Schwoops
By Mitch Berg
A while ago, I wrote about the City Pages – the Twin Cities’ “alternative” freebie ‘zine – and their front-page article about the 35W Bridge Collapse. I said that…:
…”last week’s City Pages did a long, meandering, utterly speculative assignment of blame to everyone from the Governor to David Strom. Absent from Anderson and Demko’s list: “The design of the bridge itself”.
Former City-Pager Mike Mosedale emailed me:
That is incorrect. If you read the story, you will see there is a full section devoted to the subject.
Here is one relevant snippet:“Even though it’s early in the investigation, the National Transportation Safety Board is already raising questions about the bridge’s design. One issue of concern: the bridge didn’t have any piers built into the riverbed. It also lacked what are commonly referred to as “engineering redundancies”—back-up support built into the system to minimize damage if one part fails. Last week, the NTSB and Federal Highway Authority focused on so-called gusset plates, steel sheets that connected the bridge’s girders together. The inspectors said the plates may have been a design flaw.”
I’m not interested in participating in your comment scrum, but I do think you should post a correction or apology.
Well, it goes to show you that I don’t read the City Pages as closely as I once did.
But I apologize: I missed the article’s brief nod to empirical fairness amid the pages of speculative, politicized witchhunting. My bad.
Because goodness knows how important it is to check one’s facts.
August 24th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
Nice apology, but “comment scrum”?
August 24th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
Dead-tree media guy. Might get his hair mussed.
August 24th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
I picked up a copy (for the first time in months…maybe years) to see their take on it (great front page picture, CP). Looked at the article and the pictures of the usual Republican villians so decided not to read it.
August 24th, 2007 at 6:05 pm
Pick up this week’s issue, and you can see that they printed a letter to the editor that took them to task for failing to mention that even if the gas tax hike had passed last session, the DOT would have done nothing different about that bridge.
November 30th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
Bear in mind, I’m an inherently civil guy.
Makes claim of facts not in evidence.. not new for you, but seriously, NO, you’re not. Certainly not here, definetely NOT on your talk show. You say decidedly uncivil things.. and you don’t ‘mix it up’, you control the discussion, here and there, and only respond when you see some sort of opening, rather than actually debating the points…
So again, presents facts not in evidence.. bzzzt
November 30th, 2007 at 8:22 pm
presents facts not in evidence
Wrong!
December 17th, 2007 at 4:19 pm
presents facts not in evidence
Wrong!
Well that proves it.. wow, you sure showed me. You are soo clever. To say beating you can be done with one-arm tied aback, is to require more capability than it really does.
You say liberals desired to see the Soviets win the Cold War, that they sought to make that possible (on your show). You hold no one, other than your critics, to any standard of conduct, least of all yourself.
The facts are so numerous that you are far from civil it’s beyond question. You accused my wife of suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.. and thought you could cover your ugliness by saying “I’m kidding”. Like that’s something you can kid about – or even that it’s funny. It’s funny to a classless dweeb, but only to that audience.
Care to prove your civil? What evidence did you provide? Care to have it refuted?