Snark and Hiding

The eternal time-waster C.J., the Twin Cities' excuse for a gossip columnist, "reports" on a curious incident at Minneapolis City Hall.

Kris Patrow is a former reporter for KSTP-TV, Channel 5 in the Twin Cities.

CJ writes:

"I've been treated better at a riot," former KSTP-TV reporter Kris Patrow said Thursday. To Minneapolis City Council Member Gary Schiff, it seemed more like a laugh riot. But both agree that sparks flew when Patrow tried to interview [Minneapolis City Council member Gary] Schiff over a gun- shop issue.

So far so good. Right?

Patrow said she now works for Mercury Group, a Washington, D.C., production house. Beyond that, she doesn't want to say much. Friends of hers alerted me to her encounter with Schiff. It happened Thursday after Patrow sat through a lengthy zzzzzzzzzoning and planning committee meeting waiting to interview Schiff. The Mercury Group touts the National Rifle Association (NRA) as one of its clients.

Schiff takes up the story here. "I survived an incident with a hit person for the NRA," he laughed Friday. "She comes up to me with this startled look in her eyes and says, We want to interview you. Usually journalists are not so startled and don't act like that.

So Gary Schiff is a politician and a mind-reader. Who knew?

"What about?" asked Schiff. "And she goes, This gun shop on Chicago Avenue."

Schiff said he agreed to step out in the hall and do the interview. "Her very first question was so biased and opinionated it became clear right away she's not a journalist," he said. "I go, 'Who are you working for?' She tells me she was hired by the NRA to do a piece for their web page. I'm like, 'Oh, no, no. no.' " He could barely stop laughing long enough to finish the story.

And the question was...?

Y'see, it'd be interesting to know what the actual question was. It's not like bias and opinion disqualify a "journalist's" question from consideration: if you caught the last couple of presidential press conferences ("Why don't you apologize for your screwups, Mr. President?"), they're pretty much de rigeur.

And it doesn't take a journalist to know that Gary Schiff is an enemy of the law-abiding gun owner. He's been involved in the demi-legal lynch mob trying to close down Mark Koscielski's gun shop in south Minneapolis for quite some time now. An actual "journalist" might have pointed that out. The NRA - or whomever - didn't pick Schiff at random. One would think some questions were in order.

Schiff was absolutely loquacious as he recalled explaining to Patrow, " 'You're not a journalist.' That became about a 10-minute conversation on how she was no longer a journalist."

Someone who claimed to be an eyewitness e-mailed that Patrow was crying because Schiff was rude to her.

"No longer a journalist". Because she's not working for a major news outlet? Interesting. Wonder if Gary Schiff would care to elaborate.

And even if working for a company that lists the NRA as a client makes Patrow more of a PR flak than a reporter - so what? Don't the people have a right to know what Schiff has been doing? Don't the citizens of Minneapolis have a right to know what drives his efforts?

But to Schiff, apparently his own record on issues isn't the issue:

I was smiling. I was cordial and saying, 'Kris, now come on. If you see a journalist, send them my way, Kris.' She was like, Why won't you comment? 'I said, 'I will to any legitimate journalist who happens to want an interview.'

"Anybody with a camera crew thinks they can chase people down and demand an interview. No, you can't. It was like a Jon Stewart moment; like fake news. That was what I thought: What would Jon Stewart do? So surreal. She was hired by the NRA, posing as if she's doing a news story. What is happening to journalism?"

Sorry, Gary Schiff. You were having more of a Dan Rather moment.

The people have a right to know. Anyone who relates a story to other people is a "journalist".

Now, if Gary Schiff really means to say he'll only talk with representatives from the partisan mainstream media rather than indies who are honest about their motivations, he should probably say so.

I plan on following up on this.

Posted by Mitch at May 9, 2005 05:11 AM | TrackBack