Deborah Rybak 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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
(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, … Read more