Secrets of the City

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…)

WCCO has the story: Three people suffered stab wounds and more had minor injuries after a fight broke out at a Halloween house party. It happened around 1 o’clock Sunday morning in the 4100 of Bunker Lake Boulevard in Ham Lake.

Here’s my favorite quote: “They were ready, they came here, they found some homemade knives, they all had knives.” Wait. They found some homemade knives?

From the PiPress: A Duluth native is facing felony assault and attempted manslaughter charges in Greeley, Colo., for allegedly shooting a friend in the head while the two checked football scores on a home computer. …

According to the Greeley Tribune, Pollard, who told police he had about six beers and a couple of shots of alcohol at a bar and another beer when he got home, had taken the handgun and pointed it at Knorr. Pollard told police he thought the safety was on as he pulled the trigger once and it just clicked, the Greeley Tribune reported. So he pulled the trigger again, shooting Knorr.

From the Pioneer Press: A group of Adopt a Highway volunteers were packing more than trash along the shoulder of Minnesota 55 in Mendota Heights on Sunday morning.

With legal guns on their hips, a dozen area residents spent nearly three hours picking up litter — everything from cigarette butts to blown-out tires — along a 2-mile stretch of the highway just east of the Mendota Bridge. It was the inaugural event for the group, which registered with the Minnesota Department of Transportation’s Adopt a Highway program under the name Minnesota Carry Permit Holders.

Indeed they did, according to Marketwatch: Pilots of a Northwest Airlines flight to Minneapolis from San Diego were being investigated Thursday for allegedly falling asleep and overshooting their destination by about 100 miles.

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.

A fellow went into a Florida emergency room with a bullet hole in his chest, but was released the next, fairly uninjured. How? The Medtronic Defibrillator in his chest stopped the bullet: “Another way defibrillators prevent sudden death,” Fisher wrote. “It seems they can stop bullets.”

Last week, a local PR firm sent out a bunch of email to local bloggers to inform them of a video of an obviously computer generated vine creeping up the IDS tower. It doesn’t look like many blogs responded, although The Deets offers his own commentary on the video, asking if this sort of viral marketing isn’t counterproductive, as it involves an element of deception: Stunts can be a fun way to get attention. Lying to people to get them to pay attention is idiotic. “PR 2.0″ messages from companies like this boil down to: “We lied to you to get you to pay attention, but now believe us when we tell you what we’d like you to hear.”

That inappropriately-located-by-a-high-school Grain Belt sign is on the market. Already refurbished for $125K 20 years ago, the sellers are hoping to find someone willing to light the sign again. This deal has Schubert Theater written all over it — does anyone have a couple hundred grand lying around to refurb it?

Via the Minnesota Independent: The National Socialist Movement, a homophobic and anti-semitic white supremacist group, is threatening to protest a workshop at the Minneapolis YWCA about white privilege and white supremacy. It will be the first public NSM event here since a 2007 book-burning, and several groups of Twin Citians say they plan to make that visit an unwelcome one.