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…)

MPR presents a terrific audio documentary telling the history of Twin Cities rock through the stories of those who experienced it.

Brian Lambert interviews the newly-named Current PD, Jim McGuinn, over at mspmag.com. He’ll begin overseeing things in January. While commercial music radio goes down the tubes, Jim’s hiring restores my faith in terrestrial radio’s ability to find the path back to BROADcasting; not NARROWcasting.

Some highlights:

“There’s no doubt commercial radio is in trouble,” said McGuinn, who is approximately twenty years younger than I am. “They’re all dealing with the customization of choice everyone is struggling with.  ["Customization of choice." I like that.] That struggle is what The Current is built on.”

“The commercial stations I worked at had been hit with cost cutting so many times that really the only thing left on their minds was asking, ‘What’s the least amount of money we can spend on programming and still make it viable enough to sell to advertisers?’”

Touche’, Jim. In the Age of the iPod, it’s insanity for terrestrail radio to continue it’s “niche” approach to programming. Hopefully, the Current can keep the bean-counters at bay with Jim’s appointment.

A favorite Minnesota Public Radio show is coming to an end. Dale Connelly and Jim Ed Poole told listeners of “The Morning Show” today they were calling it quits after 25 years of hosting the MPR show. Poole (a character played by Tom Keith) is retiring, but will continue doing sound effects for “A Prairie Home Companion.” Connelly will develop new programming for MPR. “The Morning Show” is currently heard on 89.3 The Current and on Classical Minnesota Public Radio in greater Minnesota.

Much has been said lately of the Central Corridor, the off-again, on-again 11-mile light rail route that would connect Minneapolis and Saint Paul. Minnesota Public Radio has a great multi-media feature that follows the planned route on University Avenue, with images and sounds of what is there now, and how the street looked in years past. Very cool.

MPR looks at Bus Tales and the people who make it the thing that it is.

MPR wants to make it happen with their Public Insight Journalism initiative.

The MPR Newsroom’s blog “News Grid” responded sharply yesterday to an accusation made by Brian Lambert in his May Rake Magazine column that “MPR lacks the nerve to lead” on a story like a possible local U.S. Attorney scandal. Lambert claims that local media, including MPR, the Strib and the Pi Press, hasn’t been aggressive enough at pursuing the story of the circumstances surrounding Tom Heffelfinger’s replacement as the U.S. Attorney for Minnesota.

Everyone’s favorite cheater waxes philosophical on the traditional, nuclear family. Yes, the same Garrison Keillor of three marriages and two children by different women. Let’s all consider ourselves fortunate that we have someone of such virtue to tell us how best to lead our own lives.