{"id":806,"date":"2007-05-10T10:44:07","date_gmt":"2007-05-10T16:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php\/index.php\/2007\/05\/10\/my-email-to-minnesota-monitor\/"},"modified":"2007-05-10T11:31:55","modified_gmt":"2007-05-10T17:31:55","slug":"my-email-to-minnesota-monitor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=806","title":{"rendered":"My Email to Minnesota Monitor"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since the local bought-and-paid-for “progressive” media has taken to “interviewing” selected Republican “insurgents” (purely <\/em>to help political discourse in Minnesota, naturally), I figured fair was fair. I’m sending the following interview questions to Minnesota Monitor.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Since they can trust my motivations implicitly, I’m sure I’ll get a full, thorough, ingenuous response.<\/p>\n

Here goes:<\/p>\n

———-<\/p>\n

To: Minnesota Monitor Staff<\/p>\n

From: Mitch Berg, ace reporter<\/p>\n

Re:\u00a0 Interview<\/p>\n

I have some questions for y’all.\u00a0 Please pay no attention to my five year history of rhetorically beating you guys like a baby harp seal and my known antipathy to your party’s<\/strike> “magazine’s”<\/strike> site’s underlying worldview; please disregard everything you know, and assume that I’m being utterly sincere in saying that I seek merely knowledge and enlightenment.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. So where does your funding come from?\u00a0 Since the Center for Independent Media started out sharing offices with David Brock’s attack-PR firm “Media Matters for America”, in an arrangement that looked to anyone who’s ever worked in the world of business like an “incubator” deal (where an established company lends material assistance to a smaller spinoff), it’s a legitmate question that bears directly on your site’s “journalistic credibility”.<\/li>\n
  2. Ha ha.\u00a0 A cutesy snark.\u00a0 How precious.\u00a0 OK, now a serious <\/em>answer,\u00a0if you please?<\/li>\n
  3. Where in your “code of ethics” is “clairvoyance” mentioned?\u00a0 Because ascribing motivations in the midst of a “news story”<\/a> absent any factual basis is the kind of thing MY first news boss would have given me a swirlie over.\u00a0 How is it that Minnesota Monitor’s “ethics” allow this egregious faux pas<\/em>?<\/li>\n
  4. What was the motivation for Fecke’s interview, if not to try to dig at the MNGOP?<\/li>\n
  5. Given the answer to #4 (and there really can only be one answer, no?),\u00a0when your Jeff Fecke sent Andy Aplikowski the “interview questions”, can you possibly understand why Aplikowski – given Fecke’s track record – might have viewed it as a subject for derision rather than worthy of a serious response?\u00a0<\/li>\n
  6. Word has it the Strib’s Tim O’Brien is working on a puff piece on your side of\u00a0the Aplikowski flap.\u00a0 \u00a0Does “Minnesota Monitor” have an O’Brien-lip-shaped groove in its institutional ass from the fawning he’s given you?<\/li>\n
  7. Do you think you’re giving Soros his money’s worth?<\/li>\n
  8. Doh!\u00a0 It was <\/em>a trick question!\u00a0 I’m a silly boy.\u00a0 OK, I’ll try again.\u00a0 Who are the “Liberals with deep pockets” (that was the phrase one of you used in informal conversation) that are funding the “Center for Independent Media”?<\/li>\n
  9. The Monitor claimed that it posted Aplikowski’s interview fairly.\u00a0 Aplikowski claims that you edited out a few things that were fairly critical to his position.\u00a0 Tomato tomahto?\u00a0 After sending Aplikowski a draft of the piece, Andy sent Fecke back some clarifications.\u00a0 Fecke (says Aplikowski) picked and chose among the clarifications he posted.\u00a0 True, or not?\u00a0<\/li>\n
  10. If true, how ethical do you believe this is?<\/li>\n
  11. You’ve hired a staff that consists to a great extent of people who’ve\u00a0built their blogging “careers” out of snarking and japing at Republicans.\u00a0 Now, those same snarkers and japers are coming to Republican “insurgents” bearing interview questions transparently designed to feed into your site’s institutional biases and to try to undercut the party we all support.\u00a0\u00a0Exactly how is it you expect anyone not <\/em>to try to yank your chains, as Andy et al did earlier this week?\u00a0 Seriously – do you think pasting “Ace Journalist” on your foreheads makes you inherently trustworthy?\u00a0\u00a0<\/li>\n
  12. In a larger sense – please state the case for taking Minnesota Monitor seriously, not just as “news” but\u00a0especially in terms of granting actual trust\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0credibility <\/em>to your reporters.\u00a0 Especially\u00a0for readers and interview subjects who are not part of the \u00a0“progressive” (bwahaha<\/strike>) audience.<\/li>\n
  13. The bloggers who punked Fecke (and the dolts who take him seriously<\/a>)\u00a0over his “Inteview with an Insurgent” bit view the Minnesota Monitor not as a bunch of fellow bloggers with whom to coexist, but (I think it’s fair to say) a foe to be undercut, screwed with, and eventually vanquished.\u00a0 Are they wrong to do so?\u00a0 Why?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    That should get y’all started.<\/p>\n

    Please return this immediately, as I have a deadline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Since the local bought-and-paid-for “progressive” media has taken to “interviewing” selected Republican “insurgents” (purely to help political discourse in Minnesota, naturally), I figured fair was fair. I’m sending the following interview questions to Minnesota Monitor.\u00a0 Since they can trust my motivations implicitly, I’m sure I’ll get a full, thorough, ingenuous response. Here goes: ———- To: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogs","category-campaign-08"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}