Minnesota Poll. We Hardly Know Ye.

This past Monday the Star Tribune staff received the following memo from editors Nancy Barnes and Scott Gillespie.

“Rob Daves has agreed to take on the role of project manager of buzz.mn through the end of March. In this role, Rob will be in charge of working with everyone in the newsroom to make the buzz.mn website a success and lay out a plan for its future, including developing marketing plans. To make this a success, we’ll need everyone’s help. Buzz.mn will succeed on the combined efforts of the newsroom, and contributors from the community.

“Only a handful of staffers currently contribute to the site on a regular basis. We’d like for all staff members who live in the communities where we are now developing buzz.mn to contribute items each week. We’re not talking about devoting large chunks of your day, but to file two or three short items off your beat or from your community. You don’t have to be a reporter. In fact, any member of the staff can participate. If you have any questions or need help learning how to contribute, please see Rob or your team leader.

Nancy and Scott

What is noteworthy here is the fact that no mention is made of Daves’ role as head of the paper’s Minnesota Poll, an iconic piece of enterprise reporting that is operating on a much diminished schedule compared to several years ago. By the estimate of one person with knowledge of such things, the current, McClatchy-operated, Star Tribune is devoting something in the range of 15% of what used to be budgeted for polling.

With Daves making this temporary move to goose growth in buzz.mn, one of a half dozen special/web-related productions the Strib has going, suspicions rise that cuurent managers may be quietly shutting the door on the Minnesota Poll in advance of their new, more likely than not budget-cutting owners, the Avista private equity group.

I called Daves for his comment and he made a convincing show of enthusiasm for the buzz.mn work he has been asked to do, but defered any speculation on the vitality of the Minnesota Poll to Scott Gillespie.

So … I sent Gillespie the following e-mail …

Scott:

I’m doing a media blog for The Rake. I’m told Rob Daves is temporarily moving over to handle one of your websites. I called him and he seems enthusiastic about the assignment, but defers any questions about the future of the Minnesota Poll to you.

Frankly, I’m getting expressions of concern from your newsroom that the Star Tribune is planning fewer polls rather than more, and/or that this move portends the demise of the Poll entirely. Can you comment on that?

I’m told the paper is budgeting roughly 15% of what it budgeted for the polls in their glory days. Is that number reasonably accurate?

Can you say how many polls you have planned for ’07? ’08?

Once Daves finishes his work with Buzz.Mn. will he be returning to his same role with the Minnesota Poll at the same or increased budget?

Thanks.

In an entirely timely fashion Gillespie replied as follows …

Thanks for asking, Brian, and I’m sorry it took me so long to get back to you.

The Minnesota Poll will live on. Rob’s a really versatile editor who’s handled many temporary projects for us over the years while also running the poll. I’m not going to get into internal budget figures or frequency issues with you because we have competitors who would love to know what we’re doing and when. But I can assure you that the Minnesota Poll will continue to be an important part of our news report.

Hope you’re doing well.

–Scott

I think its safe to say that a few questions were left unanswered there. One I hadn’t thought of is, “Who really poses any serious competition to the Minnesota Poll”?

I’ll take Gillespie at his word, I guess, that the Minnesota Poll, which I regard as a valuable contribution to Minnesota discourse, will continue to be, “an important part” of the Strib’s news report”. But one truism of modern news “reporting” is that the public rarely complains about what is NOT in the paper, and pricey, labor-intensive endeavors like long-term investigative reporting and polling are therefore easily, uh, “down-sized”, occasionally to oblivion.

Finally, as someone who marvels at the dramatic increases in productivity of American workers … in a time when the real value of their wages has barely kept up with the rate of inflation … I have to be amused at Barnes’ and Gillespie’s call for “all staff members”, reporters and otherwise, to “file two or three short items off your beat …”, each week. You know, when they’re not doing anything else … and with no hint of financial incentive, other than of course keeping their jobs through the next round of “down-sizing.”