When he’s right he’s right, and Nick Coleman makes a spot-on point in this morning’s column. Minnesota, like much of the rest of the country, is digging itself deeper and deeper into a very serious infra-structure repair deficit, in no small part due to fear of so-called “taxpayer advocacy” groups who force/blackmail cowardly and cynical … Read more
My ingestion of Hurricane Charleys (vodka, mint leaves, some blue stuff, some green stuff) was rudely interrupted around 7:30 EDT last night by the first phone calls from home bringing news of the 35W bridge collapse. Within the first hour of coverage the familiar patterns of tragedy-reporting, both good and bad, were playing … incessantly. … Read more
Even from the coast of SW Florida I get the feeling of KG overkill in Twin Cities media. Nothing like a blockbuster sports deal in the dog days. I count myself among the “fans” who pretty much ignored the Timberwolves start to finish last season. I don’t recall (TM … Albert Gonzales, Dick Cheney) listening … Read more
I feel like the guy sweeping up after the elephants. Only I’m also the elephant. My lovely bride and I are enjoying a little beach time with family in sweltering, blustery Florida this week: Captiva Island — where, before you start building, a quarter acre of limestone gravel with no view of either the Gulf … Read more
An earthquake rattled Twin Cities radio this past month. It cracked open the notoriously unstable Clear Channel fault line and took down a legendary monolith, Mick Anselmo, previously thought to be impervious to corporate shock waves. Until his firing, Anselmo ran the seven stations Clear Channel owns here in the Twin Cities—Cities 97, KFAN, K102, … Read more
Among the 14 Pioneer Press employees who took the latest buy-out and departed last Friday was Matt Peiken. Perhaps not a household name like Joe Soucheray or Bob Sansevere, Peiken, 44, is the sort of character who shouldn’t be completely out of step with modern newspapers, but is. I first met him in 2000, not … Read more
OK. Here’s a pop quiz. Which of the following headlines strikes you as the most routine, to the point of no longer even being newsworthy? “Mideast in Turmoil” “Bush Says Surge is Working” “Gonzales Can Not Recall His Own Name” “Rumors of Firings and Low Morale Wrack Ch. 5” I know. I know. The trivia … Read more
Those of us with any interest at all in the immediate future of radio are highly skeptical — to the point of fatally suspicious — of the proposed merger of the two satellite radio companies, XM and Sirius, AND the regular promises by terrestrial radio giants, like Clear Channel, that High Definition radio will … … Read more
Several times in recent weeks I have mentioned that as bad as this moment is for newspapers, local TV stations, by some key measurements, are even worse off. Ratings for Twin Cities late news shows are down 15 percent from May ’06 to May ’07, a greater decline than circulation at either of our benighted … Read more
Do I put all the full disclosures in the lede? I admit: I have in years past been approached to write “the definitive CJ piece.” CJ, Strib gossip columnist (although I gather she objects to that description), was for a time a competitor, in that we both feasted the flame-outs of Twin Cities media “celebrities” … Read more