Furst Draft

The demise of the Minnesota News Council

I wasn't even sure this was news Thursday when I heard Tony Carideo announce it at the Minnesota Newspaper Association convention in Bloomington. (I'm not sure it is news, by the way...more on that in a second.) There was no reaction from the hundreds of journalists at the luncheon, no chatter about it afterward.

I'm guessing half the people in the room (many of them young reporters and editors) were barely aware of the Minnesota News Council, and the other half were like me -- they assumed the council had been kaput for months, if not a few years.

That, all by itself, is a tragic commentary on what had been an important institution in Minnesota -- nationally, in fact -- for 41 years. For most of those years, the News Council claimed to be the only organization of its kind in the nation, offering a process for complaints about media to be addressed and resolved.

Its mission was to "promote fair, vigorous and trusted journalism by creating a forum where the public and the news media can engage each other in examining standards of fairness." This only worked because news organizations in the state bought into it, helped underwrite the process and promoted it.

The Post-Bulletin was a long-time contributor to the council. I was a board member for three or four years and learned a ton from the process, as I'm sure all who participated did.

So what happened?

The official line is that complaints had dried up:

Carideo said that one reason why complaints have fallen is that people who disagree with news coverage now have almost instant recourse on the Internet through comment sections on stories, e-mail and Twitter.

Well, if that were true, I would assume people are more satisfied with the fairness, accuracy and ethics of news media than ever before. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure they're not. They're more concerned than ever about the quality of the news they get, whether online, in print or broadcast.

The news council didn't run out of gas for lack of a rationale or mission. Its value has never been greater.

There's more to be reported on this, and I might put some time into it next week. If the problem was financial, it's funny that the council has a $270,000 endowment to turn over to MNA or whoever.

As I mentioned earlier, I also need to check out whether Carideo's announcement was truly news or if it had been reported previously in some fashion. It was a weird, offhand way to announce the demise of a major institution to which a lot of people, including many in the audience, had invested time and money.

You won't find the news on the council's website, by the way. The most recent post is from June 23, which speaks volumes.

'Then and Now: Gangs in Rochester'

You lucky reader -- here's a preview of my column for print Wednesday:

Rochester police say about a dozen street gangs are active here.

That seems like a lot, obviously, and one is too many. But it's fewer than police considered active in 2002. And it's been relatively quiet recently in terms of crime and gang activity.

Nonetheless, the public perception of crime and street gang activity is that we have a big problem. Community leaders are working aggressively in various ways to deal with the issue and give young people far more constructive ways to spend their time.

This weekend, we'll publish a special report on crime and gangs in the community. Called "Then and Now: Gangs in Rochester," we'll look back at how street gangs have developed through the years, what kind of damage has been done and what threat they pose, and how the community has responded. Veteran reporters Matt Russell, Greg Sellnow, Matt Stolle and Christina Killion Valdez, along with photographers and editors, have been working on this project for weeks, reviewing the records of the past 20 years and documenting the trend.

What have we found? Among other things, that the biggest change in youth violence in Rochester is the increasing availability and use of guns and weapons in gang activity. As Police Chief Roger Peterson says, "Weapons and a lack of maturity is a bad combination for anybody."

Our report will focus on what's being done to deal with gangs and youth crime -- and a lot is being done, in public and private ways, to address it. The people and organizations who are working onthis, whether in law enforcement and the court system, youth groups such as Boys & Girls Club and Bolder Options, or private citizens at home, are making a difference.

That's our hope for "Then and Now: Gangs in Rochester" also -- that it can make a difference in raising awareness and promoting solutions.

To that end, we and Minnesota Public Radio are co-presenting a community meeting next week to provide information and hear your concerns regarding crime in Rochester. Reporter Liz Baier of MPR's local news affiliate, KZSE-FM 90.7, will have an on-air report in tandem with that event and our "Then and Now" project, and both organizations will offer ways for readers and listeners to interact and learn more next week.

The community meeting will be from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Mayo Civic Center's Grand Ballroom, with a reception beginning at 6 p.m. MPR on-air personalities along with P-B reporters and editors will be on hand. I hope you can join us for good conversation and brainstorming about how to help our young people and keep the community safe.

This event is the logical next step in our collaboration with MPR. For several months we've shared news stories, information and weblinks, and MPR's reporting has greatly improved our state news report. We're hoping to try some joint reporting, including multimedia, later this year.

More on the WHOLE story

A letter to the editor today takes the P-B to task for not reporting that Horizon Wind, one of the wind power companies pursing a project in the Goodhue County area, is owned by EDP, Energias de Portugal.

Why this is germane, other than in a story dealing specifically with who owns Horizon Wind, I'm not sure. Because it's foreign-owned? We'd have to background a whole lot of companies that do business in our area if that were the rationale. Every time we refer to Budweiser beer, for example, we should note that the St. Louis-based beer is primarily owned by the Belgian-Brazilian beverage company InBev.

(If we're going to write about InBev, by the way, I'd rather write about Stella Artois.)

Again, why would we do this, other than in a financial story about the developers? I imagine the letter writer, Barbara Stussy of Zumbrota, is implying something negative or sinister about foreign ownership of Horizon Wind. But she doesn't say that explicitly -- it's just an inference.

The truth is, a lot of major players in renewable and alternative energy have foreign links, including technology and investment, because the U.S. trails many countries in developing alt-energy.

Barbara does say that reporter Brett Boese:

...mentions 'Horizon Wind, a Texas-based company.' This statement may be true. However...

The statement IS true. Horizon Wind is based in Houston, Texas. It has about 20 offices and 300 employees, and has developed 3,600 megawatts of wind power capacity in the U.S.

We could report those details every time we mention Horizon Wind, too, but they're not relevant to every story.

We're doing our best to report as completely as we can on the Goodhue County wind power battle, within the context of everything else that needs our reporters' attention. There's plenty more to be done on this story, but the Portugese ownership of the Texas-based firm isn't a major element that requires frequent mention in our paper, and it's a little unfair to ding us for that.

 

 

 

78-year-old "enemy of the people"

First I've heard of this, which came by e-mail, but I'll read more and "think for myself," as a P-B columnist recommended yesterday.

On his daily radio and television shows, Glenn Beck has elevated a 78-year-old liberal academic to celebrity level, calling her “an enemy of the Constitution.”

Because of an article published 45 years ago, Frances Fox Piven, a City University of New York professor, has been a primary character in Mr. Beck’s warnings about a progressive take-down of America. Ms. Piven, Mr. Beck says, is responsible for a plan to “intentionally collapse our economic system.”

Her name has become a kind of shorthand for “enemy” on Mr. Beck’s Fox News Channel program, which is watched by more than 2 million people, and on one of his Web sites, The Blaze. Anonymous visitors to Beck’s Web site have called for her death, and some have contacted her directly via e-mail. One such threat, published as an anonymous comment on The Blaze, read, “Somebody tell Frances I have 5000 rounds ready and I’ll give My life to take Our freedom back.” That comment and others that directly threatened Piven were later deleted, but other comments remain that charge her with treasonous behavior.  One visitor to Beck’s website asked, “Why is this woman still alive?” He then posted a link to a website that listed Piven’s address and phone number.  A poster named “Diamondback” responded to the question, “mainly because you haven’t killed her. See, someone that really cares and has the courage of their conviction must actually DO SOMETHING. Another Glenn Beck website visitor responded, "I say bring it. 90 million legal gun owners with over 220 million legal firearms, MOST in the hands of people who claim to be center RIGHT. I think it's time to reduce the surplus population of leeches, lay abouts, left wing nut jobs, the main stream media, liberal politicians and MOST defense attorneys."

In response, a liberal nonprofit group, the Center for Constitutional Rights, wrote to the chairman of Fox News, Roger Ailes, on Thursday to ask him to put a stop to Mr. Beck’s “false accusations” about Ms. Piven. Mr. Beck is putting Professor Piven in actual physical danger of a violent response,” the group wrote.

Fox News disagrees. Joel Cheatwood, a senior vice president, said Friday that Mr. Beck would not be ordered to stop talking about Ms. Piven on television.  In fact, Mr. Beck has invoked Ms. Piven dozens of times in the last few weeks. Conservative Web sites, like the ones operated by Andrew Breitbart, have also spent time dissecting her articles and speeches. Ms. Piven, for her part, said she was amazed that she was still being brought up on Mr. Beck’s show as recently as Wednesday, just two weeks after the Giffords assassination attempt. Not surprisingly, Ms. Piven has not been invited to defend herself on Beck’s program. Neither Mr. Beck nor any of his producers have ever contacted her.

Ms. Piven said in an interview that she had informed local law enforcement authorities of the anonymous electronic threats. But she added, “I don’t want to give anybody the satisfaction of thinking they’ve got me trembling.”

The interest in Ms. Piven is rooted in an article she wrote with her husband, Richard Cloward, in 1966. The article, “The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty,” proposed that if people overwhelmed the welfare rolls, fiscal and political stress on the system could force reform and give rise to changes like a guaranteed income. By drawing attention to the topic, the proposal “had a big impact” even though it was not enacted, Ms. Piven said. “A lot of people got the money that they desperately needed to survive,” she said.

In Mr. Beck’s telling on a Fox broadcast on Jan. 5, 2010, Ms. Piven and Mr. Cloward (who died in 2001) planned “to overwhelm the system and bring about the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with impossible demands and bring on economic collapse.” Mr. Beck observed that the number of welfare recipients soared in the years after the article, and said the article was like “economic sabotage.”

He then linked what he termed the Cloward-Piven Strategy to President Obama’s statement late in the 2008 presidential campaign that “we are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/22/business/media/22beck.html?_r=2&hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1295692871-dyoGcAM351DSeU0hLEAQmg
 
http://www.thenation.com/article/157900/glenn-beck-targets-frances-fox-piven

End of the population boom in Oslo, Dodge County

Breaking news from a reader:

I am the person that told the Hayfield Milkman about the Oslo sign that states 347 people. I saw the sign around Thanksgiving and just about fell out of my car laughing. A week later it dawned on me that there is an Oslo 30 miles North of East Grand Forks. I looked on my 2007-2008 official Minnesota map and it has Oslo at 330 people. So they have grown by 17 residents.

When the Answer Man speaks, the D.O.T. must listen -- today I was driving toward Oslo from Hayfield at 9:45 A.M. and there were flashing lights. As I got closer there was a D.O.T. truck by the sign and they were going to switch it.

So does this mean that 340 people moved out of Oslo last night?
 
Signed, Friend of the Hayfield Milkman
 

'There is still a great need'

Here's a powerful video/slideshow, courtesy of Nancy Beers, disaster services director for Lutheran Social Services. Nancy included this note:

Everyone,
 
Please take 3 minutes (literally) to watch this.
 
LSSMN has a 7 person team working on flood recovery in SEMN - this video only shows a small part of what happened in late September in southern MN.
 
Please share with others and get the word out that there is still a great need!

For more details or to help, send her a note at nancy.beers@lssmn.org.

The importance of fact-checking and good behavior

 
Council Member Michael Wojcik responded to my post at his blog. Take a look, and not to prolong this, but here's my response to him.

 

 

 

Hi, Michael. Your point regarding fact-checking is obviously true and important -- we need to do more fact-checking. No other media will do it. Being realistic, we can't check the accuracy of every major assertion made in a public meeting, candidates forum or whatever or we'd never publish. But we can do a lot more.

We have an Answer Man item today that fact-checks a Throndson assertion, which is the only reason I came across your blog.

My point was entirely about your blog post: In my humble opinion, your comments were way out of line for an elected official representing the state's third largest city. Challenge a candidate to produce evidence to support an assertion, but don't call him a liar, manipulator or an ignoramus.

But maybe that's just me.

Answer Man item, previously dealt with

This came into the Answer Man's mailbag:

Maybe I've missed it... but have you/could you do a story on the crows taking over in SW Rochester near "pill hill"...I've lived here 14 years and never seen them in as large numbers as this past week... it's like a scene from Hitchcock's The Birds out there in the late afternoon...they block the sun out at times...no joke...like a cloud....
 
please tell us we don't need to bar the doors....signed,
 
"pill flats"

'Being dishonest is not a good trait for an local elected official'

Just now, I was doing a quick, clumsy search for the Rochester school district's info page on board members and found this Oct. 15 blog post from City Council Member Michael Wojcik's blog. He was weighing in on the school board race prior to the November election and had this to say about candidate Terry Throndson.

This is unedited, by the way, as is the headline on my post:

Seat 5: Michael Resman vs. Terry Throndson

This race is the reason I posted this entry.  I left the forums absolutely disgusted with what I heard from Terry Throndson.  My most basic qualification for any candidate is a level of empathy and integrity.  I feel we will get neither with Mr. Throndson. Hear are 2 paraphrased quotes from Mr. Throndson.

“82% of the district budget goes to teachers and staff; that doesn’t leave much for kids.”

“My business taxes went up 1400+% last year and 300% this year.”

News flash: our kids derive value from those teachers, that is why we have them.  Also his tax number is either manipulated, a lie, or he failed 6th grade math, or some combination.  Being dishonest is not a good trait for an local elected official.  I did request that the Post Bulletin fact-check the second statement.

I left the forum thinking that the only reason Mr. Throndson wants to be on the school board is to lower his own taxes.  If this is his goal he should be running for Governor as he has been the number one cause of local property tax increases. I understand that Terry is a very hard worker and a good businessman, but the school board needs leaders dedicated to the quality of our educational system.

Conversly Michael Resman may be one of the best candidates in the race.  He is knowledgeable, patient, and running for all the right reasons.

I wonder how Wojcik really feels about Throndson, who of course won? Leaving aside Throndson's command of the facts, it seems intemperate at best for a Rochester City Council member to declare that a school board candidate is either stupid or a liar.

 

I can't understand how the Gren Bay paper made this mistake

Actually, I CAN understand how the Green Bay Press-Gazette made this error. Doesn't mean I think it's acceptable, but stuff happens at deadline.

But TOP of the page?? The biggest sports story in months? The whole reason Green Bay exists??

The editors did run a correction the next day...

ABOUT THAT HEADLINE
There is no excuse for the spelling error on the front page of Monday's Press-Gazette. We know the great city of Chicago is spelled with two "C"s and a "G," and not three "C"s. We were equally embarrassed we got it wrong in the first place and then failed to catch it in the proofreading process. We apologize for the error: In the event the Packers win Sunday and advance to the Super Bowl, we'll spell the host city of Dallas correctly.