Furst Draft

Too funny

An unedited note from a reader:

Why doont you do any articals about deer hunting ?This is minnesota!

Short answer: We've done a few deer hunt stories and presumably we'll have more.

Happy people read the Post-Bulletin

Great story in the New York Times...doesn't mention us by name, but draw your own inference:

What Happy People Don’t Do

By RONI CARYN RABIN
Published: November 19, 2008
Happy people spend a lot of time socializing, going to church and reading newspapers — but they don’t spend a lot of time watching television, a new study finds.

That’s what unhappy people do.

(Fact is, the story doesn't circle back to make reference to newspapers...while the study says TV watching purportedly is an indicator of an unhappy person, the Times story doesn't elaborate on newspaper reading...)

Just another day on the route

Our carriers sometimes have a chance to do much more than get the newspaper to your door:

Jay,

I don’t know the name of the young man who delivers my paper every day.  Last night, shortly after delivering our paper, he came and knocked on our door, telling us the woman two houses away needed help.  Our neighbor was outside, barefoot, had fallen, and could not get up without help.  It took two adults to help her up and back in the house.  It was dark and the temp was close to 30 when this happened....

As I said, I don’t know my carrier’s name but his action last night made a big difference in the life of one of his customers and I thought someone at the P-B should know.

Dry 'Main Events'

A note from a reader regarding our Main Event photo page, which runs Tuesdays and features Rochester area fundraiser events, generally parties where a lot of money is raised for good causes:

I just wanted to let you know how nice it was to see the pictures, in Tuesdays paper, actually showing no drinks in any of the hands of the participants.  It seems that every picture has someone holding an drink.  Is that really necessary to the story?  I realize it is going to happen, but do you really need to have it in the pictures?????????
 

Guns are FLYING out of the stores!

One story I can't wait to check out, for publication at the local level and to check how it was reported at the national level, is the report that guns are just flying off the shelves since the late days of the campaign and then Obama's election. The national radio reports I've heard have been paper-thin on sourcing -- just anecdotal reports from gun shop owners and NRA types saying people are stocking up on firearms out of fear that the Democrats are going to confiscate their weapons.

Might be true, but based on the few stories I've heard, which have then reverberated throughout the media echo chamber, I'm not impressed by the evidence.

And another...

Put me on the list of readers who support your endorsements.
 
I read every one of them….and then voted the way I wanted.  I especially appreciated your insights about the candidates’ character, i.e. did they attack their opponent and complain, or were they positive and optimistic.  The latter two traits are critical for our leaders.
 
Nice job, PB Editorial Group!
 
Thanks, Mark

If only she'd spelled Greg's name right

We've had a few readers quit the paper because of our endorsements this season, but probably just as many people have written notes such as this one:

Dear Mr. Snellnow,

I know you hear this a lot, but this is the first time I have written to a newspaper.  The reason I am writing is to thank you, the Editorial Board and the Post Bulletin for the endorsements you made in the last few weeks.  I thought the paper represented each of the candidates in a very positive light and clearly articulated why you selected one candidate over the other.  In the races where my mind was made up, your endorsements did not change my thinking and I'm sure, you wouldn't want it too.  In the races where I was not as well informed or I didn't really care, I read your views and did consider them in my voting.

Again, I was very please with the thoughtfulness of your views.  It has been a long and nasty campaign season, and it was a breath of fresh air to read good things about both candidates for a particular race.  I know the process was very time consuming for you and your staff.  And I know that you are getting all the negative feedback.  So, I just wanted to let you know that there is one subscriber who appreciated your efforts and would ask that you seriously consider keeping up the practice.

Thanks again.

Big deal!

I had to chortle at a correction in the Wall Street Journal today:

Circulation at USA Today and the Wall Street Journal increased 0.01 percent in the six months through September, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. A Media & Marketing article on Oct. 28 incorrectly said circulation at the two newspapers increased 0.1 percent for the period.

I can appreciate the distinction between a tenth and a hundredth, but I assume the average reader will say, it's a sign of the times when big newspapers that quibbling over the tiniest of growth trends.

'You waterboarded the American public'

Another take on how well newspapers did on Wednesday...

And then another regrettable letter from a reader, addressed to the publisher...came by U.S. mail, so this is going to take some key-stroking, but you have to see it -- typos are his:

I couldn't help but notice the striking irony of your announcement of staff cuts on the very day of your most significant crowning achievement -- the election of Barrack Obama as President of the United States. You must know in the dark recesses of your mind that you and your fellow travelers in the Main Stream Media (as subsidiaries of the Democratic Party) are entirely responsible for engineering the "economic downturn" that you now whine about -- and that is creating hardship for your own former employees and countless others.

After seven years of daily round-the-clock pounding on the "evils" of the "Bush Economy," you finally succeeded in breaking down our most important economic commodity -- consumer confidence. With you and your partners, the "news" was all bad all the time, no matter what the facts were.

You waterboarded the American public, feigning economic drowning simply to scare people into believing your collective Bush-hating screeds. (All for the goal of regaining complete radical liberal control of the U.S. government.)

But your slow and deliberate erosion of public confidence was not the only factor. You piled on with your "October surprise" of the so-called mortgage crisis, another contrived catastrophe that was entirely engineered by Democrats, with the willing complicity of the MSM -- both print and broadcast.

This atrocity was created by Democratic meddling with the mortgage industry, requiring lenders to make high-risk loans to unqualified borrowers. This began in the Carter administration, continued during the Clinton years and came to a festering head after the Democrats took control of Congress in 2006. Your scurrilous leaders in Congress kept a lid on it long enough to spring it just beore the election. But you know all that.

OK, this is getting boring. I'm going to skip a paragraph about Fannie Mae and Freddy (sic) Mac.

Then he resumes:

So I will sneer every time you whine about "difficult times" for your own company. You brought it on yourself. But I will wager that it will not hurt your salary and bonuses, but will only hurt the people you lay off. But these will be only a tiny fraction of all the others who will suffer needless economic hardships that will now be forced on us by an anti-business and voraciously money-hungry Obama administration.

You must realize by now that you have virtually no credibility in the eyes of at least half the population of Southeastern Minnesota, and probably most of the other half don't read newspapers. Enjoy your monopoly while you can.

Do you not realize that the first order of business of a socialist government is to end freedom of the press? If they go at the broadcast media, as they plan to do, what's to stop them from attacking print, too?

You reap what you sow.

Edward L. Jackson
Chatfield

There are so many places to begin -- blaming us for the economic conditions that caused our workforce reduction this week, using the old McCarthy term "fellow travelers," the tasteless reference to waterboarding, blaming us for the financial crisis (and timing it perfectly!), the laughable repetition of the Limbaugh line about Obama shutting down conservative talk radio, the sneering -- but as Gov. Palin said in response to a question Wednesday, I have "no time for the pettiness."

Nor for the hate call I received overnight on my voice mail -- this one takes less time to transcribe:

"You need to find something other to put on the front page than Obama bull---."

Fortunately, we're a bigger country than this.

Sesquicentennial series is a hit

A reader who's enjoying our weekly Minnesota at 150 pages -- a very enjoyable project to work on, I might add:

I am not sure who this e-mail should go to, so hope it gets to the right person.  I am just letting you know how much I am enjoying reading all the articles about Minnesota. It is always wonderful to read about times long ago in a person's home state. A lot of it is familiar, but there are many items that I had never heard about and that is very fun to read. My husband and I recently moved back to Mn from Arkansas and we are truly happy to be "home"!

Thanks so much for these articles.

Sincerely,

Mary Ellen Anderson

P.S. I also enjoy reading the articles about the towns in southern MN.