Category: Big Alt-Media
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Specifics
Last week, we discussed the media flap over what amounts, in the end, to Tom Emmer’s not releasing details on how he plans to change Minnesota government until he actually has an opponent. Politics In Minnesota Weekend summed up the details: On Monday, Tom Scheck reported a piece for MPR that digs into Emmer’s publicly stated plans to…
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The Union Has Never Been At War With The District, Winston
Imagine how much better criminal justice would be if prosecutors and judges worked with defense attorneys to speed up the judicial system? Or if accountants and auditors were on the same team? Or if the President, Congress and the Supreme Court spent less time checking and balancing each other, and more time working on ways to help…
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Another Stupid “Tent” Story
Is the GOP a “big tent?” Or is it a “pup tent?” The real answer is below. But for the biennial pundit palaver on the subject, who better to ask than Doug Grow, who spent decades carrying water for the DFL at the Strib before decamping to the MinnPost? “The idea of a big tent…
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Much Ado By Association
I’ve spent much of the life of this blog – eight years, now – railing against the evils of smearing by association. It’s a particularly slimy tactic in the hands of the not-very-bright, on all sides of the putative political aisle. Being a conservative, I bag on particularly egregiously stupid examples from the left (like…
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Around The MOB: Centrisity
A few years back, incontinent shriekblogger Karl Bremer jumped up and down and shot steam out his nostrils and bellowed that the Minnesota Organization of Bloggers was a conservative organization. To be fair, Bremer always jumps up and down and squirts steam out his ears, so it’s not that big a distinction… …but the main point is…
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Pretty Vacant
In reading Doug Grow’s account of A-Klo’s “Tele-Town Hall” “meeting”, it occurs to me… One caller tried hard to pin her down. “Do you support a public (health insurance) option?” he asked. That seemed to call for a “yes” or “no” answer. The caller got neither. Sen. Amy KlobucharInstead, here’s what he got: “I will…
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Paperless?
Eric Black reports on the Project for Excellence in Journalism report on the State of the News Media. It’s an ugly report – you can read the details at MinnPost. Black’s conclusion: I heard PEJ chief Tom Rosenstiel (disclosure: Tom and I went to college together less than one century ago; he’s a nice guy)…
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Hero Worship
Growing up, I dreamed – among a few other things – of being a news reporter. Let’s just say it’s a good thing not every dream comes true. But I digress. One of my “role models”, of sorts, was “Joe Rossi”, a character played by Robert Walden from the Lou Grant TV series. One of…
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Party On, Wayne
So the MOB party was last night. It was the first one we’ve done in about 18 months. I expected sort of a “rebuilding season” kinda vibe to the party, with maybe 40-odd people showing up. I counted a total fo a little over 70 over the course of the evening, with probably a little…
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When Monks Speak, Professors Nod Their Heads And Carry On Their Way
My quicker take on Brian Lambert’s take on Katherine Kersten’s departure from the Strib: He’s irredeemably wrong, for reasons that are largely due to personal and vocational myopia. I told you it’d be quick. But that’s not all that satisfying, is it? ———- A couple of points, just as background. I used to be a reporter. …
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Perfect Storm of Stupid
Perhaps predictably, the best line in Eric Black’s takedown of the Strib’s buyout of Kersten and Coleman is at the end: Pardon the football analogy (by the way, I’m on the Tarvaris bandwagon) but this Strib decision feels like trying to run out the clock when you’re behind by three touchdowns. Even I wasn’t aware…
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Mission Accomplished
Now that the Minnesoros “Independent” has accomplished its mission of serving as a local-regional propaganda outlet for the mid-to-far left – a sort of local analogue to “Media Matters” and “MoveOn”, even as far as sharing some of the same funding sources – and the election is over… …the reason for having the “Independent” has…
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The Bathroom At The HyPsTr Nightclub Of The Soul
Next to Michael Brodkorb, no center-right pundit in the Twin Cities generates more deranged irrationality than the Strib’s Katherine Kersten. Lambert writes about one of her recent columns (doesn’t matter which; they all react the same no matter what she writes): As we know, Ms. Kersten writes . . . in public . . .…
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Grow: Campaign-Pulmonary Resuscitation
Doug Grow – long known as the DFL’s number two shill in the mainstream media (second only to Lori Sturdevant) – is trying to blow some wind into the sails of the Elwin “E-Tink” Tinklenberg campaign. E-Tink is trying to unseat Michele Bachmann in the Sixth Congressional District. He’s most “famous” in Minnesota for having…
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Nothing a Beer Can’t Fix, Part III
Tonight’s the MDE/MNPublius bipartisan happy hour at Billy’s on Grand: Hope to see you there. ———- Speaking of graphics, I saw this in a post on Charlie Quimby’s blog the other day: We’ll come back to that. ———- Yesterday, I noted that among my favorite interviews on the NARN have been my discussions with Eric…
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Nothing A Beer Can’t Fix, Part II
The MDE/MNPublius bipartisan happy hour is coming up tomorrow at Billy’s: Hope to see you there. ———- Yesterday, I wrote about a party that an email discussion forum threw, which had some interesting results. Once or twice a year for the past four years, we at the Minnesota Organization of Bloggers throw a party (stay…
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Only Thieves On Parole and Cops Out On Patrol
Today, the Northern Alliance Radio Network brings you the best in Minnesota conservatism from 11AM-5PM: Volume I “The First Team” – Chad and Brian and John kick things off from 11-1. Volume II “The Headliner” – Ed and I will take over from 1-3. There’s a safe bet that I’ll be pretty fired up about…
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Dog Prays For Man
I was going to write about this bit here – about local gay Catholic groups complaining about Archbishop Nienstedt’s cracking down on LGBT services at a liberal local parish. Brian “Saint Paul” Ward, however, beat me to it with a huge headstart pointing out correctly that…: To put it in terms a journalism school graduate…
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Question for Eric Black
McCain came to town. I didn’t have an invite. But reading the leftymedia’s contortions on the subject is probably almost as much fun anyway. It ranged, as usual, from the sublime to the ridiculous. Or at least from the groaningly obvious and cliche-driven to the moderately interesting. For the former, we turn to former City…
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You Never Count Your Money When You’re Sitting At The Table
Doug Grow in the MinnPest does an endzone happy dance over the kickoff of Minneapolis City Hall’s new, hideously expensive, purely symbolic “Green Roof”: Workers will begin tossing dirt on conservative talk radio skeptics and 5,000 square feet of roof at the Minneapolis City Hall Saturday. Just a hunchy, Duggles, but I don’t think the…
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Gush. Gush. G. R. Anderson’s Calling Your Name Now.
G. R. Anderson – a writer who apparently spent his career at the City Pages rehearsing to be the next Doug Grow, building a career on soft-core DFL flakkery – gushes about MN Senator and and DFL hatchetwoman Tarryl Clark. Did I say gush? Yes, I did – like three times. Well…? Mid-session Fridays are…
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Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life!
Al Franken sacks his old “campaign manager”, brings in a new one. What a difference a change in perspective makes: with the news, Roosh…: Franken brings on new campaign chief, Minn. native has experience unseating incumbents I don’t care if she can make Monkeys come out of Franken’s [rear exit]. Franken’s issue is his own…
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Tone Perfect
So yesterday I read Doug Grow for the first time since he left the Strib. It was a review of P.J. O’Rourke’s speech at the Northrup. And since it’s the first thing I’ve read from Grow now that he’s working for an overtly-political “news” outlet (The MNPost), I have to ask… …is he doing anything…
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Dog Bites Dog
The Minnesota Monitor – which pretty routinely reprints talking points from left-of-center groups – is trying to gin up a phony controversy over Katherine Kersten’s columns about the Tarek Ibn Ziad Academy and the Saint Thomas University censorship of conservative student groups. Well, nothing new there. In the entire Twin Cities media, nobody elicits more…
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Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Media, Part II?
Andy Birkey at the MinMon notes: Have Michele Bachmann’s media gaffes and extreme conservative views [closed circuit to Birkey; are there any other kind? Or does the MNMon’s software prepend “extreme” to every instance of “conservative” in everyone’s copy? – Ed] driven her to speak mainly to conservative and Christian-right news outlets? Bachmann’s media appearances…