{"id":965,"date":"2007-06-22T04:27:38","date_gmt":"2007-06-22T10:27:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php\/index.php\/2007\/06\/22\/those-old-days-of-blah-and-hrumph-di-gargle\/"},"modified":"2007-06-22T04:27:38","modified_gmt":"2007-06-22T10:27:38","slug":"those-old-days-of-blah-and-hrumph-di-gargle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=965","title":{"rendered":"Those Old Days of Blah and Hrumph-di Gargle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Schmelzer in the MinMon, quoting an anonymous source about…something<\/a>.\u00a0 Or other:<\/p>\n

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<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Established:\u00a0 Mr. Freeman was a good fella.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So far so good.<\/p>\n

\n

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.\u00a0 The tribute is titled “A MAN OF UNQUESTIONED INTEGRITY.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

OK.\u00a0 Irony, maybe – assuming that Ridder’s day in court counts for nothing.<\/p>\n

Onward:<\/p>\n

\n

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?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

That’s a good question.\u00a0 What is <\/em>his response, if any, to “confronting a ghost” – or, less metaphorically, to doing business <\/em>in the presence of the institutional memory of someone else who did business<\/em>?<\/p>\n

\n

Not a problem:\u00a0 Par sells 4 square blocks of Strib land to Zygi Wilf.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Now, I’m not one to defend the Strib, goodness knows.\u00a0 And I’m likely as not to lump Par Ridder in with pretty much every other mainstream media figure as “the enemy”.\u00a0 I could be convinced, but so far, I’ve got no reason to change my mind.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But what’s Ridder doing, here?<\/p>\n

Business.\u00a0 Running a dinosaur entity in a dying<\/strike> radically restructuring business.<\/p>\n

Is tearing down the old office a sad thing for those who observe institutional traditions like memorializing Mr. Freeman?\u00a0 Of course.<\/p>\n

Is it unethical?<\/p>\n

The anonymous informer says nothing.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Schmelzer in the MinMon, quoting an anonymous source about…something.\u00a0 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/965","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=965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/965\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}