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 apparently passed.  The Center for “Independent” Media has yanked the budget leash on its’ “independent” vassals affiliates.

The first sign?  The “Independent” has started whacking its staff:

A couple more names are victims of budget-cutting at Minnesota Independent: full-timer Andy Birkey and politics freelancer Britt Robson.

Birkey had covered LGBT issues for the site since its August 2006 inception; he was one of two staffers axed, along with reporter Molly Priesmeyer.

The last time I knew anything of the “Independent”‘s financials, the “writers” got a stipend for working part-time for the glorified blog.  I’d suspect – and will try to dig up info – that when they brought on former journalist and ex-City Pages editor Steve Perry, it came along with a big, and currently unnecessary, jump in funding.

But I’ve come to look forward to staff departures at the “Independent”, because it seems that’s when the actual truth comes out.  When Eric Black left, he let slip the Mindy’s Soros connection (the worst-kept secret in the Twin Cities alt-media). 

And now, Britt Robson – one of the Mindy’s few capable better writers, unencumbered by having to carry the water for his overlords in DC, lets fly (emphasis added):

Robson became a casualty when MnIndy’s parent, the D.C.-based Center for Independent Media (CIM), eliminated the freelance budget entirely…However, Robson — who writes about arts for MinnPost and sports for The Rake — was caustic in his view [of] MnIndy’s Capitol overlords. He says CIM’s national staff was less interested in the organization’s professed mission — “a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that operates an independent online news network in the public interest” — than boosting the party of Barack Obama.

“I was working with them fairly closely during the Republican convention and privy to interoffice emails,” Robson explains. “The type of things non-local editors were into were very party-race stories, particularly stories that embarrassed Republicans and promoted Democrats.”

Wow.

Kinda exactly like the Mindy’s critics have been saying all along, you mean?

Robson believes the local staff chafed at this purposefulness; they consider themselves progressives, not DFL party hacks. He points to Perry’s tenure as City Pages editor, when staffers went after Republicans hard but regularly gnawed the legs off local Democrats such as R.T. Rybak.

A reflexively pro-Dem agenda “is a bias that’s reflected more in the national echelons,” Robson says. “We both know Steve Perry; he probably has as little use for Democrats as Republicans, that’s his reputation.”

That was Perry’s reputation.

My opinion:  when the Mindy got started in 2006 under original “editor” Robin Marty, it was amateurish but earnest.  It had journalistic ambitions, of sorts. 

When Perry took over, whether in spite of his presence or because of it, the paper’s tone became more shrill, more propagandistic; it read less like an earnest college newspaper staffed by newbies, and more like a dumb, trite, phoned-in, ill-informedpropagandistic leftyblog.

David Brauer covers the utterly unsurprising “story” at the slightly-less-overtly-bought-off MNPost; let’s see if my comment ever gets out of moderation.

20 thoughts on “Mission Accomplished

  1. I suspected early on that MinnIndy would cut back, if not cease to be entirely, following the election.

    That said, it’s been interesting watching it boost its traffic through such circle jerk social networks like Stumbleupon and Twitter, and a host of other Web-based forums. It’s ironic, in a way, that the election of Obama could actually mean the end of a lot of online lefty “media” outlets.

    Thank God there will always be an outlet for fart and poop blogs. . .

  2. Not to indulge in Shadenfreude or anything, but Priesmeyer’s comment on MinnPost almost made me cough up a lung from sudden laughter:

    I agree with Robson. The worst part is that they touted creating a sustainable news site, one that lasted well beyond the election and focused on local news and issues. Not only do I feel disappointed, I feel cheated.

    I feel like we were hired to be nothing more than shills for their platform under the guise of a mission focused on creating journalism that was “independent” and for the “common good.” If I had been told I was a shill for the Democrats, I never would’ve written for the site. I guess that’s why the CIM told editors and writers that our job was to write about major issues, like the economy and housing, that were important to local readers.

    I don’t know how the rest of the remaining folks feel. I am only speaking for myself. But given the “Mission Accomplished” timing and what I was told about the site’s longevity previously, it certainly doesn’t feel like the CIM’s goals match up with their mission.

    From the CIM site: “Programs emphasize the importance of citizen-driven journalism as a critical founding principle of our nation, the positive role of democratically elected government in securing the common good and social welfare, and the continuing benefits of our founding culture of egalitarian government by the people, for the people.”

    BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

  3. I don’t think it’s funny; I think it’s sad. If I’ve got it right, Priesmeyer left a stable, paying gig to go to MinnieMon, having really bought the pravda.

  4. I think it’s funny that anyone COULD HAVE bought the Pravda. It’s been so blaringly obvious what the MinnIndy was for so long, to hitch your career wagon to that nonsense for anything more than a month is just lunacy.

    Sure, it’s unfortunate Molly’s out of a job, but come on, she CHOSE to work for the online equivalent of a grocery store checkout line rag. She bought into the BS of the CIM overlords. It’s a good and universal life lesson: DON’T TRUST ANYONE that signs your paychecks.

  5. So, does this mean the Robin Marty might actually have to fire the nanny and be a mom? No more dragging the baby around to lefty barroom juice and smoke sessions?

    Pffft.

    This was inevitable. Soros is committed to socialism, but he’s not an idiot. Now that his boy is in office, he’ll be putting his dollars where they can do some real damage.

    The sock puppets have served their purpose, and into the toilet they go.

    The question remains; what effect will this have on MinnPost, which is the same joint as MiniMoni was…but with a bigger budget? I feel sorry for the genuine “journalists” that got sucked into the delusion…well, not really.

    BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA! Suck it moonbats!

  6. It should also be noted just how LITTLE it cost to buy these morons into believing in, and writing for, this “journalistic” endeavor. P.T. Barnum was right about the suckers and the minutes thing.

  7. I wonder if the IRS would be interested in reading these things.

    I filed an IRS complaint on MinnPost back in March after they published an article entitled

    “Five reasons why Obama’s my choice”

    But I never got around to writing up my complaint against MiniMoni. I didn’t think they had enough readers to warrant my time.

  8. f I’ve got it right, Priesmeyer left a stable, paying gig to go to MinnieMon, having really bought the pravda.

    That’s a shame, but it’s a victory of blind hope over realism.

    I’ve been involved in a few startups, and in discussions for far more. You quickly learn to look at the background of the founders and the VCs or angels they’ve chosen and the their track record. Some VCs you run like h*ll from, some you work with, all you have to remember are there for a distinct purpose: making money.

    To jump into what is essentially a startup without looking at the past behavior of the backers is at best childish, at worst, folly. And that’s what the folks who bought the Kool-Aid of the MinnieMousiter did. If you were a participant in those projects you should have looked at the behavior of those behind the funding: astroturfing, and single project driven in Soro’s case. Mission accomplished, time to disband the startup, take the product and go make money on it.

    And if you don’t think those Dem mucky-mucks aren’t going to make a ton of money on this political victory, you’re just the kind of folks who would fall for this scam in the first place.

  9. Pingback: Shot in the Dark » Blog Archive » All The News That’s Fit To Handcraft

  10. Pingback: Shot in the Dark » Blog Archive » Their Master’s Voice

  11. Pingback: Shot in the Dark » Blog Archive » Fronting

  12. Pingback: Shot in the Dark » Blog Archive » What’s In A Date?

  13. Pingback: The Greenroom » Forum Archive » What’s In A Date

  14. Pingback: Shot in the Dark » Blog Archive » Chanting Points Memo: The Mindy’s Thin, Runny Gruel

  15. Pingback: Shot in the Dark » Blog Archive » Camouflaging The Point

  16. Pingback: The Greenroom » Camouflaging The Point

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.