Category: Media
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Civics
There’s so much wrong in this post. Sort of like Minnesota state government itself. He’s talking about the Nick Shirley video that’s brought the Minnesota fraud scandal to a few million new sets of eyeballs: Nick Shirley’s video (I’ll link it in the comments) has gotten a ton of traffic and is bringing the story…
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A Local Secret?
Sure, the Strib covered the fraud story. With a blanket.
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Questions
The Star Tribune has questions. I have a bigger one.
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Grabbing Straws
Big Left tries to build a new narrative for the Kirk murder.
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Downmarket
In which I admit Nick Coleman may have had a point.
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Journalism Today
When Jim Smorada was teaching me how to write the news, he taught the same cliche every other journo student and cub reporter gets: do the who, what, when, where, why and how of the story. So I caught this yesterday: And I thought – maybe it’s just the social media intern doing a terrible…
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Ask Not Why Steven Colbert Is Gone
Merely rejoice that he is gone. Colbert – the unctuous and desperately un-funny little man who replaced David Letterman and became the standard-bearer for the collapse of late-night TV – is leaving the air after this season. Oh no. Pass the beer nuts. Never watched the guy for more than a couple minutes live, and maybe a…
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That “State Government Absurdist Bingo Card” Is Getting Very Full
So, with the revelation last week that hiring managers and the MN Department of Human Services need to explicitly justify hiring white (presumably especially male) candidates for jobs, it’s not unreasonable to wonder – there must be some kind of deeply racist person driving these policies. Your reasonable question has been rewarded with an answer: Ooof. Someone…
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Miraculous Transformation
A leftist murders two Jews in DC. Big Left staged riots in LA and (almost, again) Minneapolis. The mainstream media attacks… …well, who do you think? “White Supremacist” group membership dropped by an order of magnitude every generation over 100 years from millions in the 1920s to the single-digit thousands in 2016. But we’re to…
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Open Letter To MPR’s Jon Collins: Year 5
To: Jon Collins, Senior Reporter on Race, Class and Communities, MInnesota Public RadioFrom: Mitch Berg, Obstreporous PeasantRe: Anniversary + Findings Mr. Collins, As I have every year since 2021, I hope this day finds you well. It was four years ago yesterday you sent this out on your listener mailing list:: “South Minneapolis: I know…
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THAT’s The Reason!
Compare and Contrast: The number of people in “white supremacist” groups dropped by an order of magnitude every generation from 1916 to 2016, from millions down into the single digit thousands. News media: “Meh”. Today: News media: “It’s because they think they won“. No matter how much you hate the media, it’s not enough.
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It. Never. Fails.
Tony Snow dies. Democrat “Influencers”: “Hah! Conservative puppet had it coming! Ronald Reagan dies. Democrat “Influencers”: “Hah! The only good thing he ever did was die!” No, really: Jerry Falwell dies. Democrat “lnfluencers”: Although we believe in neither God nor Hell, he’s certainly going to one and not the other! George HW Bush dies. Democrat…
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Too Obvious
It hardly bears saying that if it weren’t for double standards, the DFL would have no standards at all. But does anyone seriously think that if someone used AI to make and circulate a caricature of Melissa Hortman, Brion Curran or Erin Maye Quade capturing all the “crazy woman” cliches that this one does… …of…
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Sic Transit Gloria Radio
One of the truisms of playing in a bar band (as I do) is that bar bands aren’t musicians. They are beer salesmen. And if you’re playing an American Legion in Anoka, and you bust out some Parliament or Sonic Youth, or Syd Barrett era Pink Floyd, you’ll make a few hipsters and fanboys happy…
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Berg’s 18th Law: It’s Not Just For Spree Violence!
Entire Twin Cities media and left (ptr) last week: “A graduate student, one of America’s best and brightest, was snatched away in the middle of the night by ICE for exercising free speech! They could come come for any of us, citizen or not!” Waiting period specified in statute passes: Not sure it ever fails. …
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21
It was 21 years ago today that the Northern Alliance Radio Network launched. Most of you remember the backstory – because a whole lot of you were there for it. I was in the middle of a very difficult year employment-wise, I took the lessons of “Spanky and Our Gang” to heart, and I went…
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Take A “W”
When I started this blog, 23 years ago this month, I had a few assumptions about politics: Minneapolis was as crazy as it was ever going to get If you told me CD8 would ever vote Republican, I’d have said you were certifiable Big media – from the Strib and MPR to the NYTimes and WaPo…
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Comforting The Comfortable, Afflicting The Afflicted
I’m old enough to remember when Rolling Stone was vividly counter-culture. But only barely . Read this piece on Amy Klobuchar. Am I the only one who thinks is reads like an ad for the Container store woven not-all-that-cleverly into a piece on Klobuchar’s (checks notes) stunnng courageous boss-lady journey over the past month? Does…
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Whatever You Do…
…don’t you dare claim there’s intrinsic bias in Twin Cities media: So many ways to word that: “uphold federal immigraiton law”, “stop abuse of the healthcare system”, “drop non-qualified non-citizens from taxpayer-funded healthcare”, among others. But they just have to imply malice. You think you hate the media enough? You…well, you know where this goes, right?
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The Right Victims
Star-Tribune, 2020: Crippling mass layoffs due to knee-jerk government response to Covid. Economy in the tank. Governor Klink sics his pet Soros Attorney General on dissenters, declares emergency power, sets up a snitch line. Star Tribune: <Crickets> Star Tribune, 2025: A pulse: I keep saying “you don’t hate the media enough”. I’m trying to figure…
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Our Moronic Elites
Margaret Brennan has emerged in this past few months as the poster girl for all that is stupid and depraved about our “elites”. But even I didn’t think she’d go here…: Stupid reporter? Or a natural progression of the whole “free speech is bad” thing that elites were pushing during a campaign where the Democrats…
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Remedial Journalism 090
I’ve spoken with a few Twin Cities journalists about their complete collapse (I’ll be charitable, as to “collapse” there would have needed to be some actual intent to cover the issue) in re the coverage of Tim Walz (not to mention Ilhan Omar) over this past six years and, for that matter, the Legislative DFL…
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Turning Of The Tide
Reporter from the Star-Tribune questions Minneapolis Police Department assistant chief Katie Blackwell about the dozens of MPD cops who swore out affadavits that she perjured herself about Maximum Restraint Technique (MRT) during the Chauvin trial: Just kidding. It was Liz Collin, from Alpha. A conservative news organization, which does most of the actual “journalism” in…
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Look Back In…Not Joy
One of the more satisfying stories of this past year was watching the accelerating decay of the mainstream media’s influence over society. And this was one of my favorite examples: Watching the orwellian “Joy” campaign get pelted with rhetorical rocks and garbage by the commoners was one of the greatest, er, joys I’ve had, at…
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Pre-Cognitive Dissonance
Am I the only one that heard about Taylor Lorenz’s “Joy” at the murder of Brian Thompson… …and thought “that certainly puts a new spin on the Harris campaign’s theme?” Freedom is slavery? 2+2=5? Murder is joy? One “joy” I try to deny myself is excessive schadenfreud. Pinky swear. But I’ll confess, I feel quite…