Comments on: More on Par

By: Formerly Loyal Strib Subscriber

Formerly Loyal Strib Subscriber — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 02:01:14 +0000

Another sign of how messed up things have gotten at the Strib: Today, the whole full-color back page of the Sunday comics section was taken up by an extremely lame Strib promotion. It's for coffee mugs, in a range of colors, bearing the StarTribune.com logo. Whoopee!

The mugs are $6 each. Who would want to buy one? (Who'd even want one for free?)

Remarkable that they can't sell any of that prominent space to a paying advertiser. Last week, that same location carried a full-page promo for the Strib's online apartments-for-rent listings, offering users the chance to enter a drawing to get a $125 prize once they've found and leased a new apartment via that route. Also very lame.

The Strib would accomplish more by using that prominent place in the paper for running some nice sort of public-service, Ad-Council-type, thing there. No difference in revenues generated, but at least some goodwill created.

As a very alienated longtime subscriber, I wouldn't be interested in one of their coffee mugs unless they'd expand the range of messages on them to things like:
"Dump Par!", or "Get ridda' (Par) Ridder!"
"Another Strib subscriber enduring the Avista ownership nightmare"
"The Strib - still sucking less than the Pioneer Press"

This is an example of how the Strib is not just suffering from the overall downturn in the newspaper business; it's also suffering from cases of extreme internal incompetence and stupidity.

By: S

Mon, 16 Jul 2007 19:28:16 +0000

Yes, like how many negative Michelle Bachmans or Norm Coleman stories are there & possitive Keith Ellison or Amy Klobuchar stories are there. Today the Star is putting a positive spin on Mr. Ellison’s speach to a group of atheists & how “accepted” they feel by him. (It’s OK that he comapres Bush to Hitler…sounds like hate speach to me!) But they’ll right about what a “nut” Ms Bachman is because she’s a Christian any chance they get. These “unbiased” journalists believe thier spin is real news. It’s pretty said.

By: G

Mon, 16 Jul 2007 18:21:05 +0000

April 15th there were close to 7,000 MN citizens on the steps of our Capital protesting high taxes & spending the surplus. Both papers buried the story and wrote their stories with the implication that half those people were there for the Sierra Club/Move on.org’s “Climate Change” ralley that was happening at the same time. The GW ralley had close to 2,000 people, many of whom were professional protesters at their event. But you put 100 people on the capital steps that want to impeach the president & it makes front page, above the fold news! WCCO’s website got caught using footage of the Anti-tax crowd in its coverage of the global warming protest to make it look like all those people were at the GW ralley. The GW ralley did not have use of the captial steps! They had to pull the story off the website..I wonder if Don Shelby had anything to do with that? All that is OK, but Fox News has the problem…yeah right!

By: bud jr

bud jr — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 16:45:54 +0000

The Lollipop Guild has more say in the matter than this Guild.

By: mazasapa

mazasapa — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 02:53:36 +0000

Don't just take my word for it.

By: The Rat

The Rat — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 01:21:33 +0000

The Rat has known quite a few reporters. They're not exactly a group prone to political activism.

- 50-60% of news stories are about government.

That's a pretty precise range. Did you get that figure from somwhere?

When Paris Hilton went into a courtroom, does that mean it's "about government?"

By: just sayin'

just sayin' — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 00:49:05 +0000

Well here's your problem: these reporters don't even know they're being biased because they've been so indocrinated into leftist thinking that they actually believe what they're saying is unbiased. I'm willing to believe that it's not even their fault because they're operating on intellectual auto-pilot.

How do you even argue with someone like this? I mean, if Maz truly believes this stuff, he's clearly got some mental issues.

By: bobby_b

bobby_b — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 20:15:01 +0000

Good article on the subject.

By: bobby_b

bobby_b — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 19:25:34 +0000

"my experience is that the mainstream media actually does try to minimize bias in reporting as much as possible . . ."

Prohibiting reporters from allowing their political views to be know, or from contributing to a political cause, does not minimize bias. It merely minimizes the appearance of bias. The media has spent huge effort simply trying to convince readers that the media is not biased, while allowing entire networks and chains to act like Dan Rather acted in the ten years before Rathergate.

(P.S. Dan's "fake but accurate" flaming spiral of death was merely the incident that caught him out for good. Prior to that, Rather blatantly, and with full network support, pursued his pet hates. Remember who those hates were?)

By: mike_s

mike_s — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 15:18:01 +0000

Republicans in a persecution complex shocker!