Furst Draft

'Quit printing all this crap about this climate change (expletive)'

Here's a friendly voice mail that greeted me this morning:

Would you start being a little more fair and honest, PUH-LEASE, and quit printing all this crap about this climate change b----t and start going on the other side and going on the side of the skeptics who don't believe this crap -- look outside, look at the weather! Man, no wonder your paper is doing so bad. Don't do so much on climate change and be fair and honest and please start printing the other side. Thank you. Goodbye.

At least she got polite at the end...

Number one, we publish what the world's news services have to say about climate change. We don't do a lot of original research on that topic. (We also don't look out the window, see it's snowing and use that as evidence that climate change is "crap.") We've reported what little is necessary on the so-called "Climate-gate" incident, which is entirely meaningless in the overall coverage of the issue. Not sure if this reader wants us to ignore the international conference in Copenhagen, where just about every country on earth is trying to address what most serious people believe is a serious issue, but we can't and won't.

Number two, our paper's doing just fine, thank you. People read us and respond to us -- like this reader.

Strib says scram to 'Scam" ads

Congratulations to the Star Tribune for recognizing that the "Stop the Petters Scam" ads are themselves a scam. On Saturday, the Strib reported that the paper will no longer sell ad space to -- whoever, whatever organization -- is paying for the ads, which have attacked the handling of the Tom Petters case and are  riddled with innuendo.

Refer to my Nov. 27 Web post on this subject.

Here's what the Strib news story said last weekend:

Bill Hillsman of North Woods Advertising in Minneapolis, who has been directing the campaign, said that the Star Tribune told him the agency didn't fill out the required advocacy advertising application form, and that "the general counsel said there were a number of factual assertions made in the ads that they don't have the time and resources to review before publishing it."

He said the form releases the Star Tribune from responsibility for the ad content, and he agreed that his agency hadn't completed one.

Star Tribune spokesman Ben Taylor would only say that the newspaper decided the ads were "not acceptable."

So these shady advertisers who anonymously attacked public figures with unsourced allegations didn't fill out the one piece of paperwork required by the Star Tribune to take responsibility for their claims. Doesn't that say it all? Hillsman, who's pictured here and considered the genius of Minnesota political advertising, clearly knows how this game is played, and apparently he played it until the Strib caught on.

Now it's lotsa luck to the Pioneer Press, which apparently doesn't have the same ethical or legal standards for advertising as the Strib. That says a lot, also.

If only he had...

A reader, Pat Keith, caught an error in Tuesday's paper:

In Holly Ebel's article about Hanukkah, I think she meant that Alexander conquered Judea, not Judas.

Pat's correct...

Dialogues event is on, despite the snowstorm

Barring some cataclysmic weather event within the next three hours, we're going to go ahead with the Post-Bulletin Dialogues event tonight at the Rochester Public Library, 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m., though maybe we'll hustle people out of there in less than 90 minutes if the weather's horrendous.

Katherine Stecher of the library staff says the building will be open barring a weather-induced change of heart, and I suspect we'll have a good turnout regardless of the abominable weather.

The art is from Raphael's "School of Athens," a detail showing Plato and Aristotle...lofty inspiration of the P-B Dialogues series...

How many Wisconsin supervisors does it take to run a county?

"Slimmer government is coming soon to St. Croix County, Wis.," I see in today's Strib, where a referendum has reduced the number of county supervisors, or board members.

Instead of 31 supervisors, there'll be 19.

Wow! How will they manage?

In Olmsted County, which has nearly twice the population, we have only seven commissioners. Maybe the jobs are strikingly different, but I doubt it.

The Temptations of St. Tiger

Tell me what you think of Pat Reusse's column in the Strib today, in which he says basically any guy who has the money and fame of a Tiger Woods would wind up in the same boat, cheating with any number of "frisky and gorgeous young women" and then presumably getting clobbered over the head by his wife with a golf club when it all comes out.

As he writes:

There was no surprise in (Woods' philandering), since with all the assets mentioned above to attract very fetching members of the female gender, the assumption here was that Tiger was getting around -- since dang near all celebrity hunks do get around.

So the vast majority of men who AREN'T good-looking, rich and talented arrive at higher moral standards and commitment to our marriages by default -- because we're fat, bald and middle-class? Or we're hypocrites for finding Woods' behavior outrageous? That's an elite point of view, perhaps, that gives the benefit of the doubt to superstars; it's also an amazingly cynical and relativistic view of humanity, and to some degree you might call it misogynistic as well.

Reusse's point overall is that Woods is a wuss because he hasn't faced the media and taken his lumps. But Woods' "transgressions" themselves and the profound impact that his conduct and his seemingly low ethical standards have had on his family and friends basically get a free pass.

Interesting way of looking at the world.

(A last point on the "no surprise": Well, it was a surprise to most of the world outside the golf media bubble, which is why the story has taken on a life of its own. Apparently Woods' hound-dog habits have been well-discussed in the golf world for years; it's interesting that the golf media, Reusse included, nonetheless have assisted in building the Woods image of perfect rectitude.)

This I believe: Tom Friedman is pompous

I've been a big fan of Thomas Friedman, the New York Times columnist on international affairs, for years, but there are days when I think he genuinely believes he's the Secretary of State -- if not the POTUS himself. Today is one of them. Leaving aside the merits of his argument regarding Obama's Afghanistan plan announced last night, which is surely open to debate, Friedman's column today is almost comically self-important -- closing with these breathless lines:

Hence, my desire to keep our presence in Afghanistan limited. That is what I believe. That is why I believe it.

The headline writer not surprisingly picked up the "This I Believe" phrase, so it reads like a kind of oracular manifesto, as if the entire American foreign policy establishment has been on pins and needles, waiting for him to weigh in.

To his credit, Friedman does obliquely refer to the fact that he was a supporter of the Iraq war, though he trims up his rationale (it wasn't about WMDs, it was social engineering) and continues to hope that the "staggering" cost will have been worth it.

Today's column smacks a bit of not wanting to get caught on the wrong side of history again.

How much do you have to tell authorities at an accident scene?

Very little, according to the Answer Man column today:

Dear Answer Man, I’m intrigued by golfer Tiger Woods’ decision not to be interviewed by the Florida Highway Patrol. Is that an option in Minnesota if the State Patrol wants to question you after a traffic accident, or is that an option only if you’re a big shot, or in Florida?

There are some variables in this case, not the least of which is that Woods is a big shot, but that’s very much an option all over the U.S. of A., since you’re never obligated to say anything that might incriminate you.

The Florida Highway Patrol informed the golf star after the accident early Friday that “further discussion with them is both voluntary and optional,” according to Woods’ attorney, and that’s true. All Woods or anyone else has to do is provide his license, vehicle registration and proof of insurance. I talked with Lt. Leslie Herold of the Florida State Patrol this morning and he said, “Even if someone had been killed, I still can’t compel someone to give a statement” or to answer basic questions about what happened.

Herold also said that any details that might be shared in an accident report of this kind generally aren’t admissible in a criminal court proceeding.

Minnesota State Patrol Lt. Jeff Westrum said this morning it’s very much a Fifth Amendment issue, that you’re not required to say anything about a matter that might lead to prosecution. Westrum, in the Rochester district office, said, “I would venture to say that (Florida patrol officers) will do enough investigation of this that you might not need a lot of information from Mr. Woods. The longer he prolongs this, the more they’ll look into it.”

There’s no brain quite as big as the Answer Man’s. Send questions to P.O. Box 6118, Rochester, MN 55903 or answerman@postbulletin.com.

Who's behind the "Stop the Petters Scam"?

I know as much about the Tom Petters saga as most people -- he's on trial for an alleged Ponzi scheme, a lot of people lost money, and when the verdict comes in (presumably next week), it appears he'll be locked up for a long time.

I'm more interested, frankly, in the weird and marginally ethical ads running in the Star Tribune, paid for by an organization called the Stop the Petters Scam Foundation. You can view the ads here at their Web site. They purport to tell the REAL story behind the Petters case and how it's being handled in the courts. The ads make thinly veiled allegations of impropriety against public figures such as Norm Coleman, Amy Klobuchar and in today's ad, federal District Judge Ann Montgomery.

Today's ad, for example, doesn't actually say that Montgomery did improper judicial favors for a former colleague, Petter's attorney Doug Kelley, but it absolutely implies it, leaving the reader with the impression that Montgomery's a crook (just like Kelley, et al). The ad concludes with a reference to "one national bankruptcy law expert" -- of course, unnamed -- who says Montgomery's conduct in regard to judicial immunity for Kelley "is unprecedented in the bankruptcy context."

What's unprecedented is advertising of this kind. I can't recall ever seeing an ad campaign that attempts to "report" a parallel reality regarding an on-going news event -- in fact, contemporaneous with a major court proceeding. The ads are riddled with allegations that are unsourced and undocumented, a perfect print version of what floats around on the Internet with no way for the reader to figure out what's accurate and what's not.

Who's behind it? Don't bother going to the Web site, which like the ads is clever and well-designed but just as obscure as to the purpose, who's paying for it and why. The Strib did a news story, I believe in the business section, when the ads first appeared, identifying some of the people who may or may not be behind the foundation; it apparently was started by "Steve Denari, a political consultant in the Chicago area involved with what he considers to be unjust forfeitures." Huh?

So it appears unhappy lenders to Petters are behind the ads, if you decipher the Strib story as I do. Why don't they just acknowledge that in the ads and on the Web page? If they're so determined to get some fairness and accuracy in the coverage, why play games? There are a million other ways to get their message out, clearly and effectively, and they may have legitimate complaints. You wouldn't know it from these attack ads, though.

And why would the Star Tribune take the ads, other than that they need the money? I can't imagine that 10 years ago, if a "foundation" had come to the Star Tribune with attack ads of this kind regarding a judicial process (as opposed to, say, a political issue) that they would have published them.

Believe it or not, newspapers do refuse to carry ads that are unfair, inappropriate or simply in questionable taste. The paper's credibility is affected not only by what's in the news columns but what's in the ads as well.

Papatola and the Washington Post

Two melancholy indicators on the dismal state of metro newspapers:

Dominic Papatola, a good friend of mine who nonetheless can be fairly described as the top theater writer in the Twin Cities, is leaving the Pioneer Press for a job at the Bremer Foundation. He's a fantastic and funny writer, an even better reporter, a perceptive critic and a newspaper guy to the bone. Would he be leaving the Pioneer Press if the metro newspaper world were different? Obviously not.

And will Papatola be replaced? You must be kidding. Why does the state's second largest newspaper, in one of the nation's most vibrant theater towns, need a full-time theater writer? As the paper's arts editor says, "we haven't yet worked out how" theater will be covered after Papatola leaves in mid-January.

The Pioneer Press and Star Tribune gave up on classical music a few years ago and readers like me have grown accustomed to the idea that the metro papers don't care about classical music anymore, even though the Twin Cities, again, is one of the top U.S. metro areas for music. But if the Pioneer Press really thinks it can write off decent theater coverage (and maybe the Star Tribune would do the same thing, if pressed), it's profound evidence of how puny the paper's ambitions have become.

Let's just say this is my particular interest in the metro papers -- good classical music and theater coverage. I have plenty of other news interests, but let's just narrow it to these two areas. The strong, beat coverage of classical music already is gone, and apparently theater will go the same way. There'll be lightly reported preview coverage, without the insights and sourcing that a beat reporter provides, and Papatola will contribute a weekly freelance review -- maybe the publisher will even open his wallet and spring for another freelance review per week. There'll be some calendar items and voila! Theater coverage!

So again, if these are the interests I have in the Pioneer Press and they're gone, what else is no longer in the paper that others care about? A ton, obviously. They've lost a lot of good people from the newsroom, and like thousands of other journalists around the country who've lost their jobs or taken buyouts, those people actually produced news. They didn't disappear without a trace -- the work they did is no longer being done. Just because it's no longer in the paper doesn't mean it didn't have value or wouldn't have value now if it were there. Those stories, investigations, photos and graphics are just not happening. Without the gloomy perspective of an insider, you might not appreciate how profound that lost journalism might have been.

Which leads me to melancholy news item No. 2: The Washington Post, which not long ago aspired to being a national newspaper, is closing the last of its U.S. bureaus, in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. The half-dozen reporters in those bureaus will be reassigned in Washington and three news assistants will lose their jobs; not a huge personnel shift, but in terms of nuts-and-bolts reporting from those cities, and as a metaphor for the incredibly shrinking ambitions of the Post, it's tragic. As Post reporter Howard Kurtz writes,

What is lost, however, is the knowledge and experience of reporters who come to understand the local issues, personalities and culture of other regions by living there.

Brauchli, a former foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, acknowledged that "unquestionably there are advantages to having someone on the ground at times." But, he said, "We are not a national news organization of record serving a general audience. Nor are we a wire service or cable channel." Maintaining that The Post's strength is to report issues through a "Washington prism," Brauchli cited recent examples of education and economic reporters filing major dispatches from other cities to illustrate national trends.

There was a time, not long ago, when the Post and most metro papers aspired to more. Those days, as we know, are gone.