Secrets of the City

City Pages publishes their annual list of up-and-coming bands to watch out for in the next year, the source of a supposed curse. Will Rock of Love survive the year?

City Pages notes that a number of reviews in One Nation News sounded similar to reviews published in CP. And by similar, they mean had paragraphs that were word-for-word reprints. Whoops.

City Pages publishes a comic about Michelle Bachmann, which seemed inevitable. The comic makes the case for Bachmann’s undeniably extremist positions, building the case exclusively through Bachmann’s own quotes, and asking why local media never exposed her extremism. Needless to say, the comments on the story have been … interesting. One expects they will get interestinger.

City Pages has put out their annual best of list. Among the highlights, best blog goes to Culture Bully, best Tweeter goes to Lileks, Best Villain goes to Bachmann.

In the most recent issue of City Pages is the following letter to the editor:

If you say “Nordeast,” you are a racist: Your reference to Nordeast is offensive and highly politically incorrect … The Nordeast word goes back to the Eastern European immigrants who early on populated lower Northeast Minneapolis; they were learning how to speak English and had a problem with pronunciation, often using words such as “dem” for “them” and “dose” for “those.”

It may be “offensive” to you, Concerned Reader, but it’s not racist nor is “politically incorrect” IMHO. Is the “Oreo” cookie next on your list? Are you going to go after Ole and Lena jokes (or anyone who speaks in a funny Scandahoovian accent?), too?

City Pages investigates the Winter Carnival’s most visible members: “It would be too simplistic to put forward a prototypical Vulcan, but, generally speaking, they tend to be upper-middle-class, almost exclusively white, conventional in manner and thinking, and good-humored, even while—nay, especially while—visibly inebriated. “

Starting in March, they’re getting Tommy Mischke.

The Deets guns for City Pages again, this time pointing out that the paper’s online site has a history of lifting photos without credit or compensation. I don’t expect there is a Website that hasn’t been guilty of this to some extent, but City Pages seems particularly egregious in it, with editor Kevin Hoffman very much leading the pack.

After pointing out that City Pages uselessly serves local ads to international viewers (so, for example, people from Cleveland see ads for W.A. Frost, where they are not likely to go anytime soon for supper), The Deets looks a little deeper into Kevin Hoffman’s claim that the online readership has jumped from 35k to 250k in three months. The Deets makes the case that this is not an organic growth, but instead the result of Village Voice Media gaming Digg, a social networking site. Why is this an issue? Because traffic from Digg is not going to be very useful to local advertisers, or, as Ed points out, “If Digg users are what you’re looking for, you could just as easily buy traffic directly on Digg.”

Susannah Schouweiler at MnArtists discusses recent cuts in City Pages, including laying off the A-List editor and one of the two food writers, as well as the recent announcement that Quinton Skinner’s theater beat is being cut by half. With all these cuts in arts coverage (and City Pages is hardly alone in this), where do you turn to find out what is happening on the local arts scene?