To:\u00a0\u00a0Joel Kramer (CEO\/Editor),\u00a0Roger Buoen and Susan Albright (Co-Managing Editors) Don Effenberger (News Editor)
\nFrom:\u00a0 Mitch Berg, Uppity Peasant
\nRe:\u00a0 They Get What They Pay For<\/p>\n
Esteemed Editors:<\/p>\n
I was never much of a reporter.\u00a0 I could always do the “who, what, when, where, why and how” of a story just fine, and earned a living at it, off and on.\u00a0 But it was never really my thing.<\/p>\n
But I do remember, when I worked in the business, that the fastest way to get a reporter, producer or editor up on their back legs was to suggest that journalism partner with business or government to do the job.\u00a0 They would say – with righteousness rivaling any Baptist minister or Trappist monk – that Journalism’s mission was to be a check and balance on government, business, anyone <\/em>with power.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 To comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.\u00a0\u00a0 Any whiff of filthy lucre was to be kept on the other side of the thick wall and locked door that separated the Sales department from the newsroom.\u00a0<\/p>\n Media analysts – I’m thinking Garfield and Gladstone’s “On The Media” on NPR, and the whole Romanesko borg – go through gyrations worthy of a Talmud symposium sifting through the ethics of mixing journalism and money.\u00a0<\/p>\n Now, theMinnPosttalks a big game about journalism.\u00a0 And you’ve certainly staffed your site with a lot of people with long pedigrees in the regional news business.\u00a0 And Brian Lambert.\u00a0<\/p>\n But I’ve noticed on one issue that your site gets a fair chunk of money from from the Joyce Foundation<\/a>.\u00a0 The Joyce Foundation also bankrolls most of the major gun control organizations in the United States, including Mayor Bloomberg’s efforts <\/a>and “Protect Minnesota<\/a>“.\u00a0<\/p>\n And along with this financial link, the MinnPost’s <\/em>coverage of Second Amendment issues has gotten more and more slanted, and not a little bit risible in the bargain:<\/p>\n\n