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Sarah Janecek's picture

R.I.P.: The Political Impact of the Newspaper Institutional Editorial

Posted 10:23 pm, July 10th, 2008 by Sarah Janecek

A fascinating exchange between MinnPost's media writer David Brauer and Star Tribune editorial board writer Jill Burcum flagged an important milestone in Minnesota public affairs. We passed it years ago but I have not yet written about it because, quite frankly, it's painful. I've long respected many of the fine journalists involved, even the ones I have ideologically disagreed with most of the time. [Hello, Susan Albright.]

To be blunt, the milestone is that the unsigned editorials --  the institutional voices of our state's two largest newspapers, the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the St. Paul Pioneer Press -- have become irrelevant in Minnesota politics.

To summarize the Brauer (here's his piece ) / Burcum (her piece is in the Comments section) exchange:  Brauer wrote that the Star Tribune "has shucked its rep as a lefty lightning rod." Further, he noted that the paper has moved away from its "reliably pro-environment rhetoric." But his specific gripe (a legitimate one) is that a Sunday pro-offshore oil drilling editorial should have noted Star Tribune owner Avista Capital Partners' significant economic interest in offshore oil drilling. According to Brauer, Avista has more investments in energy (seven) than its other sectors, health care (six) and media (five), to the tune of at least $338 million, and probably much, much more. 

Recall that Avista bought the Star Tribune for $530 million in 2006. The on-the-street, gossipy -- and generous -- valuation of the Star Tribune today is between $100-200 million. That means that Avista has a much greater stake in oil than it does in the Strib. [And for the record, I'm in favor of offshore oil drilling.] 

Should the paper have disclosed its owners' substantial oil investment interests? 

You bet.

To the Star Tribune's Burcum's credit, she bylined her comments in response. However, her comments were an over-the-top, bizarre compilation of ad hominem attacks on Brauer's work as a defense to the Star Tribune's nondisclosure of Avista interests. [Brian Lambert, my former radio colleague in crime, adds the human journo drama here.]

What's worse, Burcum wrote, "Our editorials on [Minnesota DFL Attorney General] Lori Swanson played a key role in triggering the legislative auditor's investigation and calls for reform at the office." 

That's not only wrong, it's patently absurd.

The Star Tribune editorial calling for an investigation of AG office employees' efforts to unionize was dated March 23. Sure, the Legislative Audit Commission officially called for the investigation March 28, but here's one of a number of meetings the Legislative Audit Commission held to discuss audit evaluation topics, including investigating Lori Swanson's office, before the editorial ran. 

The call for an investigation was first made by Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Delano) March 12 (albeit an investigation to be conducted by a different unit of government, arguably more favorable to Republicans, the Bureau of Mediation Services). And perhaps most significantly, employee issues in the AG's office were all over the blogosphere for months (just a few examples here, here (the specific link to Steve Perry's The Daily Mole web site is now defunct and he currently writes at the Minnesota Independent ), here and here. 

Never mind the months of speculation at the Capitol that Swanson's internal union woes would have to be investigated. Speculation which never included, "the Star Tribune editorial page called for one."

Because no one at the Capitol ever talks about what the Star Tribune is calling for. Or the cries (have there been any the last few years?) of the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

In the 20th century pre-Internet world of Minnesota politics, what the major papers wrote as unsigned institutional editorials mattered. Copies of editorials were distributed in committees and on the House and Senate floors. Interest groups begged editorial boards for meetings to pitch their pet legislation so that, they, too, could distribute copies of editorials. Political candidates and their campaigns would drive downtown to get the early runs of the papers to check editorial endorsements.

I have racked my brain for years trying to recall the moment in our state's political history when the two papers' institutional voices, along with the op ed submissions printed on adjacent pages, failed to matter in our political discourse.

The only Oprah A Ha Moment I can recall was in early 2005. The DFL was still in the minority, and Rep. Ann Lenczewski (DFL-Bloomington) had just been appointed to an important minority post, the lead DFLer on the House Taxes Committee. Lenczewski was on MPR's Midday program discussing the tax bill du jour with Gary Eichten, who asked her what she thought about a Taxpayers League opinion piece written by then-League President David Strom. The piece had appeared in the St. Paul Pioneer Press that morning.

Right there on the air Lenczewski said she hadn't read the piece. That's not to discredit the highly respected Lenczewski. But it was a pivotal moment in our politics. The lead House DFLer hadn't read the St. Paul Pioneer Press' editorial pages on a day she was going to spend an hour on the air with the always-tough Eichten. There was no shame in Lenczeski's admission, and no rebuke by any one on the program at the time or in ensuing Capitol conversations after about the fact that Lenczewski hadn't read the paper that day.

A Ha, indeed.

[To our faithful PIM readers, please challenge me if you think I'm wrong. But do ask yourselves, when was the last time a Star Tribune editorial had an impact on Minnesota public affairs?  Reply to sarah@politicsinminnesota.com]

By far the most popular section in our free, online PIM Morning Reports is our "Best of the Blogs and Think Tank Thoughts" section. That means there's no less interest in strong opinion writing, but that readers are finding it outside the major dailies.  And, Morning Report readers will note that we still include the institutional voices of the major papers (and many of Minnesota's other fine daily newspapers) in their own special section.

Bloggers take note. In case you haven't figured it out yet, here are the rules for what gets linked to in our blog section: The content has to include new news or new insightful analysis that we haven't yet read elsewhere; blog posts have to be easily traced to writers who identify who they are; content has to be well-written; and, we're still old-fashioned about swear words (we may use them in conversation but find them offensive in print). Pretty simple. Makes for salience in our Minnesota political conversation. 

Finally, the newly-minted irrelevance of newspaper institutional voices does not apply to the bylined, well-researched weekly columns by Star Tribune long-time political columnist Lori Sturdevant.  "Did you see what Lori wrote about ____?" is still a common preface in Capitol conversations. 

Maybe that's the point. The Internet has given us instant (and free) access to a plethora of new news and really good, engaging political opinion. Unsigned institutional editorials, perhaps dictated by New York capital venture firm owners, perhaps not...written by unidentified ghosts (who may or may not include Scott Gillespie, the highly respected Star Tribune editorial pages editor, or long-time and also highly respected editorial writer Eric Ringham, both of whom have deep roots and strong commitments to Minnesota's civic life)...don't add anything salient to the political conversation.

That's my A Ha summation. 
Dan Feidt's picture

Fox News caught altering Franken Wikipedia entries; Diebold & others edit Wiki to advance PR 'reality'

Posted 6:45 pm, August 15th, 2007 by Dan Feidt

Wired magazine reported yesterday that CalTech graduate student Virgil Griffith matched every one of the millions of 'anonymous edits' on the popular reference website Wikipedia to the organizations where the edits originated. Every anonymous Wiki edit created an IP address record, and he simply matched those IP addresses to available lists of who controls them. He quickly discovered that everyone from the Central Intelligence Agency to the New York Times and the Church of Scientology have anonymously changed entries, generally to quietly promote their respective organizations' agendas and PR interests, or else delete embarrassing material. (You can try Griffith's lookup system yourself!)

The Minnesota angle is that someone on the Fox News Channel computer network (working from IP 12.167.224.228) changed several entries about U.S. Senate candidate Al Franken, back when he was hosting a show on the Air America network. Staff at the Franken campaign told PIM, "We are beginning to suspect the Fox News Channel has something of a bias when it comes to Al."

Originally, Franken's entry said:

Reflecting later on the lawsuit during an interview on the [[National Public Radio]] program ''[[Fresh Air]]'' on [[September 3]], [[2003]], Franken said that Fox's case against him was "literally laughed out of court" and that "wholly (holy) without merit" is a good characterization of Fox News itself.

The Fox staffer changed it (here's the exact revision):

Reflecting later on the lawsuit during an interview on the liberal [[National Public Radio]] program ''[[Fresh Air]]'' on [[September 3]], [[2003]], Franken said that Fox's case against him was the best thing to happen to his book sales.

The Brit Hume Wiki entry once contained:

Many groups and commentators, including [[Media Matters for America]], and liberal broadcasters [[Al Franken]], and [[Keith Olbermann]], have claimed that Hume distorted Roosevelt’s views.

but the same Fox terminal changed it to

Many groups and commentators, including [[Media Matters for America]], and liberal broadcasters [[Al Franken]], and [[Keith Olbermann]], have claimed that Hume distorted Roosevelt’s views in an attempt to ride Mr. Hume’s coat tails in the ratings race as Mr. Hume hosts the highest rated political program on cable television.

More fun stuff below the fold...

Sarah Janecek's picture

The Bridge Collapse: Citizen Journalism

Posted 1:29 pm, August 8th, 2007 by Sarah Janecek

Internet marketing guru David Erickson, who owns www.e-strategy.com, has a long and fascinating post on citizen journalism / citizen input about the bridge collapse. Several of David's most compelling conclusions:

Mainstream media still holds citizen journalism at arms length. With the exception of Minnesota Public Radio, almost all of the mainstream media treated citizen journalists as a resource for reporters to tap for their own reports, rather than treating citizens as co-equals who can tell stories themselves.

Citizen Journalists can be surprisingly competent reporters. I was struck by both the volume and the quality of the citizen reports. The eyewitness accounts were compelling with vivid details and more often than not lacked the melodrama to which amateur writing is often suspect. The citizen generated photos and video were equally compelling.

Flavor and Context. The eyewitness blog posts, the on-the-scene photography, and even the handheld and cell phone videos complete with their jerky motion and blurry, overcompressed images, all contribute far better than the mainstream media, to giving you a more accurate sense of being there. The videos, especially because of their amateur look, gave the viewer a powerful sense of the frantic chaos on the ground.

Sarah Janecek's picture

Top Guy at Clear Channel Out

Posted 5:10 pm, July 9th, 2007 by Sarah Janecek

Twin Cities radio fans take note: Mick Anselmo, the long-time general manager of local Clear Channel stations, was fired today. Of particular interest to Minnnesota public affairs junkies is 100.3 KTLK FM, which became a conservative talk station under Anselmo's decisionmaking in January 2006. KTLK's ratings numbers -- like most of talk radio-- have been down and new leadership at Clear Channel could make major changes.

For more on this story, your best bets are the Clear Channel gossip site, www.redandnater.com and Brian Lambert's media blog on therake.com, "Lambert to the Slaughter."

[And yes, PIM Publisher Sarah Janecek did have a show on KTLK cohosted with Lambert. The show was replaced by Jason Lewis. Both Lambert and Janecek still feel good about the show, which was perhaps the only show in the country where a conservative and a liberal sat in the same booth every day and argued politics without killing each other (or at least trying not to). And last time we saw any numbers, we still beat Lewis in the highly desirable 25-54 buying demo! Any success Lambert & Janecek enjoyed can be attributed to our producer, Rob Pendleton.]

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