News Cut: March 31, 2011 Archive

Major journalism awards for area media

Posted at 11:05 AM on March 31, 2011 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Media

It's award season on Planet Journalism. Newsrooms all over the country spend much of December submitting awards. It's a small cottage industry for some awards organizations who make a few bucks on entry fees. In return, stations and newspapers get something to promote when the awards start rolling in in the spring. Most of the awards aren't worth much more.

The Peabody Award is not one of those, and today two area news organizations got one.

American Public Media -- perhaps you've heard of it -- won for The Promised Land with host Majora Carter. The program explored "visionaries among us -- men and women with innovative ideas about changing lives and transforming communities. You may find them in the far-flung corners of the world or right down the street."

Here's an example:

The unit returned this week from the Gulf Coast, where it was researching a look at the area one year after the big BP oil spill...

KSTP TV won a Peabody for "Who Killed Doc?" The station investigated the death of a Minnesota sailor and found that "commanders ignored warnings, botched investigations, and failed to protect service members on their own base - where they should have been the safest." (Find it here.)

By the way, public media won 19 of the awards. Many of them were funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Under a House bill passed a few weeks ago, stations would not be allowed to purchase these kinds of programs.

Here's the complete list of winners.

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What's the matter with a little fun?

Posted at 12:20 PM on March 31, 2011 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Media

Last night, congresspeople in Washington got cozy with the people who cover them. The Congressional Corrrespondents' Dinner is, basically, the warm-up act for the White House Correspondents' Dinner, in which all the reporters -- and the movie stars who've sort of taken it over -- rub elbows with one another...

Should journalists and the people they cover be quite so chummy?

A kerfuffle has broken out locally between long-time columnist Nick Coleman, and MinnPost, which is holding a fundraising "roast," featuring local media stars and politicians. Coleman writes that it hurts journalistic credibility:

I contacted MinnPost to request a press pass in order to attend MinnRoast 2011 as a working journalist. I was rejected, even though I made it clear that I wanted to attend in order to report on it, not to snort and cavort until the chablis came out my nose. My reason for requesting a pass was simple: Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton is scheduled to speak at the event and any appearance by the governor may -- and should -- be covered as a (possible) news story. Other politicians also are scheduled to show up and crack jokes at MinnRoast, including Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken, St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman (my brother) and a token Republican or two, along with a gaggle of local media "celebrities" like Don Shelby and Cyndy Brucato, both MinnPost contributors. Mark Dayton was last recorded making a joke in 1997, but he is the governor. Nearing the end of a difficult legislative session and facing big political and budgetary problems, Dayton may not be in the mood for laughs. But his appearance -- and all the rest of the foolishness -- should be subject to free and open coverage -- by anyone who wants. It turns out, however, that the barons of our alternative news media aren't much different from the barons of Old Media: MinnPost editor and CEO Joel Kramer -- my boss at the Star-Tribune from 1983-86 -- turned down my request for credentials not once, or twice, but three times.

But Coleman says his beef isn't that MinnPost's boss wouldn't let him in for free -- it's that journalists shouldn't act like clowns, even on their own time:

There are other awkward connections and possible conflicts among the list of MinnRoast sponsors and benefactors, a list that -- despite a heavy sprinkling of "wealth creation" and investment firms -- runs strongly towards the liberal-left end of the political establishment, which is the kind of thing that causes hard-right conservatives to dismiss MinnPost as a snake pit of Democrats, despite the online site's lack of liberal bite. Am I suggesting anything improper? No. I am suggesting the appearance of impropriety. And that's enough, in my view, to cast doubt on the wisdom of a bad idea.

Does a MinnPost roast reflect poorly on its journalism, or should journalists be allowed to have a laugh with politicians on occasion?

Discuss.

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