There was a brief flurry of activity yesterday as a rumor blew around town that Ramsey County Judge David Higgs was ready to announce his decision in what we here at Slaughter Central like to refer to as Le Affair Par. It proved a false alarm. But the mere thought of another round of Par … Read more
Charles Ferguson, director of, No End in Sight, currently playing at the Edina Theater, has produced what, for The New York Times at least, is the first video letter to the editor, responding to Iraq boss Paul Bremer’s recent assertion [in Times Select] that numerous military officials were aware of and agreed to his decision … Read more
With the broadcast networks routinely sliding Presidential speeches off to their cable sisters, I parked myself at MSNBC for this evening’s run-up, Bush speech and run-down. Obviously, Keith Olbermann, who last Friday beat Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly in the head-to-head ratings for the first time, was primed for battle. With every cable anchor staking out … Read more
It seems like it would be a peripheral issue, but I never cease to be amazed at how many actual newspaper consumers, or “intense readers”, as Joel Kramer is describing his target audience for MinnPost.com, lock up with the notion of reading their news off a two-pound, desk-bound computer. They all want to flop somewhere … Read more
In a moment of moral weakness I paused in my surfing from the end of the Twins game last night to Letterman to The Colbert Report. What caught my eye was Harvey Levin, the guru of TMZ.com, being fed “story ideas” by his, uh, staff of twenty-something “news” hounds. With journalism winding down in print … Read more
Even with my “Expectation Meter” set to zero, the opening statements from Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker at today’s House hearings left me wondering how two reports advertised as “balanced” could be so nakedly compromised? I listened — via NPR and the stammering Neal Conan — on the drive down from Duluth and … Read more
Every so often a comment rolls in too ripe for response to bury in a link. So I’m dragging a couple recent shots across my bow out in the full light of day. (How many metaphors is that?) The first, upset with my “ranking” of local TV newsrooms, says: “Lambert, you love taking swipes at … Read more
Deborah Caulfield Rybak, the Star Tribune’s media reporter officially resigned Tuesday after months of deliberations. Rybak took on the media beat in 2004, after coming to the paper in 2001. Earlier in her career she spent 10 years at the Los Angeles Times. When the Strib announced its most recent round of buy-outs this past … Read more
This morning’s rumor has Jeff Kiernan leaving his job as news director at WCCO-TV for an upgrade in Boston. As the hacks says … “Developing”. (Update) It is now confirmed. Kiernan, news director for ‘CCO since 2003, will exit here on the 19th and begin work on the 24th in Boston for the two CBS … Read more
For a couple weeks I’d been hearing rumors of a directive … or something … to the Star Tribune editorial page from Chris Harte, the ex-Knight Ridder executive, (way back in the early ’90s), and as far as anyone knows the only Avista member with any actual newspaper experience. At first hearing the information was … Read more