Secrets of the City

Yesterday was Give to the Max day, and all your donations to Minnesota nonprofits — up to $500,000 —  were matched by GiveMN.org through funds from the Saint Paul Foundation, the Minneapolis Foundation, and the Bush Foundation. What did this mean for non-profit media? MinnPost received 158 online donations, totaling $18,000. But they — in particular, David Brauer — seem far more concerned with the $5 million donation that MPR received. Evidently somebody gave $5 million anonymously to fund news coverage at MPR. Is such a large donation from an anonymous source a good idea? If the source is not identified, how will we know if coverage has been influenced? Presumably MPR knows who it is; should we?

Minnesota Public Radio, which began in 1967 as a classical music outpost at St. John’s University, has already become “a powerhouse conglomerate of 39 stations in Minnesota and neighboring states.” But that’s not good enough for them. Why would it be, when they seem to be one of a handful of healthy media companies these days? They are, in fact, devoting more resources (in the form of bodies and funding) to the news. According to the Strib, “Since December, MPR has added 15 newscasts, bringing its weekly newscasts to 269. And it recently unveiled a revamped digital arm called NewsQ.”

Is the Strib running scared? They’re quick to point out that with a mere staff of 70 MPR poses “little threat” to the Strib’s 275-person news operation. Still, MPR staffers aren’t sitting around waiting for the ax to fall. Surely this has some impact on the quality of work (or at the very least on the office dynamic).

And how about the other local news outlets? What is their plan of attack? Predictions, anyone?

How about some feedback from MPR’s Future of News summit yesterday? Isn’t that what sparked the Strib article to begin with? If some of the summit tweets are correct, and this is just part of MPR’s self-promotional agenda, then it worked, right? I mean, when you have the main daily (if there even exists such a thing anymore) writing about another media outlet’s success and even saying that it “has drawn top national media analysts” that’s success, right? (more…)

In these trying times, when page views can mean the life or death of a publication, many online newspapers are resorting to disruptive practices to increase numbers without considering the overall user experience. However, according to Ed Kohler — better know as (and for) The Deets — “they may also be driving away some of their most loyal readers as they become fed up with jumping through more and more hoops with no additional benefits.” (Kohler echoes Marco Arment’s Nov. 8 post about paginated articles.)

How do you feel about having to open multiple pages in order to read a full story? Certainly, one of the benefits of online news is the ease with which stories can include referential links to relevant news and/or back stories. But is this being abused when the so-called links are simply a continuation of the story, necessary for a clean read?

Let’s be fair, though, if we’re going to dis this practice, then what’s the solution to secure the publications’ survival. And let’s be honest, haven’t newspapers been taking these kinds of measures, in one form or another, since their inception? Let’s talk supplements, supplements, supplements. Let’s talk page jumps. Weren’t we just as annoyed having to flip through page after page to continue reading?

But more importantly (in that kind of ego-centric way to which we’ve all grown accustomed), what does this say about MNSpeak? The links certainly don’t gain us any page views, so the intention is good, but the format is certainly based on having to go to multiple pages to get a full story. Is this too disruptive? Or is this beautifully exploiting the power of the web?

TwinCities.com just published a story about an online protest for “a story that was never going to be on television.”

An NBC affiliate in Duluth aired promotional ads over the weekend for an exclusive interview with Donald Blom, the man convicted of kidnapping and murdering a young Moose Lake woman 10 years ago.

In the ad, audio of Blom professing his innocence accompanied an image of the victim, Katie Poirier.

The ad, aired several times on KBJR-TV, touched a nerve with viewers, and one of them even started a page on the social networking site Facebook to boycott the segment.

It turns out the whole thing was just one big misunderstanding (or one employee’s unethical behavior), but the report points out two items worthy of note (and a bit of irony): 1. The station (much like other news entities) is still trying to adapt to a new age of viewer interaction. 2. TwinCities.com reporter John Brewer can be reached at 651-228-2093.

No?

David Brauer points out a site called TCMedia Now (and points out that it’s got Mark Rosen in bell bottoms.) Also: Dave Moore’s final broadcast. So what is the site? From their home page: TCMedia Now is Twin Cities broadcasting media history and memories transmitted digitally now. News, commercials, local entertainment from WCCO, KSTP, KARE, KMSP and more can be relived instantly.

As David Brauer points out (with analysis),Bennett Gordon of the Utne Reader has gone ahead and physically weighed the Star Tribune to determine how much content is created locally: The paper fared better than the Columbia Daily Tribune, the paper tested by Shirky, where two-thirds of the news was acquired and only one-third was created. Still, out of more than 16 ounces of newspaper, just 2.3 were news created by the Star Tribune.

Mayor Rybak had some strong words for Randy Moss on the Ed Show this week: Like Randy Moss may be the greatest receiver anywhere around, but I don’t want that guy to ever come back into the city of Minneapolis again. He was a jerk when he was here, and, uh, Brett wasn’t a jerk when he was over there.

Strib writer Mark Craig offers strong words in response: Moss wasn’t an angel, but let’s not go overboard in making him out to be Public Enemy No. 1. Let’s also not forget that because of Moss, the Vikings became relevent in Minneapolis again. Because of Moss, the city’s Metrodump started selling out again.

MinnPost writer David Braer then responds to Craig with, well, some strong words: Moss hit a city employee with his car in Rybak’s first year in office. Craig excuses an athlete in the oldest, most tired way — he played really well and sold a lot of tickets! — to wipe away Rybak’s reasonable rip.

Former news anchor Rick Kupchella gives Minnesota Bring Me The News, a site that mostly will be filter other people’s news stories to present what they consider the most notable, but will also be doing some originally reporting, as when they recently broke the news that Norm Coleman has Bell’s palsey. The Deets looks at the site and responds: The interview with Sen. Coleman comes across as more of an MSP Magazine profile than a news piece. How about asking some sort of timely question of the former Senator regarding the healthcare debate? He’s of sound mind and may have an opinion on things like, “How would someone without health insurance cope with the situation you find yourself in?” Perhaps we’ll see more of that on Sunday from the site?

Stuff about Mpls republishes a number of commercials featuring sports celebrities:

• Joe Mauer Sports Center commercial
• Gilles Meloche pizza commercial
• Jesse Ventura Chicago-Lake Liquors commercial
• Mad Dog Vachon Chi-Lake Liquors commerical

Do you have any old favorties?

So we’ve already mentioned that Favre has joined the Vikings. But Brauer discusses the media coverage of it, including comments from WCCO’s Web site after the network interrupted network news to announce Favre’s hirings: After this farce is over could you PLEASSSSE restart the news at the point you cut us off; that is the people who would rather use their brains that sit like zombies listening to Mr. Favre regurgitate for the 100th time why he deserves to be back playing football????!!!!!!

How much favre is too much Favre?