Tag: media

Having fallen far out of the habit of watching primetime network TV, I can’t add much to any discussion of who got hosed when the Emmy nominations were announced today.

I was pleased with the final season of The Sopranos, which by all the nods looks to clean-up big time at the Emmy Awards Show in September. I watched most of Lost and thought it rebounded well from a lousy third season. But it didn’t rate an Outstanding Drama nomination. Likewise, The Wire, on HBO, has been a terrific series for years and still can’t get a couple cheap statuettes for its troubles.

Meanwhile, 24 got stiffed and I hear no complaints from anyone who watched that thing week after week last winter and spring.

But I have to acknowledge the respect the Academy showed KARE here in the Twin Cities with a “real” Emmy — in the news categories announced yesterday — for a four-minute feature called “Portrait of Compassion,” broadcast on KARE last November and picked up by The Today Show a couple months later. According to KARE News Director Tom Lindner, the show ran unedited, a rare occurrence when the network dogs get their paws on an affiliate’s work.

“Portrait of Compassion,” reported by Boyd Huppert and photographed by John Drilling, profiles a Utah artist, Kaziah Hancock, who has taken upon herself the duty of painting a portrait of every U.S. soldier killed in Iraq and sending it to the surviving family free of charge.

Lindner remembers seeing a blurb about the woman, “maybe in People Magazine or somewhere.” Following this, he dispatched Drilling and Huppert, an unusually deft and sensitive TV writer, to Utah, then up to Northome, and finally to the home of the parents of Staff Sargent Dale Panchot, for the portrait’s arrival.

Here is the text of Huppert’s story.

Here is the story as it appeared on KARE and NBC.

Here is a link to the artist’s website.

The other nominees for Outstanding Feature Story in a Regularly Scheduled Newscast include two CBS Sunday Morning pieces, one by Bill Geist, and one from ABC World News with Charles Gibson, so don’t ask what the odds are. But even a nomination for a national Emmy looks good in the resumé.

Attaboys.

A couple thoughts on yesterday’s announcements that, (A) The Star Tribune’s Guild employees voted 110-2 — a plurality that would have embarrassed Saddam Hussein — to demand the resignation of publisher Par Ridder, and, (B) the almost simultaneous “NEED” of the Pioneer Press to buy-out another 15 newsroom employees before July 27.

On the Strib: I expected nothing less. What the average Joe and Joan don’t understand very well is that reporters, photographers and first line editors are held to remarkably rigid standards of ethics. Significantly more rigid than employees in most other industries. In fact, the line between ethics and conflict of interest is tilted so far that news room managers have been able to get punitive with ludicrous assertions — such as the two Pioneer Press reporters docked pay for attending the Bruce Springsteen concert in 2004 and the part-time Pioneer Press copy editor suspended for bussing to D.C. — clearly on his own time — for an anti-war rally a short time later. (Both of those came under Ridder’s PiPress rule.)

Besides the general tawdriness of Par Ridder’s actions (and explanations) his employees’ vote should be seen in the context of the stark double-standard he has contrived to suit his needs. The suspicion is that private equity investors and managers, people accustomed to gaming systems to their best advantage, have no ear at all for how badly Ridder plays among the journalistic masses. The vote, utterly symbolic though it is, at least underlines — with a bright red Sharpie — that his employees take conflicts of interest, the appearance of and the actual offenses, a lot more seriously than either Ridder or his employers.

Speaking of which … as the sole newspaper professional among the Star Tribune’s ownership moguls, do you think Chris Harte could have maybe spent two minutes crafting an official response to the Guild vote more artful and elegant than, “blow me”, or whatever he said about the union not picking publishers?

Good God. Unless you really are freaked at the impudence and rebellion of your employees slapping a glove across Ridder’s face, is it so tough to say something like, “We respect our employees’ concern for the integrity and reputation of this great newspaper. We understand their concern and … [dissolving into bullshit] … fully expect the final legal judgment to fully exonerate Mr. Ridder.”

But, as I say, if you don’t see any way that last part plays out in your favor, I suppose you do just tell ’em to kiss off.

As it is, I predict Harte and his band of Avista Capital Partners brothers will follow George W. Bush’s example in the Valerie Plame case. First, decline to make any comment while the legal process is on-going. Then, once flattened by legal judgment, declare that unlike everyone else you’re “moving on.”

Then, on the matter of this latest round of PiPress buy-outs. The first joke, from a fellow former St. Paulite, was, “Buy-outs? Who’s left? Are they buying out the interns?”

Beyond that cheap shot, maybe someone can help me here. Guild officials and officers were in a negotiating sessions with MediaNews this afternoon and couldn’t answer this question: How many actual reporters and photographers are left in the Pioneer Press newsroom? The number “180 newsroom employees” was bandied about yesterday, which strikes lay people as a pretty big crew. But how many of that 180 are actually available to — you know — report or photograph a story, cover the city, and otherwise do the the basic enterprise of providing content for a newspaper?

I ask because when I was around the place (which albeit, was rarely),
I had a feel for maybe 75-80 actual reporters and maybe 15 or so photographers. Please, someone, set me straight.

To the surprise of no one, membership of the Star Tribune Newspaper Guild voted to demand the resignation of publisher Par Ridder, who, in addition to facing other accusations, has conceded booting proprietary information from his St. Paul Pioneer Press laptop into the Star Tribune system.

The Star Tribune Guild released the following statement early Tuesday evening.

“Guild colleagues,

“As most of you know from being at the meeting this afternoon, our membership overwhelmingly approved this statement today:

“We, the journalists of the Star Tribune, call on Par Ridder to resign as publisher. We believe the unethical actions to which he admitted in court have damaged the Star Tribune’s credibility and integrity and undermined our ability to hold public figures accountable for their actions. For the good of the Star Tribune and the community it serves, we believe he should step down.”

“A letter to that effect will be delivered to Mr. Ridder on Wednesday. Thanks to all of you who came and spoke up so thoughtfully.

“Meanwhile, our colleagues at the St. Paul Pioneer Press were notified today that 15 MORE buyouts are being sought in their newsroom. You can read editor Thom Fladung’s memo to his staffers.

Your unit officers

Yesterday’s launch of Reveille Magazine probably didn’t send much of a tremor through Condé Nast, Rolling Stone, Spin, yadda yadda, but I regard anything that puts my buddy Jim Walsh back in a saddle, writing what he wants to be writing, a good thing. Likewise, I am favorably disposed to music writers writing like music writers — with all the occasionally indulgent stuff that goes with that.

At the get-go, Reveille Magazine is composed of Walsh, Managing Editor Andrea Myers (who is still editing HowWasTheShow.com), Steve McPherson (who is still posting to SignalEatsNoise.com), Kyle Mattson (of MoreCowbell.net), Rob van Alstyne (allegedly the world’s tallest music critic, and like several others here, formerly of the now defunct Pulse), and finally, Tom Hallett (author of the Pulse “Round the Dial” column.

In the grand tradition of start-up music mags, no one is getting paid for the foreseeable future. Labors of love, baby. And don’t you know Avista Capital Partners and Dean Singleton would love to swing a little of that action? But Myers says she’s schmoozing an advertising agent to plan for the happy eventuality of revenue. Until then, “it’ll probably be like a part-time job for me,” she says. Twenty hours a week of collecting copy and freshening the site. (My guess is she’ll have a better idea of what to do with Walsh’s stuff than the dour matrons who made life so miserable for him at the Pioneer Press.)

Myers expects to divide the news, features, and reviews (live, CDs, etc.) amongst the corps of writers listed above, with columns by Walsh and Hallett. But she has her antennae up for good writers of diverse musical persuasions. (I’m her guy if she needs 40 inches on Satanic S&M Metal.) “I have been talking to a jazz person lately,” she confesses, “so something might happen there.”

She’ll do a bit with Mary Lucia on The Current this Thursday, “a little before five.”

Cut to Jimmy Walsh, recently released from police custody after The Great FREE Freeway Caper. Walsh’s Friday night “Hoots” — free jam sessions/tag team concerts in the basement of Java Jack’s (46th and Bryant, Minneapolis) — have caught on very nicely. He’s even taking the damn thing on the road to New York in a couple weeks.

“Dude,” said Walsh, speaking of Myers, “she’s a ball of energy and really smart.”

Right. OK. But tell me, old man, what is the void a magazine like this fills in the Twin Cities market?

“The void is that there are a lot of talented, hungry writers in this town who are young and have really no place to put their stuff. Beyond that there are some pretty basic needs, like essays, which historically have been the life-blood of rock journalism.”

As Walsh knows well, “feature” arts stories in daily newspapers are basically preview/interviews or trend pieces, usually reworked for the local market after showing some kind of popular traction elsewhere. It has been a long, long time since any of our papers have let an arts writer muse or thumbsuck for any serious length about something the writer felt passionate about. In the absence of any “hot trend” as an obvious hook, I mean.

After all, why give people who enjoy the arts AND reading anything unusual or unexpected to read?

Walsh, by the way, just finished his book, The Replacements: All Over But the Shouting: An Oral History. It’s due out November 15th.

Also, if you’re the type who likes to test just how cool you are — or aren’t — Reveille Magazine is throwing a party for itself this Saturday at 9 p.m. at The Nomad, across from the Cedar Cultural Center on the West Bank.

I’ll be the guy in the Tijuana Brass World Tour ’69 t-shirt.

As promised, veteran ‘CCO-AM government and political reporter/enabler of Sid, Eric Eskola, returned to Dave Lee’s show this morning. Anyone anticipating a long, teary reentry speech was probably disappointed. Eskola confined himself to saying, “I just ran out of gas” last spring and thanking his ‘CCO colleagues and everyone who sent him notes of support.

The “issue” attached to Eskola’s abrupt departure became what some regarded as a “double standard”, where the Eskolas of the world routinely “out” politicians and other public figures yet insist upon privacy when they have their own difficulties. I took shots for on the one hand reporting that he had taken a leave for personal reasons while refusing to disclose what those reasons were. (My dodge was that I merely swatting down the rumor that he had been yanked for disciplinary reasons by either ‘CCO or CBS Radio.)

That debate kind of lives and dies on the notion of an obligation to public accountability. As in, elected officials are held to a different standard than people who are merely known well by the public. Moreover, get any reporter aside and they’ll tell you they know hundreds of juicy private details about public figures that they don’t put into stories simply because such private matters aren’t germane to the job the person is doing. That said, there is a short list of allegedly randy politicians in these parts whose private lives will become very germane the second they are stupid enough to paint themselves into a hypocrisy corner.

According to Eskola’s ‘CCO boss, Wendy Paulson, Eskola is still making the decisions on what and how much to say. In the context of “running out of gas” Paulson said she is encouraging Eskola to dial back on the 12-hour days he had been putting in.

Meanwhile his “Almanac” boss, Brendan Henehan, over at TPT channel 2 says Eskola will be back on the set this Friday with co-host/wife Kathy Wurzer just like old times. Henehan says he told Eskola he’d like him to say something about his absence, but, “That is entirely up to Eric.”

Wednesday’s meeting of Star Tribune Guild stewards ended with the 25 gathered employees blowing past a proposal to put a “no confidence” vote on publisher Par Ridder before membership. Instead, arguing that “no confidence” was “a little soft” considering Ridder’s behavior, the stewards voted unanimously to have membership vote on demanding Ridder’s resignation.

The membership vote is scheduled for 4:30 pm next Tuesday.

Reporter Chris Serres, a Strib Guild officer, says, “It became a pretty long discussion. The prevailing view was that if we believe what he has done is a violation of our code of ethics a ‘no-confidence’ vote is kind of soft. So then we had to work out questions of a proper statement and timing.”

Serres says some of the 25 or so stewards felt it would be better to wait until Judge David Higgs makes a judgment on MediaNews’ request for an injunction against Ridder, something that make take another month or more. But eventually the winning argument was that regardless of the fine legal definitions, Ridder’s behavior is already beyond what is acceptable within the Guild’s Code of Ethics. “We do have one, you know,” Serres joked. And that the membership, another several hundred Strib employees, should be given the opportunity to express themselves on the matter.

Prior to Wednesday’s vote I had spoken with several veteran Stribbers who were taking a, “What’s the point?” view of the “no confidence” idea. Since there was no money or job security in it for the Guild or the newsroom, they said, it struck them as a bit limp-wristed.

The counter-argument was that a vote of “no confidence” is unusual enough it would make a valid statement to the local community and journalists nationally that Ridder has violated a standard of professional behavior his employees value and feel themselves bound to observe. Put another way, whatever the legal decision, professional journalists are required to hold themselves to a higher ethical standard than what the law may allow, and Ridder isn’t anywhere close to that standard.

Whether a call for his resignation, (formally: For Avista Capital Partners to request Ridder’s resignation), ups the ante over “no confidence” I don’t know. But Serres says a committee within the stewards will go through the Guild’s Code of Ethics and produce a statement detailing Ridder’s transgressions in preparation for next Tuesday’s vote.

Incidentally, not to bury the lede, but corroborating sources at a recent meeting with MediaNews owner Dean Singleton confirm his statement that he has already spent $3 million on his suit against Par Ridder. While Singleton has laid out serious cash for lawyers and forensic work on the Pioneer Press computer files Ridder booted into the Star Tribune system, at least one prominent local attorney believes it is reasonable Avista has or soon will spend as much defending him.

Last time I checked $6 million was somewhere in the range of 40% of the Star Tribune’s annual newsroom budget. Obviously I don’t have the precise numbers. But the point is you can cover a lot of Minnetonka Sewer Commission meetings with $6 million … and eventually the loser in this disgraceful mess will be looking to paper over their losses with another round of “right-sizing” (to quote Ridder) in their Twin Cities subsidiaries.

The gist of a recent meeting Star Tribune publisher Par Ridder had with what is left of his editorial page was essentially this, (not a direct quote), “Readers get enough opinion about national issues in other places, they don’t need it from us.”

Said one Op-Eddie, “His message, basically, was to write with more of an eye on the marketplace, and he sees that marketplace as being less interested in national issues, like Iraq, Scooter Libby, the U.S. attorneys story, than local issues. Essentially its another step in the transition from treating readers like citizens to treating them like customers.”

Another emphasized that Ridder wasn’t issuing a dictum, nor was there any sense that punitive action would be taken if the staff continued offering opinions on Presidential commutations, (which they did the next day), the success of the surge, the role of Dick Cheney or whatever. The pitch was rather another facet of Ridder’s “Business Literacy” shtick, which, as he has explained to staffs at both the Pioneer Press and the Star Tribune, requires gathering the types of stories and reporting them in ways most appealing to customers, which means of course both readers and advertisers.

To anyone outside of journalism this sounds profoundly obvious. If you’re selling cars, lay on the chrome! Hype the MP3 gizmos! Give the people what they want, stupid! But customizing news to fit the tastes of the target market has not been the traditional role of big daily newspapers. Yeah, there’s all that sports coverage and funny pages and weather forecasts and TV review stuff. But the essential news end of the paper — of which the Op-Ed pages are an important facet — are supposed to be about telling people (citizens) what they need to know, whether it pleases them or not.

The most obvious example of playing to your customers and giving them exactly what they want to consume is of course Fox News, where every viewer truly is a customer. None of the Strib Op-Ed team with whom I communicated regarded Ridder’s “suggestion” as having any particular ideological tilt. Rather, it was strictly business. But that still isn’t much different than orchestrating a bread and circuses cable channel.

One of the two occasions I had the good fortune to listen to Mr. Ridder up close — prior to his court appearances, I mean — was a “Business Literacy”-Lite gathering he held for the staff of the Pioneer Press A&E section back in 2004. At one point he explained how he believed it was a good idea to steer the Pioneer Press Op-Ed page into “a conservative alternative to the Star Tribune”. This, as I understood it, made good business sense (to him) as the Pioneer Press trimmed staff and budgets and re-directed its meager resources toward more conservative suburban readers.

I was reminded of this strategy when I learned that as part of pulling away from editorializing on national issues, Par was explicit, I’m told, in seeing no good reason for the Star Tribune to continue making presidential endorsements. (For the record, Par’s “conservative alternate” editorial board at the Pioneer Press famously endorsed … George W. Bush for reelection later in 2004.) And why is is it so damned hard to find that classic on the web today?

Pulling back on local opinions on national issues would have, I can argue, the effect, de facto, of relieving public pressure on the Bush administration which at this moment in its term is under near constant siege as a result of an unprecedented set of blunders and scandals.

I’m sure the White House would be pleased to learn that the largest media voice in the Upper Midwest was taking itself out of the Scooter/Dick/Alberto/Iraq/Attorneys/Halliburton/Climate Change/Katrina/Rummy game and devoting itself instead to issues of more local interest like, nickel a gallon gas taxes, light rail, and “cat-beheadings”, as one Stribber suggested.

The dilemma, as actual journalists see it, (in contrast to Par Ridder, newspaper manager extraordinaire), is that reducing the number of editorials on national issues of very high interest — Iraq, Libby, etc. — would just as likely have the effect of giving avid newspaper readers (citizens) another reason to ignore the local paper in favor of the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal or — for you righties, the always satisfying NewsMax.

The day after Clear Channel whacked President and 20-plus year top dog, Mick Anselmo, most of the inside-industry talk around town turned to the crude and rude way they did it … and then quickly segued into what this shake-out means for the seven Clear Channel stations immediately and the Twin Cities radio market in the near term future.

First, the rude part. How pissed off does Clear Channel have to be to drop a guy into a city on a Monday morning and fire a long-term, heretofore successful/reliable/loyal manager … by phone? Anselmo has been quoted elsewhere saying he was taken by surprise. Supposedly he was fishing up north. Well, maybe. Anyone who knows Anselmo knows he’s canny in the extreme and not at all above concocting a self-serving web for a predator to tangle in. So, knowing the hammer was coming down Anselmo may have just decided to stay out on his boat and make Clear Channel corporate look like clods — never a difficult thing to do — by leaving them no option other than to can him long-distance, without proper opportunity for him to say farewell to his troops and bobos.

At any rate, his peers around the market (off-record) regard the treatment he got as extraordinarily tacky. “I don’t care if he didn’t hit his numbers or whatever the reason. That is no way to treat someone who has given you that many years of service,” said one rival.

None of them, interestingly enough, think Anselmo will be out of work for long. The guy is very well connected to the national country music scene, knows Minnesota sports broadcast rights negotiations inside and out and, knowing what he knows about how Clear Channel can and will react to competition, he would be invaluable to any local radio group looking to exploit Clear Channel’s latest round of cost-cutting.

The most logical landing pad for Anselmo to land — after his non-compete expires, (and unlike Par Ridder he won’t be calling a rich daddy for advice on how to get out of one) — is the local CBS group — WCCO-AM, WLTE-FM and “Jack” FM. The Good Neighbor is long overdue for an infusion of direction and energy and, as a couple Clear Channel rivals pointed out, with all of Anselmo’s country music connections, it’d be a no-brainer for him to “blow-up” “Jack”, (radio jargon for “change formats”) and go head to head with one of Clear Channel’s premier cash machines, K102. He might even try slipping K102’s programming architect, Gregg Swedberg, out a side door when no one was looking.

Meanwhile, Anselmo leaves behind at least two sad sack stations out of the seven he ran. First is KTLK, the hard-right talk station, (where I worked briefly, until they realized they had a total whack-job, blithering lefty on their hands and tossed me out the door), and KOOL 108, the so-called “oldies” station.

As I’ve collected the thinking of best available minds over the last 24 hours, the emerging consensus is that KOOL 108’s problems are still in the “tweakable” range. Fuss with the damned playlist until you find the right number of aging Luddites who don’t own an iPod and think 25 minutes of commercials every hour is normal, fine and unavoidable.

KTLK is a whole different beast, and some think, key to Anselmo’s firing. While the idea of FM talk came out of Clear Channel corporate, (the idea’s parent is long gone and FM talk has few supporters inside Clear Channel corporate anymore), it was Anselmo who assembled the talent For KTLK, (or in my case, “lack thereof”), most specifically a very, VERY big annual pay check for Jason Lewis, which by any standard other than Anselmo’s and Lewis’s has not paid off in either ratings or revenue. The station continues to flounder despite, as I’ve said before, the aggregation of the biggest names in wing nut talk — Limbaugh, Hannity, etc. — and an unprecedented 20-month billboard campaign. No one interested in talk could NOT have known where to find Rush and the rest of the echo chamber. KTLK’s struggles are related to something other than “a start-up station”, as Anselmo’s team has tried to explain it.

Most likely Clear Channel will hang with right-wing talk, at least through the ’08 election cycle. They will bet that the few remaining hardcore Bush supporters will continue to linger — against all reality and logic — and KTLK can maybe — possibly — draw in a fraction of the old mid-’90s talk crowd. It is a rebound that becomes far more likely if Hillary Clinton gets the Democratic nomination. (A Hillary-Obama ticket would be every right-wing radio programmer’s dream come true. Then it’d be them against HER and Barack HUSSEIN … who just happens to also be black, with a heavy dose of Bubba redux thrown in for a kicker. An angry white guy trifecta! Perfect!)

Beyond the two problem stations, there is plenty of curiosity over what Anselmo’s replacement, Mike Crusham, a former sales manager will think of what he sees here in Minnesota. For the last two years Crusham has been barnstorming the country “cleaning up” Clear Channel properties. (That usually means “cutting costs to create profit”). If he is, as one Clear Channel rival put it, “A hit man with no real experience or aptitude for talk”, how long will he listen to KFAN and before he says, “WTF?”

From noon until 7 your average sports yob listening to KFAN can often go days without hearing a single extended rant about the opening of Vikings’ training camp, Matt Garza’s acne or A-Rod’s wife’s t-shirts. A talk generalist and corporate journeyman like Crusham may meddle with something that isn’t broken just because he — like the Clear Channel consultants with whom I’ve spoken — preach the Great Template sermon that the Twin Cities are “just like every other market, no difference”.

(Oddly, none of them ever had an explanation for why we here in Houston-North have a public radio news station with an audience three times the size of their megawattage know-nothing talkers. But then no Clear Channel consultant ever struck me as caring enough to look into why that is so.)

Point being. This Anselmo kacking will have blowback. Mark my words.

Mick Anselmo, GM of all thing Clear Channel in the Twin Cities — specifically radio stations KFAN, Cities 97, KOOL 108, K102, KTLK, KDWB and 690 The Score was fired today. His departure puts an end to one of the more remarkable success and survival stories in radio management in this market. Anselmo had managed to elude the blade through six or maybe seven previous management/ownership purges/changes.

Clear Channel, based in San Antonio, is notorious both for being by far the world’s largest radio group — in excess of 1200 stations coast-to-coast — and ruthless about profit delivery to its investors, primary among them being Lowry Mays his family, including son, Mark, Clear Channel’s CEO. The Mays family and other shareholders recently concluded a deal with private equity and hedge fund groups to take Clear Channel back to private, a move that netted them another fast fortune but has saddled the company with significant new debt which in turn has placed even greater pressure on managers like Anselmo to cut costs.

I’ll add more to this post as I work my three rings of gossip. But it would seem reasonable to expect the new GM, reportedly Mike Crusham a Clear Channel VP from Boston, to take very tough looks at under-performing Twin Cities stations.

It’ll be several more weeks before Ramsey County judge David Higgs hands down a decision in the matter of whether Star Tribune publisher Par Ridder’s actions upon leaving the Pioneer Press are grievous enough to warrant throwing him out of his new office in Minneapolis. One line of thought in the legal community is that Judge Higgs would be thrilled if the combatants in the case, Dean Singleton’s MediaNews and Ridder’s current employers, Avista Capital Partners reached an out-of-court settlement and spared him forcing anyone to do anything.

But considering the avidity with which Singleton has pursued full, public prosecution of his case against Ridder, it doesn’t seem likely he’ll settle for anything less than young Par’s impeccably groomed head on a pike. With that in mind, along with all the details of the case — not the least of which is Par conceding virtually every point of Singleton’s complaint — the Star Tribune Guild this Wednesday will take up the question of whether to put a “no confidence” vote on Par before its membership.

Says Strib Guild officer, Chris Serres, “We are definitely going to consider it at our stewards meeting Wednesday.” There are about 20 Guild stewards at the Strib.

“It has been bandied about quite a bit recently, in the light both of what he’s been accused of and what has he has said. So we’re going to discuss it, and if there’s enough interest among the stewards we’ll bring it before the membership.”

Serres says he hasn’t “personally decided” which way he’d go. And he says that as much as he and others are “obviously bothered by the stealing of the information, if that’s what he did, Guild members are more focused on the firings of valuable personnel, the loss of one out five newsroom jobs and the elimination of 30 pages of news space per week, 14 out of sports, than we are on [Ridder’s] problems.”

Serres’ fellow officer, Pat Doyle, confessed to being “a little out of the loop” working at the State Capitol as he does. He hadn’t yet heard of “no confidence” being on the agenda for Wednesday’s meeting. But he did remind me that the Guild had asked weeks ago for Chris Harte, Avista’s lone newspaper person (as far as anyone knows), to explain and essentially justify Ridder’s behavior. Predictably, Harte replied that he would have to wait until the legal action had played out.

“I’m not sure what [a vote of “no confidence”] would accomplish,” said Doyle, “but I don’t have a sense right now that the Guild has much confidence in either Par or ownership.” He added, as many Stribbers do in this context, that the fact they have so little idea who all is represented by Avista, is a handicap when it comes to judging how aggressive to get in the face of a situation as unique as Le Affair Par.

In normal times a “no confidence” vote against a key manager would be weighed with a cautious eye toward how much it might antagonize ownership, usually in the context of the next contraction negotiation. But at this moment, with the very high likelihood that Avista will seek game-changing Draconian, Dean Singleton-like cuts and concessions in its next contract with the Guild, (due up next summer), does a principled stand against a top manager who is either guilty as charged of serious improprieties … or stunningly incompetent carry as much or any real risk?

At some point isn’t it like impeachment talk regarding George W. Bush? If the offense is serious enough — and again, the appearance of either A: gross impropriety, or B: gross incompetence would seem to qualify as sufficiently serious — aren’t you required, at some level, to pursue a conclusive public judgment? Or … if you don’t see the current situation as laden with serious
reflections on your own ethics and/or professional credibility … well then there’s really no point in having a “no confidence” option on the books, is there?