Furst Draft

Unusual question about gays and lesbians

The Answer Man received this question and, before discarding, just thought he'd let the world see what kind of mail he sometimes gets -- no editing applied:

Mr. Answer Man, since you are so ackowlegable on answering so many questions I have one that I don't think has been asked.

Gays and lesbians want to be recognized and treated like everyone else and have all the privileges, then why don't they dress so people can tell the man from the women when they are a couple.

CA

CA is right -- the Answer Man hasn't been asked this one before.

Why the person on the street needs a couture clue about a gay or lesbian couple is beyond me.

Somebody forget to tell the chancellor

I just bumped into UMR Chancellor Steve Lehmkuhle in the Doubletree (formerly Radisson) Starbucks and said, "I see you've got a room named for you down the hall." He didn't know what I was talking about; the newly remodeled hotel has renamed its meeting rooms on the second floor. The ballroom is now the University Hall Ballroom and the smaller room to the side is the Chancellor Room.

Hide the kids! It's Paula Poundstone!

Here's an interesting exchange I had with a reader last week, after we published a preview of comedian Paula Poundstone's upcoming show in Rochester:

Do you think that people have already forgotten about Paula Poundstone's legal troubles that surfaced in June of 2001? Charged with lewd acts on a (female) child and child endangerment charges(also endangering two boys and two other girls under the age of 14)...she plead "no contest to some of these charges in order to have some of these charges dropped. Just curious as to your opinion? Thank you.
    A local father of young children

Here's my reply:

Thanks for the note. ... Actually, I would guess people probably have forgotten...I don't think it's something that needs to be mentioned in our story or every story about her, but it's certainly part of the record when the final story is told.

He responded:

Jay, after researching/sharing your answer with no less than 25 neighbors,friends,and co-workers we've come to the conclusion that we DO feel everyone should hear about Paula Poundstone's history. It was brought up by a few ..."would your opinion be the same if this would have been a male comedian trying to restart a career after having the same problems/charges/convictions against minor boys and girls?"
 A few subscriptions are riding on this answer. Thank you.

Last go-round for me:

Hi -- not sure what you're looking for from me -- I'll say again, I don't think her criminal record needs to be addressed in every story -- if that were true, we'd be including a lot of background on the criminal past of many entertainers, pro athletes, celebrities, etc., who come through our area, and a lot of those criminal convictions would be more heinous that Poundstone's. But certainly a reporter is free to ask the question and if she responds with something interesting or relevant, we'd obviously publish it.

Regarding whether we'd treat her case differently if she was a male comedian -- nope. And I might add on to that, since it may be part of your group's discussion, are we treating her differently because of whatever sexual orientation she might have? Nope. We just don't include a criminal history on everybody we write about.

I'll also note that her career isn't really being restarted at this point...the incidents you're referring to occurred in 2001, I believe, and she's had a career since then.

Don't know how this addresses your friends whose "subscriptions are riding on this answer," but that's beside the point -- like most news organizations, we have time-tested standards of fairness and accuracy to assure our credibility, and those standards are a big part of our on-going success.

If you're interested, I'll post this dialogue on my blog and let other readers chime in.

Best wishes and thanks for reading.

Since he didn't respond affirmatively on the blog posting, I've kept him nameless.

I'll repeat, if the reporter had chosen to ask the question and gotten an interesting answer from Poundstone, fine, we'd use it. But I don't think it's a prerequisite for running a story about her.

Don't press the goose

If you've traversed Rochester recently, you know about the Goose is Loose project -- more than a dozen goose statues around town, painted up by sponsors. The one in front of the Post-Bulletin looks like an old-fashioned news-gander. There's a badge on the front that says, "Press Pass."

Last week, an elderly fellow was observed pressing on the word "Press," as if the goose would speak or do something. Nothing happened and eventually he gave up.

Please don't press our goose.

'...but I ask you to cancel Kathleen Parker'

I just took a long, rambling voice mail from a reader (female, guessing middle-aged) who asked that we drop Kathleen Parker because her columns are just "junk," especially the one this week on how Republicans need to purge their supposed "big tent" of the bad air of racism.

I should have transcribed it -- the catchiest lines in the message were about how she no longer subscribes to the paper and now she's going to quit looking at us online -- "but I ask you to please stop running Kathleen Parker."

So, she's not any kind of customer of the paper and apparently never will be, but we're to follow her editorial direction. Strange.

She also said that columnists like Parker are the reasons newspapers are going down the tubes. I'll just point out that our circulation is growing -- again -- this year, and perhaps part of the reason is columnists such as Parker.

Most people, by the way, would tag Kathleen Parker as generally conservative.

Happy 8-year-old Answer Man reader

The Answer Man passed this along from his mailbag...a note from the mom of a young reader who's very, very happy:

Dear Answer Man,
 
I want to thank you for answering my 8 year old's question about the ice cream truck.  She anticipated Friday's paper almost as eagerly as an ice cream sundae.  The cherry on top was on Saturday when we heard the familar tune of an ice cream truck - in our neighborhood!  Out came the wallet and off went the children.  My daughter told the lady in the truck that she was the 8 year old who wrote to the Answer Man; and was rewarded with a free treat!  Weeks in the life of kids do not get much better than the one my girl had, thank you every much.

'Many ways to spin test results'

Here's a fair note from a reader...more to be reported on this issue, especially when MCA results are out:

I read with interest the editorial in today’s newspaper concerning the gains made by students in the Rochester School District. I think it is great that these students have shown such nice gains during the past year with their two periods of reading and their math intervention. I am bothered, however, by the district and the Post Bulletin saying that these gains have closed the opportunity gap. If these students showed 1 year of growth, don’t you think the students who were not in these “special programs” probably made similar growth? If that is the case, the opportunity gap remains the same. Because there was no control group to test the progress of other students, there is no way to know if the opportunity gap grew, stayed the same, or became smaller. Until the MCA test results come back where all students were tested OR until all students take the standardized Stanford test in the fall of 2009, there is truly no way to say that the opportunity gap is closing. Also, to determine whether or not these special programs are working, I believe that the district needs to compare the 2008 MCA & Stanford test scores of each of the 1519 target group students with his/her 2009 MCA & Stanford test scores to see if the scores have improved significantly. Only then will the school district be able to determine the success of these programs.
 
I hope that, in the future, before the Post Bulletin staff writes an editorial, they will do a bit of research and not just publish what the school district reports. There are truly many ways to spin test results and obviously the school district has spun the results to make the district look like the gap is being closed. This may be true, but there is not any information to support it.

'We THOROUGHLY enjoyed the paper'

Today's masterpiece:

An 8-year-old girl with a major heart problem. A cardiologist who reassures her that she’ll survive the procedure -- he’s so sure of it that he promises to dance with her at her high school prom.

The girl grows up and the doctor keeps his word.

That story in Saturday’s paper about young Stefani Pentiuk and her Mayo doctor, Mike Ackerman, touched the hearts of a lot of readers. Post-Bulletin writer Jeff Hansel recognized it for what it was, a powerful story about the bonds that patients of all ages have with their doctors, and the commitments that people make and keep. His roughly 2,500-word story, with good editing by local news editor Mike Klein, did what the best journalism does — it makes people care.

I’ve heard from several readers this week, including Diane Nelson of Rochester, who sent this note:

“The front-page article about the doctor and his prom date is exactly what we need right now: wonderful, heart-warming pieces that give people a lift during this stinky, unsettling time we are going through.

“Keep it up. We THOROUGHLY enjoyed the paper.”

I hardly need to confirm Diane’s comment that we’re living in tough times. The news media often are criticized for reporting dismal news about the economy, the wars, the budget woes and all the rest.

That’s our job — how else are you going to get straight facts about local news? It’s our job to ask tough questions and not just be a cheerleader or press organ for local government.

But absolutely it’s also our job to tell you about people like Stefani Pentiuk, her family and her doctor. The emotional power of a story like that puts the rest of the news in perspective.

Thanks for the comments, and believe me, we’re always looking for more stories like Stefani’s.

‘Best Bets’ in Total TV

Did you and your TV survive the “digital conversion” last week? If so, you presumably remain good readers of Total TV, our weekly programming guide, which runs in the Weekend edition.

We’ve made some changes in Total TV in recent months, and each time we do, we’re reminded of how many readers use it, depend on it and are protective of it.

Last month we dropped the mini-reviews of movies each week, as a way to reduce the number of pages and save newsprint. We heard from a few dozen readers that they were disappointed (some more than others) that those reviews were gone.

We take every comment regarding the paper seriously, and we’ve figured out a way to meet those readers halfway: Beginning this weekend, we’ll provide mini-reviews of the best movies on TV in the week ahead. These “Best Bet” reviews will cover the 3- and 4-star movies on area cable.
Hopefully this does the trick for movie fans. Also, we’ll continue to post mini-reviews of all movies on area cable each week on Postbulletin.com. Go to www.postbulletin.com/entertainment/movies to find those reviews.

To make room for the Best Bets, we’ll drop the cable conversion chart in Total TV. That table of data is of fairly limited value in the digital age.

One more TV question we’ve heard from readers recently: Are we planning to run complete listings for all the new digital channels available, such as 10.1, 10.2, etc.?

Nope! The mind reels at how much space it would take to run listings for every new digital channel available. But we’ll watch for ways to make our daily program listings and Total TV even more useful to you. Pass along your ideas.

Join us at Rochesterfest
Next week when you’re prowling around the Rochesterfest booths on Civic Center Drive at lunchtime, stop by the P-B booth and meet some of our top writers and company leaders. Jennifer Koski, Tracy McCray, Marissa Block, Greg Sellnow, Rochester Magazine editor Steve Lange, publisher Randy Chapman and yours truly will be there through the week.

Several of us also will be sprinting along the parade route on Friday night, handing out fliers with the parade lineup. Soime of us will be sprinting faster than others.

Jay Furst is the Post-Bulletin’s managing editor. Send him a note at P.O. Box 6118, Rochester, MN 55903, or furst@postbulletin.com.

'Thank you for listening'

Here's a voice mail regarding the Restoration of top movie reviews to Total TV, beginning this weekend -- we announced it in last weekend's TV book and I address it in today's editorial page column:

Thank you for listening! A bunch of us senior citizens love to read the movie reviews and we were all considering dropping the paper, so we'll keep it up. Thank you very much.

You just never know in this business what's going to turn people's crank. Some people will drop the paper if we don't run mini-movie reviews of old movies; others will threaten to do the same if we don't run the horoscopes in bigger type.

We aim to please, regardless.

'This stinky, unsettling time'

Here's a call from a reader regarding the story on the Weekend edition front page -- I've had a few others like it:

I really liked your top story about the dance and everything, and I think that was a really sweet story and I just wanted to let you know.

And here's an e-mail from a reader:

The front page article about the doctor and his prom date is exactly what we need right now. Wonderful, heart-warming pieces that give people a lift during this stinky, unsettling time we are going through.

Keep it up. We THOROUGHLY enjoyed this paper!

Diane Nelson, Rochester