Going All “Air America” On Us

Steve “Mister Furious” Perry is out at the Minnesoros “Independent”, says David Brauer: 

This is the other shoe dropping after MnIndy’s parent, Center for Independent Media, announced last month that the staff was being pared, freelance budget eliminated, and editing centralized in Washington, D.C.

“Independent” media with “centralized” editing!

CIM, a nonprofit, has been under fire locally for badgering its staff to, in the words of ex-freelancer Britt Robson, run “stories that embarrassed Republicans and promoted Democrats.”
That ran counter to Perry’s “pox-on-all-power” ethos honed to a knife’s edge during his many years as City Pages’ editor.

While Learned Foot is right – Perry did a lot more poxing the right than the left over the years, and there was a reason he worked for a left-leaning group and was in charge of an assembly of committed lefties that – I’ll give him that much. 

Under Perry, City Pages overtook the Twin Cities Reader as the top local alt-weekly; [although the Reader’s complete demise in 1991 may have helped that – Ed.] since his February hiring, MnIndy’s traffic has soared, as this chart demonstrates. It was definitely a team effort — reaching a high point during the Republican National Convention — but Perry hired several members of that team.

And the world thanks him for keeping Karl Bremer in the headlines.  (Whooee).

Update II: A Perry ex-colleague asks whether Perry’s Daily Mole will make a comeback. From the looks of the cute 404 message, not imminently.

With ad budgets drying up and (who are we kidding) the political need for lefty propaganda sites diminished (for the next year or so, anyway), I can’t imagine a worse time to try to re-establish something like the Daily Mold, at least if “earning a living” is an issue.

Does Perry have enough friends at the MNPost to make a go of it?  Would he take a gig there if offered?  What else is in the wings for Mister Furious?

Oh, well.  All the best, Perry. 

6 thoughts on “Going All “Air America” On Us

  1. Interesting that they hired back Birkey.

    I wonder if he’ll have any more hard hitting articles about 501(c)(3)s that violate IRS rules against political activity.

  2. They were useful idiots running up to the coronation.

    Now that the Anointed One has ascended and threatens to govern differently than they’d like him to they’re less than useful idiots, so they’re gone.

    The money behind MinneSoros wanted the Democrats in power, not the Progressives.

  3. Mitch – would take issue with your Reader end date. You may have some specific 1991 event in mind – Tice leaving the editorship? – but the paper succumbed in 1997 and was still battling with CP into the mid-’90s. I worked for both, so that was my take.

    I gave Steve specific (but not exclusive) credit because I think his editorial focus (like it or not ideologically) made CP the better read. As I recall, one of my jumps from TCR to CP was because I viewed the latter as more substantial at the time.

  4. David,

    1997? Wow. I blitzed on a bunch of those last six years. I was almost completely unaware of the TCR after about 1992.

    But you and Joel are right; while I disagree with Perry’s politics, and have found him to be fairly peevish and disagreeable in my few interactions with him, he IS a good journalist (and have said so throughout the history of this blog).

    Which was why seeing him going to the “Independent” (hah) was such a surprise.

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