Personally, I don’t think of it as much of a competition. But by virtue of both former Star Tribune editor and publisher Joel Kramer and former City Pages editor Steve Perry being inspired pretty much simultaneously by the collapse of print journalism in the Twin Cities and then deciding to bust sod for a credible … Read more
Tonight. 9 PM, TPT. Ch.2 (Tomorrow, 9 p.m. ch. 17) Once whoever comes next and historians begin clearing rubble from the administration of George W. Bush and trying to explain how this disaster happened the smart ones will start by boring into Dick Cheney’s bunker. If there’s any doubt left that Cheney is the ideological … Read more
It’s been quiet, too quiet on the local TV news front, so thought I’d check in at KSTP and WCCO to see what’s cooking with the stations’ respective searches for replacements to news directors Chris Berg (let go in early August) and Jeff Kiernan (resigned in early September). The responses were as different as the … Read more
(UPDATED): After wasting almost three days trying to get some illumination on Minnesota Public Radio’s on-going/protracted fight with a tiny Christian Rock station in Norfolk, Virginia — and getting stonewalled by that station, its Christian attorneys in D.C. and a bland press release from MPR — I finally connected with Steve Behrens, editor of Currents … Read more
Former City Pages editor, Steve Perry, has been busy tunneling through some juicy news troves as he prepares to launch his much anticipated website, The Daily Mole, (Think: A young, hip, bra-less version of MinnPost). In the process, he came across an interesting piece of Star Tribune in-house stategery, (as W* would say) that we … Read more
The Star Tribune’s Minnesota Poll, now out-sourced to New Jersey, has been in heavy play this past week. For decades a valuable snapshot of Minnesota attitudes, the Poll, as many of you know, was seriously down-sized under McClatchy ownership and “right-sized” into oblivion by Avista Capital Partners. The Poll’s most recent director, Rob Daves, was … Read more
Friday was the last day that the Star Tribune offered readers with beefs the name and number of a real person who would listen to them. Here’s the new procedure, as described under the headline “Have a Concern?” as it ran in Saturday’s paper. “The Star Tribune is committed to correcting errors that appear in … Read more
I admit I had a few, fleeting concerns that my new partner, Ms. Rybak, might need a while to find her swing here in blogland. The daily newspaper grind is a pretty confining habit to break on a moment’s notice. In Capital “J” journalism one is expected to treat all subjects with equal respect, as … Read more
Andrew Zimmern loved the chance to talk on his WFMP radio show about subjects other than food, but in the end, his burgeoning success at the Travel Channel forced him to give it up, he said in an interview Thursday. When the radio show launched on 107.1 FM four months ago, he said, “the Travel … Read more
Got a call this evening from El Kayak, a.k.a. Lambert, as he stood outside the Pink Taco in Vegas, socks still damp from his Lake Powell adventure paddle. My colleague, however, was not all wet when it came to his scoop about fast rising cable TV star Andrew Zimmern, who is expected to announce during … Read more