the building. But my homies say that he was one of the finest editors the paper ever had during his days in the newsroom. A guy you wanted looking over your shoulder as you wrote. The best.

    Once he ascended to the publisher’s suite, however, opinion shifts. Kramer the publisher, in order to save journalism back in the mid-1990s, implemented procedures at the Strib that remain laughable to this day.

    He divided its reporters into “teams,” (which totally Balkanized the newsroom), and engaged in a whole bunch of newsroom renaming: Subscribers became “reader-customers,” the managing editor became the “news leader,” and the newspaper became “perhaps the most ridiculed newspaper in the country,” according to a New York Times article about the Strib written in 1995. Kramer, the once-accessible editor dug in his heels and stubbornly defended his rampant jargonism, which was dismantled after he left the paper.

    I see Joel the editor in his commitment to an ambitious undertaking like this and in seeking to bring some legitimate news gathering back to the marketplace, even if I think he is severely underpaying the talent. There are some real standouts among the reporters he’s signed up and I look forward to seeing their bylines regularly.

    However, I see Joel the publisher in his stubborn belief that he knows better than anyone else when it comes to the Internet. If he really believed in the Internet, he wouldn’t be messing around with handing out expensive stapled copies of an online paper. If he really understood the Internet, I think MinnPost would be a lot more Daily Mole and a lot less refried mainstream media.

    That said, I’ll be reading with great interest.

    LAMBERT: The other issue that caught my attention was when he declared that MinnPost, with people like Doug Grow, Britt Robson, Susan Albright, David Brauer, my old buddy Sarah Janecek, G.R. Anderson and Steve Berg, to mention just a few, would not be offering political endorsements … on the advice of his attorneys and their interpretation of the 501(c)3 statutes.

    I don’t get this.

    As it is, MinnPost might be tilted more heavily left-of-center than the old Strib – Sarah can’t do all the righty lifting – but other than porn and Britney Spears (a redundancy, I suppose) nothing drives traffic like politics, and a fair and open Op-Ed board-style discussion of candidates and referendums would be pretty damned interesting.

    This will be a fascinating test of the appetites and affinities of web users, web-intense users. Will Kramer appeal to an MPR quality audience with a product that goes only a little bit further than the existing daily papers? Or will he find that the stories/posts that earn the largest audience – and hold out the greatest potential for ad revenue – point in him a different direction, possibly more Slate and Salon than StarTribune.com?

    I wish him and his crew the best.

  • BREAKING NEWS [UPDATED]: Scott Libin Named WCCO-TV News Director

    As we projected, WCCO-TV announced Scott Libin as its new news director to staff this afternoon. Libin, former news director at KSTP-TV, comes back to the Twin Cities from his job as managing editor for on-ine content at the Poynter Institute, the journalistic think tank in St. Petersburg, Florida.

    Libin replaces Jeff Kiernan, who left the station in September for WBZ-TV in Boston. That leaves only Libin’s former employer KSTP with a news director slot to fill. (Prevailing belief there is that GM Rob Hubbard will hire from within this time.)

    Lambert spoke with Libin from his Poynter office this afternoon and filed the following:

     Scott made a point of saying all the right things. Like how, "Even when I was at KSTP I greatly admired the work they were doing at WCCO." (He’s never been accused of not having a smooth, political touch.)

    But the current situation has two lines of thinking. One is that the mini-franchises the station has built with unique segments like "Reality Check", "In the Know" and "Good Question" are heading Ch. 4 into an irresistible direction for more a feature-ish style of news product, something the new guy — Libin — would be expected to build upon.

    The other is that these same mini-franchises have become a bit of a velvet trap (only one, "Reality Check", has much of a news punch), and that attention to tougher news coverage has slackened as time and resources migrated their way. Point being that the new guy — Libin — would have to do something about that.

    So, what is it? Ying or yang?

    "I don’t know," was Libin’s response. "And frankly, I think it’d be pretty foolish of me to plant my flag on anything before I’m in the building. But listen, my impression of ‘CCO has always been that they do a very credible, very solid job of covering the news of the day and breaking news, and that while it isn’t exactly rocket science to want to build on what is working, I don’t know that the way you do that, necessarily, is by multiplying the exact same elements."

    One upside to WCCO comes as a consequence of Libin’s somewhat professorial personality. As much as he loves to talk the nuts, bolts and theory of journalism, he does actually listen. (And as Don Shelby’s boss he’ll have to learn to listen a lot. … oh settle down, that’s a joke.) As WCCO knows from fairly recent memory, (the crowd that preceded Kiernan), fatal symptoms of bad managers include those who arrive with no curiosity about the staff”s institutional memory, no apparent curiosity in what anyone else thinks might be a good next move and a wholly unearned, "New Sheriff in Town" attitude.

    "Yeah," said Libin, "I’m not really one of those characters who comes in and marks his territory as a first order of business. I’ll take some time to talk to people, and see what I can learn." (He says he’s taking a flight up Sunday and plans on schmoozing the troops most of Monday.)

    Another facet in Libin’s favor over the 24 others who interviewed for the job might have been the Poynter factor, in the context of the very imminent convergence of the Internet and TV and the transition to all-digital transmission on February 17, 2009. Given the average four to five year life cycle of most news directors, both these epochal events in the history of media will likely occur on his watch at ‘CCO. And down at Poynter, convergence and transition are the kinds of topics they sprinkle on their Froot Loops for breakfast.

    Does Libin have any deep thoughts he’d like to share before starting work here, Dec. 3?

    "Well," he says, "I wouldn’t bet on any news organization that isn’t dealing with those issues on a daily basis. But overall, after hearing that newspapers are dead, that the book is dead and that TV is dead, I still think there’s plenty of life in the TV beast. I’m looking forward to this."

    Libin will be gratified to know that the ‘CCO newsroom broke into applause when his name was announced this afternoon.

     

    Here’s the official WCCO press release:

    Scott Libin has been named News Director of WCCO-TV, it was announced today by Susan Adams Loyd, WCCO-TV Vice President and General Manager. Libin, who is currently managing editor of Poynter Online and a faculty member at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., will oversee the station’s day-to-day news operation beginning Dec. 3.

    "Scott Libin is a highly regarded news executive," said Loyd. "Colleagues and competitors tip their hat to his leadership abilities and eloquence. He has many qualities that make him the perfect fit for this position, particularly his journalistic integrity, along with strong ties to the Twin Cities. We are thrilled to welcome Scott to the WCCO family."

    "I’ve admired WCCO for so many years," said Libin. "It’s a truly exceptional television station recognized and respected by journalists across the country. I’m honored by the opportunity to be a part of it, and I can hardly wait to get started. This would be an extraordinary job for any news director. But beyond that, my wife and I are very excited about getting back to the Twin Cities, to family and friends, and to be a part of a community we really love."

    At Poynter, Libin is responsible for daily online coverage and edit content for the country’s No. 1 Web site serving journalists. He also leads seminars for journalists. This was Libin’s second time working for Poynter. From 1995 to 1998, he taught management, producing, reporting and ethics there.

    Libin is known locally as he was the News Director for KSTP-TV in St. Paul from 1998 to 2003. He was responsible for producing eight hours of daily news for the market’s first duopoly (KSTP and KSTC) and was leading the charge when KSTP won the NPPA Station of the Year award twice and the regional Edward R. Murrow Award for Overall Excellence, Best Newscast and Spot News Coverage. Prior to that, Libin was Vice President of News at WGHP-TV in Greensboro/High Point/Winston-Salem, N.C. He was managing editor, weekend anchor and senior reporter for this station from 1986 to 1991. Before getting into television, Libin was a Congressional Press Secretary for the US House of Representatives in Washington, DC.

    Libin graduated with honors from the University of Richmond, with a Bachelor of Arts in English and journalism. He earned his Master of Arts in journalism and public affairs from American University. His wife, Michelle, grew up in Bloomington and has family across the Twin Cities.

    WCCO-TV is part of the CBS Television Station Division, a division of CBS Corporation.

     

     

  • In Defense of Tom Barnard

    RYBAK: Okay, I’ve spent the last three days watching the media have a field day trashing Tom Barnard (mainly) and his KQRS morning show (secondarily) and I’m just not getting it.

    As we’re all well aware, (since it’s been front page news in the Strib and all over TV), the show ran afoul of Minnesota American Indian leaders for remarks made on a recent show about suicides on the Red Lake Indian reservation. Since then, everyone has stepped up to the plate to take a crack at Barnard– the latest being former St. Paul City Councilman Jay Benanav, who raged in a Strib letter to the editor that, "KQRS lets Tom Barnard" get away with blah, blah, blah.

    Hey, Benanav, (who I believe may have an axe to grind with TB), it wasn’t Tom who made the grossly bigoted remark. It was his terminally stupid sidekick Terry Traen, whose painfully uneducated, ill-informed,tone-deaf pronouncements consistently drag down the show. Have you heard her on terrorists? The Middle East? Or religion? Or geography? Or movies? Take your pick.

    By my transcript reading, Barnard tried to diffuse her remarks in as professional a manner as possible. Now everyone’s calling for him to be fired or to quit.

    Still, nobody seems to be thinking about what actually happened in their rush to kick Barnard for — who knows? Remarks he made a decade ago? The fact that he has the second most popular morning show in the country? Because they can shake money out of the mighty Citadel/ABC coffers?

    I may be in a minority, but I’m not alone in feeling like Tommy B is getting a bum deal in this latest dust-up.

    Ron Rosenbaum, who got pistol-whipped on his KSTP 1500 radio show a couple years back, (for quoting a line from Goodfellas that a listener took as a racial slur), was most sympathetic.

    "There’s nothing more painful than to be dragged through the media circus," Ron commiserated. "And in this case, the comment wasn’t even made by him. I’m not a fan of racist comments, but I don’t think Tom did what he’s accused of doing. People just accepted that he did."

    Even you took a shot the other day, Mr. Lambert, by suggesting that his listeners were all bigots. Or most of them. Or the ones who lived up in Jesse Ventura country. I wasn’t really clear.

    I don’t think you can stereotype an audience like that…not when 31 percent of radio listeners in the Twin Cities tune him in every morning. How about this for a theory? You’re driving in your car and want to listen to something in the morning on your old-fashioned, non-satellite-radio enhanced radio. You can listen to music; tune into MPR/KFAI or another public station for news, or you can take your pick of a number of middling talk shows that mix news with girltalk/sportstalk/teentalk/politicaltalk/whatever.

    But what if you just want to be entertained? To have a couple laughs before you get to your day job? That’s when I tune into KQ.

    There, I get weird news stories–many with local angles, one-liners,comedians and yeah, some stupid adolescent humor. I also get interviews with interesting people. Tom’s interview with docu-king Ken Burns was one of the better ones done during his sweep through town.

    LAMBERT: Well … what is that giant puckering sound I hear? You’re going to have to freshen the lipstick a bit after that one.

    I remember Rosenbaum’s experience pretty well. In fact, I remember writing a column for the PiPress defending him … on the basis largely that there was nothing else in his on-air experience that remotely suggested racial exploitation, much less outright racism. Rosenbaum was railroaded, pure and simple.

    Unfortunately for Barnard, his record on this kind of stuff is nowhere near as clean as Ron’s. There’s a pattern here.

    In this particular episode I get the part about Traen riding the stupid bus. (Although, let’s not omit the detail about Tom pitching that not exactly fact-checked line about the rich tribes not giving anything to the poor tribes). But my point is that knuckleheadedness is something Barnard both engenders and exploits.

    Barnard’s a very shrewd operator. He and every other "shock jock" (tired, badly worn phrase, that one), understand that winning the ratings game means playing down, not up to audiences. Sure he can do an intelligent enough interview with everyone from mountain climber Ed Viesturs to Ken Burns. I’ve never said he was stupid. But the popularity of the show rests on a bedrock of adolescent humor — and hell, I laugh at fart jokes — and blue collar antipathies, which occasionally come back to bite.

    As I’ve been explaining to some of the trolls on the comment board,my run out to the bowling alley in Ramsey years ago was prompted by statistics showing that Jesse Ventura pulled the highest percentage of support in the very same area that Barnard is most popular. Interesting. What gives? I wanted to meet these people. I’m not saying there was any great science to it. I could have gone to a church basement dinner and asked the nice ladies spooning up meatballs what they thought of Barnard. They’d probably have a different view of life.But as local watering holes go, the big bowling alley seemed a good place to chat up a reasonably average enough collection of locals.

    And there were plenty of Barnard and Jesse fans to go around. Beyond that, what can I tell you? They said what they said, and more than just a little of it wasn’t exactly Chamber of Commerce quality stuff. But that’s life.

    I saw the Benanav letter in today’s Strib. He might have helped his cause if he had reminded readers how exactly Barnard and he tangled.Benanav was running against Randy Kelly for mayor of St. Paul in ’02. Kelly was Norm Coleman’s guy, and Barnard blistered Benanav steadily all through the last week of the campaign, including election day morning. No one could ever prove the impact of that kind of advertising", but 400 votes (Kelly’s margin of victory) ain’t much.

    But hey, Tommy needs some good lovin’ from somewhere. Knock yourself out.

    RYBAK: You know, I do appreciate the fact that you took a trip up to a bowling alley in Ramsey to do some field research, but I hardly think we should be taking that as scientific fact. First of all, there are no radio ratings that I have ever seen that pinpoint listeners geographically. Where would you get data like that? Does it exist?

    Second, did you visit a bowling alley in South Minneapolis? St.Paul? Is the correlation really to Ramsey..or could it be to bowlers?

    I am absolutely certain that if you searched cars throughout South Minneapolis and socially conscious Edina, you’d find an ENORMOUS numberof radios with KQ set on the dial–and not for the classic rock.

    Tom Barnard’s career here has lasted almost 40 years, and the guy’s not on the fade–he still dominates the ratings. Just as you’ve written some dud columns and I’ve written some lame-ass stories–everyone has their off days. I’ve even gotten facts WRONG (as you mention thatBarnard did). Have you ever gotten a fact wrong?

    My point is that this episode shouldn’t be recorded in the Barnard ledger that the press dutifully tallies up and regurgitates each time he makes the news–it’s one for Terry Traen. That’s all.

    LAMBERT: I’ll dig through my vast collection offloppy discs and find the old, whacked PiPress story, which explained the geographical confluence, and it was as scientific as the Arbitron ratings and radio research ever gets. But I’ll show what a big guy I am and concede this: This latest flare-up doesn’t rise to the level of theSomali or Hmong episodes. What’s more … (all I do is give and give and give) … I’ll also agree that Barnard takes more heat by virtue of being by far the biggest dog in town.

    But as I’ve said, I’m not accusing the guy of stupidity. He knows exactly what he’s doing, and it is a calculated shtick — that after all this time is second nature to him. His talent is in playing it so well. A little up-scale for them with book learnin’ and plenty of down-scale for the kids in the back of the class. If various interest groups cared what Jason Lewis or Bob Davis were saying they’d probably have as good if not better reasons to go after them. But those guys can only dream of an audience the size of Barnard’s.

    We’re talking about this at all because the guy — for better and for worse — is a bona fide cultural icon in Minnesota, every bit as big (hell, bigger ) than WCCO’s Boone & Erickson in their day. If the license Barnard exercises to win and hold a huge audience is the issue here — and that certainly is what interests me most — I think we can agree that it says something, something real and true about modern Minnesota.

    Maybe you’re on to something after all. Maybe we should thank Tommy for holding up a fog-free mirror to the state of our sensibilities.There’s no gooey gloss on his shtick. Real, tenured cultural anthropologists — as opposed to amateurs like us — can use "The Appeal of Tommy B" as a damned good object lesson.

    But hey, nice going. I’m betting the boy hasn’t gotten that warm a squeeze in a long time.

  • Is Ben Tracy leaving WCCO? Good Question!

    Short
    answer: yes. This is one of the least surprising announcements in local
    TV circles, as Tracy’s departure was widely anticipated in the wake of
    his close friend Jeff Kiernan’s departure as ‘CCO news director. It was
    just a question of whether he’d follow Kiernan, or jump up to network
    news.

    Here’s General Manager Susan Adams Loyd’s memo to staff (which feels more informal than the press release):

    In just a few minutes, you will be getting a copy of a press release
    regarding Ben Tracy, and I wanted to give you a few minutes heads-up
    about some news related to him. Ben will be joining CBS News in January
    as a network correspondent where he will report for the CBS Early Show
    and the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric and will be based out of Los
    Angeles.

    Of course we will miss Ben very much, but I hope you feel like I do
    in that this is a great opportunity for him. He is an example of the
    kind of talented people that work here at WCCO. I am not surprised when
    other big stations and the networks call upon our folks for that next
    step. He is hard worker, and the caliber of his reporting has been
    recognized by our viewers over his tenure. Fortunately, because Ben
    will be with CBS, they will continue to enjoy his work.

     

    Ben has agreed to stay through the November book and into December,
    his last day being December 16. Although the process has not been
    initiated yet to find Ben’s replacement, we do plan at this time to
    continue Good Question in some format and fashion.

  • Strib's Hage to join Klobuchar

    In
    what can safely be called a HUGE blow to the Star Tribune’s already
    shaken editorial staff, Dave Hage announced today that he is leaving
    the paper to join Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s staff as communications director.
    Office scuttlebutt holds that newsroom editor D.J. Tice will be tapped
    to replace Hage. That makes sense: Doug Tice provided the conservative
    voice for the Pioneer Press editorial pages when he worked there, and
    has faced some criticism for allegedly bringing that bent into the
    Strib newsroom. Moving him back to the opinion pages would solve that
    situation, plus give publisher Chris Harte the kind of editorial writer
    he appears to be seeking.

     

    Here’s the memo from Scott Gillespie:

    Newsroom staff: During almost 30 years in journalism, Dave Hage has
    been passionate about public service journalism – first as a local news
    reporter, then as a national magazine writer and more recently as a
    member of the Star Tribune’s editorial board.

    Now he’s decided to put that passion to work in politics and government as communications director for Sen. Amy Klobuchar.

    To say we’ll miss Dave’s contributions to the Star Tribune and
    journalism in Minnesota is an understatement. He’s one of the best in
    the profession and has been a tremendous contributor to the newspaper,
    both in News and Editorial. He’s an award-winning journalist who has
    always been humble about his own work while supporting and praising the
    efforts of his colleagues on the third floor.

    Many of you know Dave quite well, but here’s some background for those who might not have worked with him over the years:

    Dave joined the Star Tribune in 1979 as a suburban reporter for the
    Community section, then wrote about labor, business and the economy
    from 1981 to 1991. From 1991 to 1995 he was an economics correspondent
    for U.S. News & World Report in Washington.

    He returned to the Star Tribune as an editorial writer in 1995 and
    has written expertly on a range of subjects including Minnesota’s
    economy, health care, aviation, poverty and agriculture. He’s also
    written two books, No Retreat, No Surrender, a chronicle of the
    meatpackers’ strike at Hormel, co-written with our own Paul Klauda; and Reforming Welfare by Rewarding Work, published by the University of
    Minnesota Press in 2004.

    In his new job, Dave will divide his time between Washington and the Twin Cities.

    I know you’ll join me in wishing Dave and his family all the best.

  • Sir Ian & Brenda v. CJ: The Final Bell

    RYBAK: It’s so hard to keep up with the folks on DishZilla C.J.’s shit list: it just keeps growing all the time. This week she trashed respected KSTP reporter Bob McNaney–not really for remarks he made at the Midwest Emmys, as she wrote in her column– but because he never makes remarks to the Strib gossip. And as people who really don’t want to deal with C.J. know–like an elephant, she never forgets.

    Evidently, another person on her "must trash" list is Twin Cities’ star restauranteuse Brenda Langton (Cafe Brenda, Spoonriver), who was the focus of a big C.J. "scoop" a few weeks back because her restaurant allegedly turned away actor Ian McKellen–then appearing at the Guthrie as King Lear–because he came before the restaurant opened, or didn’t want to sit at a table–or who the hell knows why, given C.J.’s convoluted copy.

    We were subsequently shocked, SHOCKED to learn that Sir Ian held a different view of that column item, as evidenced by his handwritten note on a faxed copy of the October 10 column. "Don’t believe a word you read in the Star Tribune," it reads.

    BrendaIanNote.jpg

    Skeptics might be further assuaged by this picture of Sir Ian with Brenda and and Lear co-star Jonathan Hyde, who played the Earl of Kent.

    IanBrenda.jpg

    The Strib has steadfastly ignored complaints about C.J., preferring instead to praise her regular appearance as one of the top columnists (on and off line) at the paper (not really that hard to do if you’re writing about media, gossip or sports, three of the reading public’s favorite topics/guilty pleasures).

    Why would this change just because one of the world’s greatest living actors thinks she sucks (and, now, the paper as well)?

    Perhaps the Pioneer Press’s marketing department (if it still has one) should give the McKellen note a look…it could make a dandy billboard, don’t you think?

    LAMBERT: I called Ms. Langton, a.k.a. Brenda, this morning to get a little better idea how this CJ classic actually went down. I mean, the clear inference from the Oct. 10 column was that Brenda’s clueless, rube-like people had snubbed the great actor and … uh, maybe … we might imagine … McKellen was miffed. Right? (Again, hard to tell from the column.)

    "It was just so stupid," Brenda remembers. "She [CJ] called up and was just so super nasty. She had this tone. And she’s saying things like, ‘Do you have weekly meetings?’ Uh, yes, CJ, we have staff meetings. What’s your point? ‘Well, don’t you think you might want to put up pictures of all the famous people in town so your staff recognizes them if they come in?’"

    Brenda’s response was a steely, "No." She explains — and I freely admit we’re deep into This Has Nothing to Do With the Price of Rice territory — that she spotted McKellen looking at a Spoonriver menu one afternoon as she was on the phone, coincidentally enough, to the Guthrie. By the time she got off, the aged, rumpled McKellen, who doesn’t exactly have the same recognizablity quotient as, say, George Clooney, had left. Brenda asked her staff what happened, and they explained that, it being 5 p.m., they didn’t have a table free right then and McKellen didn’t have time to wait. No volcanic outrage on the great man’s part. Busy restaurant. Tight schedule. Can’t make it today. It happens.

    Long(ish) story short, Brenda calls her Guthrie pal to tell them to tell McKellen she’s very sorry and she’ll find a spot for him. Word gets back that McKellen was not at all offended but couldn’t make it back that day; he would however try again. Still, at this point, no harm, no foul, no snubbing, no nothing — except the insinuation in the area’s largest newspaper that the provincial Midwest chowderheads bungled an opportunity to serve a lion of the theater.

    Such a nice, light touch.

    Anyway, according to Brenda, McKellen, true to his word, stops in a few days later. Again at 5. The restaurant is full. But this time Brenda jumps in and offers him and fellow actor Hyde "executive dining" in her tiny kitchen office. McKellen likes the idea. "Mah-velous! Mah-velous," he says. Lear must eat! Brenda tosses on a crisp white tablecloth, and the two men enjoy a fine meal before posing for a picture and heading back over to the office.

    "They were both wonderful," says Brenda. "Ian went around and greeted everyone in the kitchen."

    At some point, someone mentions CJ’s column to McKellen, and Hyde cracks something to the effect, about how, in general, "You can’t trust these papers." Off that cue, Sir Ian merrily autographs a Xerox of CJ’s Oct. 10 opus, which Brenda might well-consider framing by the front door. It’s a terrific reverse-barometer review, in a way.

    "Famous people have been coming in for years," says Brenda. "Joe Perry of Aerosmith came back to talk to (the kitchen staff) one time. Elvis Costello comes in every time he is town. So does k.d. Lang. But I’m not about to pounce on people. You know?" (She says she hasn’t done the Sardi’s or Carnegie Deli thing and framed pictures of her famous clientele, but may start. "I’m 50 now. So what the hell, right?)"

    She says CJ — who is nothing if not relentless — comes around frequently demanding to know, as opposed to "asking" — who has been in. (That velvet touch thing is so overrated, you know.) "She’s mad because I don’t tell her who has been in."

    Brenda says she didn’t send CJ a copy of the autograph but did kick over a copy of the group photo you see here. "She didn’t see the humor in it. She called and asked if someone was playing a practical joke on her."

    If there’s a bottom line to this "issue" it’s an almost pathological deficit of humor. But that’s not news, is it?

  • RADIO (Magazine) Dials Down

    RYBAK: Word trickling out of Kenan Aksoz’s Metropolitan Media Group in Bloomington is that its newly launched RADIO magazine has encountered some static after just two issues. Kenan told me Tuesday that RADIO, which is jointly owned by Metropolitan and the radio marketing group Marketing Architects, “will be put on hold while we assess the model.”

    Kenan acknowledged that, at 100,000 copies per issue, RADIO was an ambitious launch. “The initial feedback from readers and distributors was better than expected.” However, “the advertising was a little slower to come by.” He said it wasn’t unusual to “have an initial launch, then put it on hold for a few months to re-evaluate it and then come out with a regular schedule.”

    LAMBERT: Metropolitan Media is the outfit that turns out Escape [Sun Country’s inflight magazine], Saint Paul, City South, and all those shiny suburban city magazines that come free in the mail, Edina, Woodbury, Eden Prairie, etc.. They’re all based on the notion that you and me and the celebrity-crazed housewife next door are eager for a peek at the lifestyles of famous media folk like, uh, Dan “The Common Man” Cole and — more specifically — any woman. preferably blonde, who has ever read off a TelePrompter in front of a live camera.

    While I accept the apparently inexhaustible advertiser faith in the appeal of the lifestyle magazine format, when MMG announced a monthly built exclusively on Twin Cities radio personalities, our reaction I dare say was, “WTF?” It would be an understatement to say we had doubts about market enthusiasm for a magazine focused on such a narrow media niche.

    RYBAK: I asked Kenan about that during our conversation and he readily agreed that the concept was unusual: “It’s the first of its kind.” He said the rationale was that there were only a handful of TV stations here and that they were already covered by local media. “But radio is barely covered by anybody.” Given that big TV dogs like Don Shelby have their own radio shows and that other big dogs like Jeff Passolt regularly appear on other radio shows, “they would show up in our magazine anyway.”

    LAMBERT: Still, everyone knows that once you get past Tom Barnard, Jason Lewis, Dan Barreiro and a small handful of recognizable names, the celebrity impact quotient of local radio starts to slide pretty drastically. I mean, if you’re a life-style magazine the assumption you’re selling is that the celebrities featured in your magazine have lifestyles worth envying. But the reality is that most radio jocks are working for little more than your average SuperAmerica manager. No one is going to envy their Ikea kitchenette and classic ’97 Nissan.

    That said, damn but I’d love to see the outtakes from a foo-foo lifestyle shoot at the homes of the Barreiros, or the Lewises or — my personal fantasy favorite — Joe and The Long Suffering Mrs. Soucheray. (“Joe! Joe! Joe, come up and say hello to the nice reporter!”) I’d pay for pics of the boys posing proudly in front of their new chintz drapes and overstuffed love seats.

    RYBAK: Although Kenan said that a couple salespeople were let go, the fact that RADIO editor and former WCCO-TV reporter Bridgette Bornstein still has a job would indicate that there may be some broadcast life yet left in the mag. He said a final decision could come in a week, or take a month.

    Certainly things aren’t hurting at Metropolitan, which currently publishes 20 magazines. Kenan told me that City South, which covers Southwest Minneapolis, has been so well-received that he’s bumping it from a quarterly to a monthly publication. Three other quarterlies–Burnsville, Chanhassen and St. Croix Valley–will also increase pub dates from quarterly to bi-monthly.

    So, you can smirk all you want, Brian, but damn does that lifestyle concept sell. Just think, someday Kenan might even launch a mag called BLOG and feature glossy pics of all of us at home working in our pajamas….

    LAMBERT: Hey, give ’em my number. If they’re nice I’ll strike a series of erotic poses in front of my Coleman grill and show off the couch with the dog drool down the arms.

    But my point, and I had a conversation earlier this year with the Met Media bosses, is that I don’t get their active disinterest in anything newsworthy. As is, they have a magazine consciously avoiding information. My argument was that if they spread the concept out to all Twin Cities media, rolling in the hot-shot cool kids in advertising, publishing, TV and radio, plus their well-fed bosses and balanced out the dingbat “Ooo, look at the beautiful teak crown moldings” stuff with a little news about how these people operate their magazine might make a little bigger impact.

    RYBAK: I acknowledge your point, but think the “non-newsworthy” label can be affixed to a lot more media outlets than Metropolitan. One local publisher was complaining recently that all it takes is one scintilla of un-Pollyanna like writing/reporting to scatter advertisers to competitors offering no newsworthy whatsoever, just print infotainment–interesting little nuggets that don’t hurt anybody. So, in the pursuit of the almighty advertising dollars, nobody’s doing newsworthy–let alone controversy–anymore.

    That said, I absolutely agree that a magazine that covered a variety of local media, rather than just radio, would have seemed a smarter choice.

  • KMSP, WCCO Big Winners at Midwest Emmys

    (UPDATED)

    Okay, okay…enough with the ranting about fake presidential candidates, weathercasters and global warming.

    Media news (of sorts) transpired over the weekend — the annual Upper Midwest Emmy Awards — and I’m here to break up the six-pages of winners into some edible doses for y’all.

    Lambert, who finds award-tallying to be beneath his station, will hopefully weigh in later with some truly dignified poop about the nasty pistol-whipping-in-print that C.J. inflicted on crack KSTP I-Teamer Bob McNaney for his Emmy presenting.

    First things first. It was a close race, but KMSP edged out WCCO in most Emmys won — Channel 9 nabbed 17; Ch. 4 won 15, including a couple biggies: Best Evening Newscast for its 10 p.m. show and Best Sports Anchor to mainstay Mark Rosen. KARE pulled in third with 11 awards, followed by a tie between KSTP and Fox News North, each with 7. KSTP’s Emmys included one for anchor John Mason, several for its breaking news coverage–on air and online–plus one for perennial winner Jason “On the Road” Davis. Twin Cities Public Television took home three Emmys, two of them to “Almanac.”

    Almost half of KARE’s awards went, as they always do, to features from super-reporter Boyd Huppert, who must have a warehouse full of hardware by now (including a national Emmy this year). KSMP investigative journalist Trish Van Pilsum was another multiple award-winner, along with ‘CCO “Good Question” asker Ben Tracy and that segment’s pro shooter, Joe Berglove. Fox Sports Net North’s Anthony LaPanta took home several awards–one for sports play-by-play–as did producers Jeff Byle, Trevor Fleck and John Stroh.

    Photojournalism Emmys went to KARE’s Jonathan Malat (sports), KMSP’s Andy Shilts (news) and Phil Thiesse at KSTP (program).

    Online — or “advanced media” as it is known to the Upper Midwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences — was a prominent category this year, with awards in 17 categories. Judging from the number of awards it garnered–5–KMSP has gotten the hang of online much better than its competitors. Coming in second in this category with four awards was–watch out–startribune.com, definitely a new face at this shindig.

    There were even blogging awards (do you hear that, Lambert?). WCCO’s Jason DeRusha was named best online personality affiliated with a media outlet; Sheletta Brundidge won in the independent online personality category.

    (Lambert Adds:) Awards for blogging? Does this mean I should bathe, groom and buy a tie? Maybe next year, huh?

    I called Bob McNaney about this latest shot from C.J. The man was not pleased, but knows the C.J. game — react negatively and feel the pain for additional months on end — well enough to leave his on-record response at either, “Who cares what C.J. says?”, or “I’m not giving her the time of day”, take your pick.

    I haven’t exactly made a science of this, but apparently the Strib’s most relentless local media watcher — sorry, Neal (Justin) — has been after McNaney for years. But it flared up anew this past winter when McNaney filed several tough pieces on U.S. Attorney Rachel Paulose, simultaneous with C.J. defending/lauding the curiously inexperienced and partisan-tainted replacement for Tom Heffelfinger.

    A professional assessment here; I regard McNaney as one of the half dozen best TV reporters in town. His stuff is invariably solid. But that’s just my read on the small stuff … i.e. how he does his job. I gather that unlike quite a few other TV types, skittish anchors in particular, McNaney hasn’t played the C.J. game, parceling out “scoops” like protection money to curry favor and avoid her wrath, and those railroad cars full of ink.

    Maybe next year we’ll give out awards … unless we win a blogging Emmy, of course.