Those Old Days of Blah and Hrumph-di Gargle
By Mitch Berg
Schmelzer in the MinMon, quoting an anonymous source about…something. Or other:
Requesting anonymity, a source close to the Star Tribune submitted this reflection on the $45 million sale of four blocks of the paper’s Warehouse District property to the Minnesota Vikings:
Last month Publisher/CEO Par Ridder went to a meeting of Strib circulation executives in a conference room named for Charles A. Freeman, one of the best-loved employees the newspaper ever had. The glass-walled room was named in Freeman’s honor in 1991 after the company’s circulation/distribution manager collapsed in his office and died of a stroke at age 60.
Established: Mr. Freeman was a good fella.
So far so good.
So here you have Par Ridder, who demonstrated his sense of integrity by jumping from the Pioneer Press to the Star Tribune under questionable circumstances, and whose next court date is June 25, walking into a room that has a memorial to Chuck Freeman etched into an eye-level glass panel on the door. The tribute is titled “A MAN OF UNQUESTIONED INTEGRITY.”
OK. Irony, maybe – assuming that Ridder’s day in court counts for nothing.
Onward:
So what is Par Ridder response to having to confront the ghosts of past Strib executives and a door with “A MAN OF UNQUESTIONED INTEGRITY” etched in the glass?
That’s a good question. What is his response, if any, to “confronting a ghost” – or, less metaphorically, to doing business in the presence of the institutional memory of someone else who did business?
Not a problem: Par sells 4 square blocks of Strib land to Zygi Wilf. The Charles A. Freeman conference room is not in the newspaper’s main building at 425 Portland Av.; it’s across the skyway in the Freeman Building, named for another former executive, Gale Freeman. Wilf will demolish the building, so the wrecking ball will obliterate the Charles A. Freeman conference room and its etched-glass door, an inconvenient reminder of a time when integrity was a core value at the Star Tribune.
Now, I’m not one to defend the Strib, goodness knows. And I’m likely as not to lump Par Ridder in with pretty much every other mainstream media figure as “the enemy”. I could be convinced, but so far, I’ve got no reason to change my mind.
But what’s Ridder doing, here?
Business. Running a dinosaur entity in a dying radically restructuring business.
Is tearing down the old office a sad thing for those who observe institutional traditions like memorializing Mr. Freeman? Of course.
Is it unethical?
The anonymous informer says nothing.
June 22nd, 2007 at 6:54 am
There’s a neat old building in Minneapolis with hundreds of doors, and fireplace mantels, and huge wooden buffets, all removed from properties before they were demolished, and available for resale.
It turns out that fancy doors are removeable! Who knew?
Wow, maybe they could, you know, like, take the etched door with them? Maybe even – and I know this is a LONG stretch here – put it in the HQ building somewhere?
Would that make everything all better?
.
November 12th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
[…] Rumor has it that Boyd – whose much-ballyhooed entree to the Monitor was intended to be yet another coat of credibility (along with hiring Eric Black) onto an enterprise that employs some good writers, some ethical trainwrecks, and some well-meaning amateurs. […]