RYBAK: Sigh.
For some time, I've put off writing a post about today’s 11 a.m. debut of what's being touted in some circles as the divine answer to the Twin Cities' current Crisis in Journalism. I'm referring, of course, to the launch of MinnPost.com, the online newspaper creation of Joel Kramer, the former Star Tribune editor-turned-publisher-turned journalistic manumitter.
Kramer stepped forward this summer to, I guess, rescue the Twin Cities from the ravages of PiPress owner Dean Singleton and the faceless Avista-owned Star Tribune. Both, you see, have condensed news, bought off and spit out reporters at such an alarming rate (well, alarming if you're a reporter), that it seems Kramer decided it was his sacred duty to restore Twin Cities journalism to its illustrious past.
I want to put some emphasis on the word “sacred.” It contributes to the fact that—as much as I’m trying to keep an open mind about MinnPost and as much as I would like to see it succeed as a kick-ass publication—the whole undertaking makes my teeth hurt.
As Kramer makes clear in his rather dry lectures--um, presentations-- (one of which I recently attended) that there will be nothing frivolous about MinnPost. No sports scores, no stocks, no movie, music or theater reviews. No oddball, newsy feature stories that gave newspapers of old their vibrancy. Instead, Kramer emphasized, his new publication is designed to attract “news-intense,” “civically-engaged” readers, the sort of readers “who like to read The Economist,” and who value news written by “high quality” “professional” reporters “who care about Minnesota.”
Hence, his new publication’s motto: “A Thoughtful Approach to News.”
That’s where my hackles really start heading north.
Let’s talk about how Thoughtful it is to tout this new online/new media approach, then, just to be on the safe side, announce that you’ll be passing out 2,000 printed copies of the paper every day. They won’t look like a paper, mind you, (just eight sheets of 8x11 paper stapled together) and they’ll be handed out on street corners in downtown Minneapolis, St. Paul, the 494 strip and Edina. How Thoughtful is it, when you’re operating on a shoestring and paying only your editors full-time wages, to be spending 20 cents a copy on that endeavor, for a total of $104,000 per year? Oh, and then brag about the fact that, as a non-profit, you’ve already raised about $120,000. Guess we know where those Thoughtfully-donated dollars will be going.
It just doesn’t make sense.
Nor does it make sense to tout yourself as an online version of the extraordinarily popular Slate and Salon online journals where little similarity exists. Kramer has taken pains to distance his Thoughtful Approach to News from Thoughtless, opinionated outfits (well, like ours). However, Slate was just described recently in the New York Observer (probably not a Thoughtful enough publication to suit Kramer) as a fixture of “opinion journalism.” The San Francisco-based Salon is an online magazine (as opposed to a collection of tiny posts or news stories) which prominently features reviews and articles about music, books, and films.
LAMBERT: Damn, talk about a tough crowd. I knew I needed a little sharper knife when I was alone in here, but you, girl, are one hard sell. Do you heckle funeral eulogies? … not to make any connection between funerals and the arrival of MinnPost.I’ve listened to more than a few of Kramer’s presentations, and I concede they aren’t exactly 20 minutes of Chris Rock. And I’m assuming he will steer MinnPost in a direction I wouldn’t go … entirely.
But before anyone accuses me of being closed off and utterly negative to MinnPost I have to say I admire and will root for anyone who can deliver more credible content into the public news diet. Too many people consume too much fact-free bullshit. Anyone who is working to re-balance that situation has my support. Moreover, I admire someone who is willing to stick $250k of his own money into the venture and actively work at it, as Kramer has and is.
I attended his open house, too. Remember? I was the one encouraging hugs between you and my old drinking buddy, Neal Justin, (who we told we were going to rip for his new Monday column, and which we did a couple days ago). The concept and the cost of this 2,000 stapled copies thing strikes me as kind of funky. The sort of thing that could be the first item red-lined when someone screams, “belt-tightening!” But I do recall Kramer talking about some kind of feature/analysis style sports coverage.
In fact, one of the more interesting conversations I had over at the MinnPost office was with ex-Strib Timberwolves beat writer, Steve Aschburner, who will contribute stories to the site. Steve’s separation from the Strib was one of the most hamhanded of many hamhanded episodes. But he seems philosophical about it now.He said two things that I found interesting. One, he sees in Kramer – for all his wonkiness and lack of hip-hop cred – “an actual leader,” as he put it. A much overlooked factor in the struggles of modern newsrooms is that while the staffs may be aging-to-aged veterans, middle level editing/managing jobs – thankless eye-glazing jobs -- are often handled by comparatively inexperienced people for whom budget control is as high or higher a priority than quality writing and reporting. Too many, in my experience, don’t even qualify as avid newspaper readers themselves. I’m paraphrasing here, but Aschburner’s view was that, “I’m tired of being told to respect and follow somebody just because they’ve been handed a title. With Joel, I have no problem following his direction because he’s proven he can lead.”
The other thing Aschburner mentioned was that as a sports writer he doubts he’ll have the difficulty making the transition to the less formal and freer style of the Web. Sports departments everywhere have long had a special license for language, attitude and commentary that newsroom managers in other departments – some for reasons of inexperience, others for reasons of incompetence and/or timidity – don’t allow their staffs.
RYBAK: I truly am sorry. I don’t mean to be so nasty. But as a ratty-ass reporter, undue pretentiousness beckons like an overfull balloon to a pinholder. Oops, there I go again, not being Thoughtful.
I want to say something nice about J-Kram, so you’ll get off my butt. I wasn’t working at the Strib when Joel was in the building. But my homies say that he was one of the finest editors the paper ever had during his days in the newsroom. A guy you wanted looking over your shoulder as you wrote. The best.
Once he ascended to the publisher’s suite, however, opinion shifts. Kramer the publisher, in order to save journalism back in the mid-1990s, implemented procedures at the Strib that remain laughable to this day.
He divided its reporters into “teams,” (which totally Balkanized the newsroom), and engaged in a whole bunch of newsroom renaming: Subscribers became “reader-customers,” the managing editor became the “news leader,” and the newspaper became “perhaps the most ridiculed newspaper in the country,” according to a New York Times article about the Strib written in 1995. Kramer, the once-accessible editor dug in his heels and stubbornly defended his rampant jargonism, which was dismantled after he left the paper.
I see Joel the editor in his commitment to an ambitious undertaking like this and in seeking to bring some legitimate news gathering back to the marketplace, even if I think he is severely underpaying the talent. There are some real standouts among the reporters he’s signed up and I look forward to seeing their bylines regularly.
However, I see Joel the publisher in his stubborn belief that he knows better than anyone else when it comes to the Internet. If he really believed in the Internet, he wouldn’t be messing around with handing out expensive stapled copies of an online paper. If he really understood the Internet, I think MinnPost would be a lot more Daily Mole and a lot less refried mainstream media.
That said, I’ll be reading with great interest.
LAMBERT: The other issue that caught my attention was when he declared that MinnPost, with people like Doug Grow, Britt Robson, Susan Albright, David Brauer, my old buddy Sarah Janecek, G.R. Anderson and Steve Berg, to mention just a few, would not be offering political endorsements … on the advice of his attorneys and their interpretation of the 501(c)3 statutes.
I don’t get this.
As it is, MinnPost might be tilted more heavily left-of-center than the old Strib – Sarah can’t do all the righty lifting – but other than porn and Britney Spears (a redundancy, I suppose) nothing drives traffic like politics, and a fair and open Op-Ed board-style discussion of candidates and referendums would be pretty damned interesting.
This will be a fascinating test of the appetites and affinities of web users, web-intense users. Will Kramer appeal to an MPR quality audience with a product that goes only a little bit further than the existing daily papers? Or will he find that the stories/posts that earn the largest audience – and hold out the greatest potential for ad revenue – point in him a different direction, possibly more Slate and Salon than StarTribune.com?
I wish him and his crew the best.
Two best comments on mnpost so far are http://www.minntoast.com and the Mole's first.
If you don't mind waiting, click on the MinnPost logo on the Daily Mole's item and see what pops up. http://www.dailymole.com/wordpress/2007/11/08/minnpost-goes-live/
Deborah wrote: "I want to say something nice about J-Kram, so you’ll get off my butt. I wasn’t working at the Strib when Joel was in the building. But my homies say that he was one of the finest editors the paper ever had during his days in the newsroom."
You are trying too hard, dear.
As one who was there during the Roger Parkinson/Joel Kramer era, I don't think you'll find too many folks looking back at those as the good ol' days -- unless you like 10-year contracts and wage freezes.
Sorry to hijack this thread, but have you guys written about the Strib's new practice of putting the paper to bed earlier than most seven year olds?
Seems like concerts that go past 10:00 will be on-line only form now on (e.g., last night's Neil Young).
Sad.
One of the dirty little secrets of the dead-tree newspaper trade are the number of "competitive" reviews that get filed before the show is even over. I wrote a few geezer-rock reviews for the PiPress, which had a 10 or 10:30 deadline, no matter that acts like Springsteen and The Eagles played well past 11. Mentioning to the newsroom bosses that the show wouldn't be over by the time you had to hit the "send" button from the rafters of the Xcel only brought angry, blank stares. I always wondered what would happen if Springsteen fell off the stage and broke a leg in the first of his three encores?
About a year ago, while I was still working at the Dead-treebune, I had occasion to do some research on the 60th anniversary of Django Reinhardt's only Twin Cities appearance, which was in 1946 with Duke Ellington's orchestra in Minneapolis. I checked the microfilm, and bingo! There was a review in the next morning's Trib. But, disappointment! It ended with the critic explaining that, because he had to make his deadline, he couldn't stay to hear the last part of the program, which featured "the noted French guitarist." So, the inexorable march of progress continues.
Not just concert encores but late game scores, especially in postseason when start times get later.
For all of the technological advancements in newspapering -- computers, cell phones, spell checking, broadband, whatever -- they never have really shortened the time from midnight to 6 a.m. because of printing, inserts, trucks and distributing.
The newsroom shifting its emphasis to the Internet makes the print product feel more outdated each day.
Even my teeth were in the jar last night before Neil finished whuppin' out "Like a Huricane".
Kind of fitting that they have a picture of a grave on their front page today. My first reaction to minnpost is a big yawn.
I'm in the camp that handing out printed copies is dumb. The web is about a new media that can mix traditional reporting with multimedia. It is also about getting information faster.
Just creating something that can be printed requires making decisions on getting things to fix the layout. It also creates deadlines and takes away from the real-time nature of the web.
I understand that not everyone is ready for the "new" media, but why create Minnpost if you aren't looking for a different business model. The two dailies in town aren't exactly growing.
Deborah or Brian -- why didn't Kramer trying to align with one of the TV stations in town? It would have added credibility and staff while keeping costs down.
Minn Post, what a disappointment. Lots of features and thumbsucking but no hard news. When you roll out a new publication, you better have some holy-crap stuff you've been saving up so people are going to be talking about you (in a good way). Thoughtful fine, dreary no. Even The Economist comes up with clever headlines and provocative intros. For a bunch of guys who said they "got" the Web and planned to exploit its strengths, their only use of video was SHOTS IN A GRAVEYARD!!! Which would be great if you caught the ghosts of Casey Jones and Roundhouse Rodney popping up, but a waste of time and pixels here. C'mon guys, crank it up, you're supposed to be saving journalism!
would it be too much trouble to give us a chronological comment section? who's going to keep bouncing back into the middle of these comments to find later additions to earlier exchanges?
I'm with you. I'm kind of lost.
It's not just a printable version but a formatted printable version, which means someone is being paid to do layout.
Why not script a printable version of the last day's stories and have the layout person to do something more valuable?
The 501 c 3 issues Brian writes about affect all non-profit entities incorporated under that legal status be they newspapers, web sites, district planning councils, neighborhood associations, rec center booster clubs, business associations, social service agencies, religious groups, whatever. There are tax rules -- not laws but binding nonetheless -- that 501 c 3 entities must be politically nonpartisan. This can be interpreted very broadly.
When I was active with the old Neighborhood and Community Press Association in the Twin Cities we had a few papers lose their nonprofit status for what may seem like trivial reasons. One paper ran a story detailing every single PAC endorsement for every gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender candidate -- and that was reason enough to lose a nonprofit status challenge. Others would endorse candidates -- a big no.
At the last two papers I edited we had so many hassles with various St. Paul warring political factions that we didn't even run endorsement letters to the editor. We were told that could be viewed as an endorsement because it appeared IN THE PAPER.
We once had someone from the St. Paul DFL threaten North End News with a complaint because we ran a candidate's advertising flier as an insert. we didn't mail the paper -- we could not have mailed political inserts under the nonprofit postal regulations, another can of worms. But we could legally do an insert, labeled as an ad, with a big ol' disclaimer.
I had always wondered about how nonprofit web sites could get by with seemingly partisan activities we nonprofit papers were banned from for years -- and I'm glad Joel Kramer looked into it.
As for MinnPost, I'll reserve comment until seeing it for a few days.
Free distribution and poverty-level wages for reporters has been the business model for every kind of "alternative" press for decades. The difference in Mr. Kramer's stated objective is a commitment to an audience that likes to read...and he should be applauded for that, not declared D.O.A. before he's even online.
One reason daily newspapers are sick is that they're full of stories that are fundamentally silly and trivial. They've been corrosively dumbed-down in a futile attempt to attract readers who are illiterate and incurious.
But that isn't everybody, and if MinnPost can deliver intelligent, engaging news to an audience that appreciates the written word I think he stands a fair chance of capturing the attention of people who have been woefully underserved by our dailies for a long time.
frogman, my boy, by saying "corrosively dumbed down in a futile attempt to attract readers who are illiterate and incurious" makes me suspect you were in the same PiPress features dept. meetings Jimmy Walsh and I were in. You are getting close to blowing your cover.
Brian: How about it you give us a short list of Great Ideas You Had that were shot down by the PiPress because you were too high minded. And tell us what amazing depths were left unexplored by Jim Walsh. Thanks.
I'm always puzzled by the people that come on here and the other blogs to put down the writers who are angry with the direction of the paper. I mean, if you practiced a trade and valued that trade and worked for an organization that slowly over a series of years transformed that trade into something that made greeting cards look incisive you would be bitter, too. Or are there people out there who think these papers are...good?
You know, tone is everything, and traditional protocol says you should never ever under any circumstances say anything less than flattering about your former employers. But ... when you're writing a media blog you're kind of expected to say what you honestly think, or reflect your actual experience. Personally, I don't feel bitter. I know that some of what went on in my case was pretty sleazy and dishonest. But after a few weeks my blood pressure dropped, I stopped churning over all the snakey crap and moved on. Everyone will interpret "bitter" as they see it, but I am much happier today than back in the daily paper world. Maybe it just doesn't look or sound like it.
Apologies. I was referring more to these people who speak of "bitter ex-employees" as if you have an axe to grind, rather than just, you know, commenting on the pile of excrement that anyone can see. Badly stated.
Petra,
No apologies needed. This was an exchange Lenny Briscoe would have loved--the unasked-for denial! The blogosphere is SO personal.
See when petra said, "put down writers who are angry with the paper", silly me thought he/she was referring to ... ""writers who are angry with the paper", as in people who still do or used to work for the papers. Oh, hell. Never mind. Where's my attorney? I'll take the deal. What is it? Manslaughter? Three to five? I can do that standing on my head.,
Hells bells, I don't even know what I said. All I mean is the Strib and PiPress blow now, all their good writers are off doing other things, and I don't understand commentors who are so snotty toward said writers when they call a piece of crap a piece of crap. That they (said writers, not said commentors) do it at all is a sign that they care about their field. And I'm curious if these commentors who pick on...well, mostly Jim Walsh...think the papers are GOOD.
I grew up on the Strib. I always said you could tell a lot about a city by its newspaper. What's happened to it breaks my heart.So long live MinnPost, Eric Black,and the Rake. (Until that gets bought by New Times!)
So, in other words, bitter as in, "Boy do I hate what's happened to my former newspaper and I will write about what I see which is my job as a cultural critic," as opposed to bitter like Medea.
Yeah, like THAT. I think.
"High-minded" might be looking in the wrong direction. But I can tell you the paper from the minute Walker Lundy left until I left had next to no interest at all in local media -- beyond very straight "reporting" of anchor comings and goings and basic ratings -- and zero interest in national media controversies, etc. The preferred emphasis was the hot reality dating show du jour and anything interpreted as satisfying the "gossip" factor detected by research. Hence, frogman's comment about "corrosive ... dumbing down". I can't speak for Jimmy -- and I don't need to -- but a paper that was never accused of being too provocative or interesting -- could have done much worse than cultivating his "Barfly Diaries" bit, talking with characters in local bars.
Yeah!
And then jimmy can weigh in with another of his "Great Thoughts That Will Change the World to Just the Way I Want It" loony-screeds.
Good times!
You mean that nutty one I posted about how "free speech" doesn't mean free from fair criticism to which you then wrote in unwittingly affirming it thinking you were disagreeing? Like that? Yours is a mind very hard to engage, much less please.
Well, just between you and me, I once offered my services to the Pioneer Press. They declined...a feather in my cap. Not that I wear a cap.
I'm with you, Frogman, but I do worry that the weak promise of "thoughtful" (again, to me the promise of the barest of minimum efforts) translates to old wine in a new bottle. Rounding up the usual suspects to do pretty much the same thing they were doing at the Stribune a very short time ago doesn't feel me with excited expectations. I'm content to wait and judge for myself. But if we're going to speculate, Mr, Kramer needs to amplify his promise of thoughtfulness.
It's too bad he and Perry didn't merge their distinct personal assets. Kramer's got gravitas with the established and deep-pocketed, and Perry's got street cred and a much deeper well of creativity and, dare I say it, wit and humor.
The New Yorker's thoughtful, but also interesting and engaging to read. So's Harper's. So's The Economist. So are a lot of vastly more readable publications than what daily newspapers have become. I need to hear and evetually read more than just "thoughtful." Sounds like someone trying to sell a friend on a blinddate with the boilerplate descriptor: "...has a good sense of humor."
Yeah, but the Strib's article template is so stultifying and restrictive that its hard to blame the writers for it. Eric Black, for one, was churning out these simplistic, brainless pieces for them and is now writing terrific, lively stuff.
You want thoughtful, try Powerline.com jimmy.
Plenty of good "thoughts" there!
I read Powerline's stuff under their nom de femme, Katherine Kersten in the Stribune. I can see why YOU like it for its paucity of reportage, never mind anything approaching journalism. I heard somewhere that they've recently won an award over there. Kudos.
C'mon - do we really need to pick nits when it comes to the hard copy thing? Some people LIKE hard copy. I'd be willing to bet money that if you took a random blog, reformatted and then printed it, it's credibility would rise by 333%.
I'll support any effort that gets journalists back on the streets. Reporting needs to be more than just an afterthought in newsroom budgets. It's as simple as that.
And while it's nice to see MinnPost being discussed here, do we really need a pre-opinion anyway? There's no product yet! Maybe this whole discussion was more for self-serving contrast... hey Rybak, we get it: you're snarky!!! Keep it up and maybe someday you can write for s****.com
Where to begin? "Thoughtful," ah, yes, a great preemptive aegis under which to later cower when deflecting the inevitable charge of being dull and eye-glazing to read. "We said it would be dull and earnest, er, THOUGHTFUL, so just shut up. If we wanted to be witty or entertaining, would we have hired Al Sicherman as our humorist? So there..."
A recently bought-out journalist to whom I spoke this week, who is doing a great deal of research involving local newspapers of a 1950s vintage, remarked that if the papers of today want to get readers back they should emulate their predecessors from the Eisenhower era who wrote vastly more interesting, engaging and, gasp, entertaining to read news stories. Thoughtful, well, that would come under the heading of bare minimum qualities of a newspaper story. "Thoughtful," that's the refuge of hidebound stiffs the likes of Jim Lehrer, who never tires of prea you that his unwatchable news is thoughtful, so take your medicine and prop your eyeballs open with a couple of toothpicks.
The other problem Kramer's virtual paper will have is the same one The Slaughter has, no clout. Reporters get their calls returned for one reason, the clout of their organization. No clout, no call back, at least from the powerful.
It's a limited sample, but the hours I've spent browsing Minneapolis Star and Tribune stories from the 1950s looking for interesting, engaging stories for my blog haven't uncovered much support for the idea that Eisenhower-era newspapers were more interesting or engaging than those published today. Acres of dry stories on political and business processes. Wire crap from Hollywood and Broadway. Uninspired editorial cartoons.
But as in any era the papers told stories of enduring interest. Some favorites:
Thursday, March 1, 1951: ‘Red’ custody fight
http://www.startribune.com/blogs/oldnews/?p=148
Friday, June 27, 1952: Don’t play with fireworks
http://www.startribune.com/blogs/oldnews/?p=169
Sunday, Jan. 4, 1953: How prejudiced are you?
http://www.startribune.com/blogs/oldnews/?p=140
Thursday, April 2, 1953: Half-baked Alaska
http://www.startribune.com/blogs/oldnews/?p=83
Saturday, June 19, 1954: Streetcars reach end of the line
http://www.startribune.com/blogs/oldnews/?p=129
Sunday, Jan. 2, 1955: Psychology 101
http://www.startribune.com/blogs/oldnews/?p=60
Saturday, June 9, 1956: 6 killed as jet hits house
http://www.startribune.com/blogs/oldnews/?p=29
If you're looking for a kick-ass decade for Twin Cities newspapers, I recommend the 1920s:
Saturday, May 1, 1926: 41 lawyers, $5 in child support
http://www.startribune.com/blogs/oldnews/?p=167
Thursday, Oct. 21, 1926: Frank Lloyd Wright jailed in Minneapolis
http://www.startribune.com/blogs/oldnews/?p=77
Saturday, Aug. 7, 1926: Baby on (running) board
http://www.startribune.com/blogs/oldnews/?p=20
Very good. Very good.
Hey! Heyyyyyy! I was being ironic. The guy refutes my anecdote from the guy doing '50s-era newspaper research and then cites a bunch of good stories from the '50s. Hence the "?" after the touche. Sheesh. This would never happen at MinnPost.
Uh, touche?
"No clout?" Bite me. Just because Gary Eichten hasn't yet buckled under my sword doesn't mean we ain't got clout. Ok, we're not the New York Times, and Strib editors never return calls or e-mails. But, in a perverse way, we take that with a note of pride. More to the point, this game has just begun.
Receptionist: "Sen. Coleman, I have to two calls holding for you, sir."
Senator Coleman: "Uh, I'm just on my way out lunch, will they keep until 3:00"?
Receptionist: "On line 1 is a Brian Lambert from 'something something to the Slaughter," and on line 2 is Gary Eichten."
Sen. Coleman: "I'll take line 2." That other one, 'take a message,' if you know what I mean, dear."
Receptionist: "Yes, sir...oopy, lost line one while I was connecting Mr. Eichten."
Sen. Coleman: "Thanks, honey. Hey, Gary, how'd pledge go?...."
God I love your witty banter.
About the printouts -- it's laughable, sure. Heck, I laughed. But I also think it's a good idea. There are a lot of old folks online, and I bet that's MinnPost's audience. Some old folks, like my moms fer instance, like to print out emails and web articles to go read in a comfy chair. And then, time for Seinfeld.
Send us mom's address. We'll make sure Kramer gets a copy over to her house.
This Ryback gal is growing on me.
She even called herself a "ratty-assed reporter", an apparently slightly veiled shout-out to my guy Imus.
Point being, she uses the correct term "reporter" instead of the self indulgent flagellatella of "journalist", an immediate tip-off to an inflated sense of self importance.
What's the word on her cankles?
What's implicit in "journalist" is an ethical obligation to search for the truth, as opposed to merely "reporting" what anyone might have seen were they a witness. Obviously that "truth" thing isn't a big factor in there where Laura Ingraham is everything you need in "news".
Still can't get over her hit talk radio show and best selling books?
Huh.
Ah, by that definition you have revealed the reason that there is inherent bias in the MSM, which has been a contributing factor in the toppling of the old media.
The jig is up...in case you hadn't noticed.
Let's get back to "reporting" what happened, not framing it as "truth" within a utopian wing nut slant, (eg, the Strib's obsession with "equal outcomes" and "diversity".)
Now, about those cankles....
You mean like "salesman" v. "peddler"?