Cost-cutting or media crumbling

We all know that traditional media (radio, TV, newspapers, magazines) are facing tough times. Whether it's due to overpaying for properties, unrealistic profit projections, living in the past or cutting staff to remain profitable, these are the toughest of times for traditional media outlets.

Just this morning, KFAN radio's (KFXN-FM, 100.3) Mike Morris "The Superstar" was "let go" from his job as host of the stations Power Trip morning show. That leaves the show in the hands, for the time being, of the sidekicks/co-hosts of Chris Hawkey, Sludge (Cory Cove) and Paul Lambert, aka Meatsauce. While I rarely listened, I do know that Mike Morris was the host for a reason. While the show came off as juvenile at best, they covered sports and topics related to their core audience of 18-49 year-old men. Morris was the adult of the team, if nothing else, by age.

The same thing happened last week to the Half-Assed Morning Show on rocker 93X. Longtime host Weasel was let go (again, due to cost-cutting measures) after helming the morning show on KXXR-FM 93.7 for well over a decade. That move leaves the overly juvenile Nick in charge with the other sidekick Josh playing second fiddle along with a new guy, Ben. It's a rudderless ship. While Weasel's input had diminished in the last 18 months of his time on the show, he still provided direction, reigned in the kids and was at least an experienced DJ.

How far, though, can the cost-cutting go? Will listeners still tune in for what is obviously a lesser-quality product? It's a vicious cycle. When you cut the costs of an experienced staffer (regardless of the medium), that experienced voice/talent, if replaced, is replaced by someone less-experienced who is less likely to produce a high-quality product. In turn, listeners/readers (depending on the medium) look elsewhere -- many never return. In happens in radio and it happens in print media and it happens on TV. When those talented faces of their respected medium leave or are cut, advertisers may also leave -- unhappy to have their business appear within/alongside an inferior product.

It never ends. Remember when Tony Fly was relevant and maybe even a recognizable name? Up until a few months ago, he was actually still on the air -- right here in the Twin Cities. Saddled with moronic programming choices, 96.3 KTWN-FM was quite obviously a piss-poor fit for Tony Fly and management saw the opportunity to axe a talented host to save money while retaining an inferior on-air product.

With the combination of the recognizable faces of media organizations leaving for more stable pastures or being unceremoniously axed to cut costs and talented behind-the-scenes staff leaving in droves for alternative, stable careers; traditional media as we know it is becoming a shell of its former self. What they fail to remember is that the most talented individuals are often the highest paid (rightfully so) and when they leave, they leave with the talent and skills which could make the company viable in some form in the future. It's like looking at someone whose dark fate has already been decided.

An introduction to something new

Earlier this week I hinted at something new in this space. This blog have been in a near-constant state of evolution and if you’ve followed me at all in the past few years you’ll know that I am an experimenter. I’ve toyed around with a couple twists on photo blogs (one featuring my own work and another aggregating the work of others), I have another blog featuring the most ridiculous Star Tribune comments from their website, another where I share my own video playlist (another twist on aggregation). Some of my projects gain traction while others simply fail fast and are cast aside.

But this place has been around since late in 2003. That’s about three generations in internet time. I’ve gone from a diary of sorts to rambling political commentary to a focus on happenings in Minnesota to general interest sort of stuff. It’s a constantly evolving space that seems to change with my interests.

But now things are changing again. As I made a somewhat veiled post earlier this week (typing any amount of text on an iPod’s touch screen is a test of one’s patience) I considered a number of ideas but then it dawned on me -- why do something gimmicky when I could take a semi-dormant project and revive it. I don’t know if I’ll stick with it or get bored again and fall back into a regularly updated series of general interest content but why not get back to some of the most fun stuff I’ve ever written for another website -- “Talkin’ ‘bout TV”

As I think back and look at the archives here, I don have some sort of sick interest in pop culture. I also watch a shit-ton of TV but quickly weed out the garbage. I feel that everyone (or every program in this case) deserves at least a first look. I’ve never played favorites (hell, I actually enjoyed the first couple seasons of “Grey’s Anatomy”) but I do get hooked on a few shows and find those to be appointment television. But why stop at TV? I also pay at least somewhat close attention to our nation’s ridiculous obsession with pop culture and am genuinely intrigued by local and national media happenings. So for the time being that’s what you can expect.

So if you like what you’ve read, keep coming back. If you don’t like what you’ve read or feel uneasy about this change, keep coming back because even if you hate TV (which I sort of do), pop culture and media happenings you’re bound to find something you like. And it probably won’t be exclusively content in those three areas but for now my goal is to test the waters in those areas and see what I am capable of writing.

I'm open to catchy names so if you have any drop them in the comments. Thanks!

Behold: my big 3 local media predictions

2010 will be a year of insane change in the media world. If you're reading this in the greater Twin Cities area I'll venture out on a limb here and say that the once-venerable Star-Tribune will suffer more than it did in the previous year. There will be a few more layoffs but the big news will be the sale of their print operations. Yes, there will still be a printed newspaper but they will be able to save a few bucks by outsourcing their printing. Look for Media News Group/Pioneer Press, Gannett or - and this one is a longshot - Forum Communications to further consolidate and shuffle operations to absorb the printing of the Star-Tribune.

Even with the glut of changes I see ahead in 2010 this one will be the biggest. It will also mark the beginning of the rise of smaller operators with little to no debt load cautiously taking on larger ventures and finding success. They are used to operating with almost microscopic staffing and making relative miracles happen so this sort of change is a logical happening.

Being a bit of a media junkie, I also see a bunch of other changes including further gutting of Clear Channel radio stations (locally Kool 108, K102, KDWB, Cities 97, KTLK, KFAN and The Score 690) and maybe even an outright sale because, as things are now, they are on the brink of bankruptcy and are one of those companies who are too large to survive as opposed to banks who were billed as too large to fail. But if Clear Channel sells some, plenty or all of its radio stations who's buying? Radio does still work but it needs an immense rethinking to survive. Of course AM radio was written off a couple decades back but it survives today with sports and political talk so radio's future may not be so bleak after all. Their biggest problem is debt. Buyers need to remember they are buying some equipment, an antenna and a license - the revenue is not part of the package.

One last local media change is a certain bastard TV station being sold or vanishing all together. Really, how many people watch WUCW (CW-23)? Outside of a few thousand people watching their 2-hour primetime network offerings, the station's programming is garbage and based on their advertisers I fail to see how they can pay any sort of staff. I realize that any money is better than none but I think that there will be some sort of consolidation here. Shuttering the WB & UPN and rolling them together was the dumbest idea since New Coke because the sum of two zeroes is still zero which is a close approximation to how many viewers the CW has. Now the "network" isn't a complete loss - they occasionally beat "The Jay Leno Show" in the ratings so why wouldn't some other network see some value in a few of the shows the network broadcasts and offer to buy the network at a fire sale price (which I'm sure would work) and use the better programs to beef up their own schedule? Even less-than-stellar new scripted episodes are better than repeats and America is slowly catching on to the fact that nearly everything that could be done in the reality arena has been done.

If even one of these predictions comes true I'll be shocked - and scared. What do you see on the horizon? Is it the grim reaper or the angel of hope? Or is it finally success for MinnPics? Let's hope for the latter because I'd like that one.

Is innovation dead?

It's a vague question but in the current rather dire times where the economy seems to be stuck in neutral and you're supposed to "just be happy you have a job at all" it seems that innovation has taken a back seat to survival. When's the last time something at your place of employment was truly an innovation? When was the last time you saw truly innovative programming on one of the big four television networks?

Think about that last one for a minute. This is the year that gave us a second NCIS series on CBS. We were given a spinoff of the animated Family Guy series on FOX. NBC generously gave us a burned out and stale Jay Leno 90 minutes earlier and without a damn desk. ABC even dug up a series from the 80s and re-imagined it - and "V" is back again tonight, it's probably the one retread I actually like. They claim survival is the reason and that this is "what people actually want" but if they were actually in touch they'd know what we truly want or that we're only watching some of those rather pathetic offerings because it's the best of the worst. If they hadn't gone through multiple decades of greed and sure cash, they'd be more willing to innovate.

But it doesn't stop with television. Innovation seems to have come to a standstill in all forms of traditional venues. Radio, outside of The Current locally, sucks. Hell, saying that radio sucks is being generous. Radio, in all its sameness from sea to plastic-filled sea, is less innovative today than it was a decade ago and that's quite a feat.

Most of the blame for the sameness and lack of innovation from traditional venues is placed squarely on the internet. Yes, the internet is a great venue to try an idea for next to nothing in terms of monetary expense but the internet is also vast and can be rather tough to gain traction in terms of what could be considered a mass audience. I have found some success with MinnPics and its unique twist on a photo blog but that's even small potatoes. The big audiences, for whatever reason, still lie with those traditional venues. Maybe it's due to convenience. I can see that because the computer has yet to truly make its way in to the American living room and replace or meld with the television. That time is coming but it will take some level of innovation for a computer/TV hybrid to become mainstream. And then there's the connectivity issue - we're pretty much at the mercy, still, of the cable companies who control high speed internet access. Rather than offer truly high speed access at an affordable price, they price it high enough that it's still cheaper to shell out the bucks for cable television because streaming something full screen is jittery and full of more hiccups than Otis the drunk from good ole' Mayberry, R.F.D.

So while innovation isn't dead it is definitely being stifled by greater powers. After all, if there's money to be made on something old why on Earth would someone spend time, energy and money promoting, developing and being innovative with something new?

Speaking of new, MinnPics has some new photos posted today - even a couple discovered via Twitter. Check it out for yourself.

The real deal with local music

This past summer marked a breakthrough of sorts for a musician from the southern Minnesota city of Owatonna. He had achieved plenty of notoriety via MySpace for his electronica-type music but finally found mainstream success when the single "Fireflies" found its way on to the radio which, like it or not, is still the sort of passive way of finding new music.

The only problem with radio is that they are extremely slow to pick up on new music. Sure, some radio stations add a couple of tracks each week but those are only added because some label executive paid the radio stations a few wheelbarrows of money and gave the station's executives tropical trips complete with the necessary hookers and blow. That doesn't bode well for new music, it bodes well for record labels with a lot of cash to throw around.

I have basically zero faith in local commercial radio. While there is some new music played, it boils down to a half-dozen or so overplayed paid-for pop songs. That creates a problem for a Minnesota artist like Adam Young who is Owl City. Yeah, "Fireflies" is getting radio airplay in the Twin Cities on KDWB but that didn't happen until mid-September. I first heard "Fireflies" in early August via the webstream of WFNX in Boston, Massachussets.

Yep, it took me listening to the stream of a radio station half the country away to discover a musician who is based an hour away from my house. Local commercial radio can burn in hell if I ever once hear any station claim to play local music or even serve the interests of the public because if you have to wait over a month between first hearing a song and hearing it on a radio station you can get in your car then the entire process is broken. And yes, I'm well aware that an example like this is exactly why iTunes exists but if the old ways of media want to compete in an age of increasing fragmentation then they need to break the mold and shake off the old ways of doing business. Yes, Ryan Seacrest is a big name but what does he know about Minnesota?

This is precisely why MinnPics exists. I am at least from Minnesota and sort through literally hundreds of photos each day to find those which you need to look at. Check 'em out today!

The pigs are coming to kill us

Apparently now we have one more thing to worry about. The swine flu. I'm not totally clear on this latest epidemic backed my a ton of media hype but here are the basics.

1.) If you have swine (pigs) sharing space with you in your living quarters, please move them to your basement or garage. Swine make excellent dwelling companions but spooning with them while sleeping is not recommended.

2.) Consumption of pork is fine as long as it is cooked at least to medium-rare. A warm, pink center (and what guy doesn't want that?) is the preferred level of doneness for all of your pork consumption needs.

3.) Fornication with swine should cease immediately. You'll be clear to resume your pig-fucking activities within mere weeks. Until that time, may I suggest a subscription to Naked Piggy Monthly.

4.) Blame China. China is the source of every scourge to land on our shores in the past decade or more. Think of it. Those damn Asian beetles? From China. The Emerald Ash Borer? From China. Lead-tainted toys? From China. The Daewoo brand of both cars and electronics? Pretty sure from China.

The best course of action is to ball yourself up in the fetal position and pray for mercy from our swine overlords. Or just check out MinnPics and drool over the purty photos.

Is New York Post cartoon racist?

Is this New York Post cartoon racist? Does it depict the police officers shooting Barack Obama? After all, there are still far too many backwoods Americans who throw about derogatory slang terms about blacks.

However, it's free speech but does free speech also cover what some define as hate speech? The line, though, was crossed a few years back with a Muhammed editorial cartoon published in Europe and that led to riots. America is much calmer than that but does this editorial cartoon prove that racism is again going mainstream?

Like any art form, it is open to interpretation and I welcome and am curious about yours.

(h/t)

MinnPics is far less controversial than a racist New York Post cartoon so check out the great photos from around Minnesota!

Village Voice Media scamming "the system"

Before I get too "inside baseball" here, Village Voice Media owns alt-weeklies across the country including City Pages right here in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis/St. Paul and any credit for breaking their essential scamming of Digg goes to The Deets.

However, after reading Ed's investigative piece at The Deets first thing this morning, I've done some digging (no pun intended) on the subject for myself.

The web "geniuses" at the various VVM properties across the country had to think that eventually someone would put the pieces together and when City Pages publisher Kevin Hoffman bragged about almost inachievable traffic increases in the past couple months, something smelled fishy.

I know that traffic doesn't grow at those rates through organic measures. I can also attest (at MinnPics) that one quality Stumble can blow the roof off one's traffic. However, it dies off just as quickly as it arrived. That's where the real value in building an organic base of readers comes in. They keep coming back because they like what they are reading. I've had insane traffic bumps on here because people incessantly Google related topics (think camel toe, nipples and olympics) and they kept coming back. To me that proves having valuable keywords is far better than sinking huge amounts of paid time into an internal Digg/Reddit/StumbleUpon/Newsvine/Mixx.

Lastly, gaming the system like Village Voice Media is doing devalues the entire online ad market. As if things didn't suck enough in trying to transition print dollars to online dollars, some greedy suits at VVM get exposed on a national level and could end up essentially ruining the livelihood of thousands of Americans.

While it's okay to Digg your own content, conspiring with others to reciprocate Diggs is clearly wrong. Call it Diggwhoring but City Pages and VVM just got busted.

Is it wrong to say that I am fearful?

In case you've been living under a fucking rock for the past year or so, all forms of media are tanking. There's no kind way that I could say this because it's reality. It's happening more and more frequently and I could list all of the victims of the recent media layoff but with KARE 11 tv laying people off and forcing all employees to take one week of unpaid time off, WCCO tv laying off employees, KSTP tv doing the same and the Star-Tribune filing for bankruptcy. Then there's Minneapolis/St. Paul magazine firing Brian Lambert and another Twin Cities veteran writer.

The sad thing is that this list is short. There have been far more cuts than these which have taken place in the past few weeks. It leaves the media landscape not a leaner operation but one that seems nearly gutted. Can a bare-bones staff fearful for their jobs at every turn be effective in producing and investigating news? Can their support staff, fearful of the same outcome, be effective in their jobs? Will this be the final downturn that leaves us with a media landscape that is a pure laughingstock? What will become of the media companies who cut too far? Is there even a place in the world of tomorrow for the evolving "traditional" media outlets?

Where does that leave these talented writers, producers, cameramen, reporters, personalities and the numerous behind-the-scenes employees of these media outlets? While the evolve-or-die mantra has certainly become true, has it happened too fast?

I hate to think what the media I rely on today will look like at the end of the year. Even more frightening is what the landscape will look like by Spring of 2010 (when I expect everything to begin recovering - slowly). Will I, as a media employee (no, I won't say where or specifically what I do), still have the same job duties or even a job by then? I am at least hopeful in that aspect because I like to think that I understand the buzzworthy trends that are rocking the media world. I've picked up the basic skills over the years that I need to make things work and thankfully I can grasp the new skills needed when they are unleashed.

So there it is in a nutshell. The media landscape - and the world - will not come out of this deep and painful, but necessary, recession (greed and stupidity fucked us all) anywhere near the same as they are now. This will either lead to the richest experience for entertainment and media we have ever witnessed or things will be bleak, bland and totally lacking the personality and skill that is growing and evolving and learning currently.

I am rooting for the former scenario. While you can currently listen to hundreds of hours of music from your iPod which goes everywhere and fits in your pocket, it's lacking the personality and warmth that we still crave and that was lost yesterday and is being lost nearly every day. Hopefully the suits running the world realize that entertainment of any form needs personality. It's what sets the traditional, but evolving, media apart from the "new" media.

Sadly, though, everything hinges on advertising and until those dollars come back into play, things will flat out suck but they will come back but in a wildly different format. A format that I can't wait to see or even be a part of creating.

2009 predictions - #1

I could spout off about a hundred predictions for the upcoming year but instead I'll slowly throw them in to the mix here from time to time. Maybe even before the year is up.

My first prediction has to do with the media landscape. Being from Minnesota and, more specifically the Twin Cities, my first peek in to my crystal ball has to do with the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

If you're unfamiliar with this newspaper, they are the largest daily in Minnesota but have been missing debt payments and just announced that they are axing their B section for the month of January as an "experiment". My guess here is that while people will notice and, yes, even complain about the combination of the main news and metro sections but the investment group owners won't react outside of axing still more content in print.

This loss of content translates to a loss of pages and, in turn, leaves behind less value and less of a reason for the increasingly financially pinched average Joe to throw down 50 cents for a smaller paper.

Thus begins the slippery slope leading to a Minneapolis Star-Tribune that nobody will recognize or one that won't even exist.

What little money I have is on the Minneapolis Star-Tribune becoming web-only with a bare bones staff of full-time employees who will write and edit the content, shoot and edit video content and shoot their own photos. A small, free Sunday-only printed piece will still exist on racks as a vehicle for delivering those stacks of printed inserts because that is all that's left that still makes money. While this would leave behind the paper's hundreds of thousands of subscribers, the investment company currently running the newspaper doesn't care because if it lines their pockets, it's good business.

Another scenario leaves the Minneapolis Star-Tribune to be swallowed up by the neighboring St. Paul Pioneer Press. Five years ago I would have punched myself for thinking something so ludicrious could ever happen. Maybe now, though, it's time for this to happen as it would leave the stronger weekly papers whose business models are more nimble to succeed and grab more advertising dollars and actually add subscribers - something the trudging behemoths have almost certainly failed at.

Less doom and gloom exists at the safe-haven known as MinnPics. Check out the stunning photography from Minnesota's finest Flickr-using photographers.

Auto makers, bailouts and dominos

The latest piece of the economic house of cards to almost buckle is that of the "big-three" (Ford, GM, Chrysler) automakers. On one hand, I can blame their near-demise on the fact that when times were good (the '90s), they failed to look ahead and failed to realize that all good things do eventually come to an end.

Instead of actually capitalizing on the future demands, they instead banked on the falsehood that gas prices would hover around a buck a gallon and continued to roll out SUVs which seem to look very much the same. While General Motors did actually think ahead albeit, briefly, and produce the GM EV-1 electric car, they quickly un-leased these vehicles and promptly crushed them. Little did they know that in 2003 when they crushed just over 1,000 of the 160 mile range electric cars and bank their future on more profitable SUVs that the tide would change in a few short years and they'd be back to square one trying to introduce an electric car all over again.

Even as gas prices rocketed past four bucks per gallon this past summer, GM continued to roll out SUVs such as the Chevy Traverse and the GMC Acadia.

Chrysler, though, is the worst offender. Their lineup consists of a brand (Jeep) whose stable of vehicles was once simple and utilitarian but has now become bloated and all seem similar in nature.

The big problem is that, as a country, we can't let these dinosaurs of manufacturing go by the wayside. Automotive sales amount to 10% of all sales in America and provide literally millions of jobs. The only logical thing to do is to bail out these behemoths with the condition that they pare down their line-ups, reduce duplicity, shed redundant brands (think GMC, Mercury and Saturn) and increase fuel efficiency while shaving down the number of dealers as well as the inventory they carry.

If even one of the big three auto makers fails, it will cause a domino effect. Think of how many automotive advertisements you see, hear and read during the course of just one day. Imagine if that amount (think 10-15% of all advertising) of revenue were to vanish. What would that do to broadcasters and print media which is already in the shitter? Do you really want to think about that sort of domino effect and what sort of unemployment numbers would result from such a scenario?

Odd Minnesota State phenomenon #1

I'm veering away from my recent in-depth coverage of nipples and camel toe at the 2008 summer olympics in Beijing, China because I can only take some things so far. If you're disappointed, too damn bad. If you're happy, please let me know because I can get right back to beating that horse a bit more.

Today, though, I have something important to say about the Minnesota State Fair. First off, I am not going this year. Instead, I am pissing away my hard-earned money at the Renaissance Festival and I'll let you know when I plan on attending so everyone in the Twin Cities can stalk me and wonder to themselves whether or not I dress up in renaissance costume (I don't).

Alright, the Minnesota State Fair. I have two complaints about it tonight. The first, which I covered last year, is about those damned fried candy bars. Candy bars should not be soft enough to be gummed to death. They should exist in a state of solid, chocolatey goodness. If I wanted a candy bar that I could suck through a straw, I'd leave a Snickers bar on my dash while I worked a full day. Instead, spend your money on something that sounds truly disgusting, a fried carmelized 1/3 lb. strip of bacon on a stick.

Now for the second, far more important fair gripe. People that will wait to watch a newscast. Now I'm not talking about WCCO which does their entire newscast live from their outdoor studio at the fair but instead I am singling out FOX 9. Tonight, I happened to catch (on TV) their presence at the fair. It consisted only of pompous ass, meteorologist Ian Leonard and bleachers full of obnoxious, screaming kids in desperate need of both parents and a swift beating. Of course, later he showed the adults who stuck around on metal bleachers to see a three-minute weather segment.

I am not sure which group was more ridiculous but I'm not claiming to be any better. I always sit through the better part of Dan Cole the Common Man's KFAN radio show when I go to the fair. He's at least somewhat funny, has some audience participation and it's a decent place to eat lunch. Oh yeah, and it lasts longer than three minutes.

Are people so enamored by the chance to be on TV that they'll fritter away precious fair time hoping that the camera (for all 65 seconds it's on) pans across their mug as they sit all doe eyed staring at some smug jackass meteorologist that doesn't even relate well to actual humans? I can be alone, either, in soaking up some media personalities at the fair, who's your pick?

Be sure to check out MinnPics, it obviously contains photos from around Minnesota and just may be a treasure trove of State Fair photos.

Is the Star Tribune going for broke?

Plenty was written earlier today about the story breaking via New York City that our local Star Tribune newspaper is teetering on the brink of full-fledged bankruptcy. Even more shocking is that Avista Capital Partners who bought the Strib just over a year ago for an already firesale price can't turn a profit after running the paper like a Nazi death camp where nobody is safe from the pink slip bandits.

So after reading this, you are probably asking "Sornie, what the hell does this mean for me? I mean, how the crap does this effect me?"

Well, if you are reading this, you obviously read blogs and if not plural you obviously read at least one blog. Your certificate of appreciation is forthcoming. Well, without the unholy behemoth of the Star Tribune, you would be missing news from one large portion of of the country and while I rarely read even the online Strib (anymore, I did up until a few months ago), it still (even in its currently-on-life-support status) covers the news. Sure, it does so with a far slimmer (and arguably far less experienced) staff, it provides plenty of news to the Associated Press (and thanks, guys, for that award back in 2000) who then funnels it to other large news organizations. Without that constant flow of breaking news, citizen-based journalism would devolve into blogs showcasing the antics of the writers' cats and children.

Let's face it, citizen-based journalism is a cool idea but in the long run you get what you pay for.

"Sornie, you didn't really answer much or even offer up a prediction, what gives?"

Alright, the Star Tribune (believe it or not) will actually be a model for newspapers of the future. Yes, a model for how to fucking ruin a profitable business by gutting the living hell out of it! The dolts behind Avista could write an Amazon.com best seller on the topic because they took something which they bought for half price and still screwed it up. Badly. It doesn't mean, though, that a Joint Operating Agreement is in the future nor is a world where across-the-river competitor Pioneer Press comes out on top.

The future for the often-hated Strib is anyone's guess but I'll venture out on a limb here and say that Avista will somehow manage to yank the paper out of potential bankruptcy trouble but what emerges will be sold but what is sold will be only the intellectual property because there is plenty of available office space to lease in some nearby suburbs and that downtown land is very valuable to the right person(s) and printing can be easily contracted elsewhere (Pioneer Press?). The Strib will survive but it will be a feable and weak (as opposed to lean and flexible) paper compared to where it is today. Again, a model of how not to run a business.

The BEST of the Best of the Twin Cities

It happens every year and each year it seems to have less impact; this year being no exception. City Pages, after essentially cleaning house and installing a staff of yes-men and corporate shills, published its 2008 Best of the Twin Cities issue and amazingly they got some things right (even if the readers missed the mark entirely). And by my estimations, City Pages missed the boat on publishing this beast online by about 4 hours and still managed to have a TON of missing images but onward with my best-of the best of.

Here are some staff picks I agree with in my very own 2008 Best of the Best of the Twin Cities...
Best AM Radio Personality - Dan Cole

Best Radio Station - The Current 89.3 FM

Best Non-TV Weatherperson - Jimmy "Dutch" Gaines

Best Local Website - MNSpeak

and for the sake of humor and irony...

Best Place to Get Arrested For Soliciting Sex in Public - Crosby Farm Regional Park

That last one was a mouthful (or so said the 80 year old guy arrested there).

How local is too local?

It's been said that while newspapers as traditional dead-tree editions/bird-cage liners are dying, Americans are consuming more news than ever. They, myself included, are just consuming it in different ways.

Much has been said about blogs but they, for the most part, seem to fall in to three general categories including political opinions, news opinions/rehashings and personal happenings/musings. While they apparently (and I can attest to it) have a niche that people will be drawn to, they do little to further the coverage of news because 99% of the time the blogs discussing news and politics base their takes on these events on the original coverage of major and traditional news-gathering outlets.

My conundrum is this: How would a news outlet (hypothetically in the southern suburbs of Minneapolis) reach a neighborhood whose residents choose, for whatever reason, to not associate themselves or said neighborhood with the city it and they reside in? Let's also say that by distance alone, the neighborhood itself is separated from the core of this particular city. The bulk of this neighborhood's residents are commuters and despite repeated efforts, the city's main print media outlet has tried but failed to reach them in a traditional format. How, then, do you attract this lucrative but somewhat small amount of residents and deliver pertinent news and advertising messages to them?

The main approach being discussed is electronic only. Which way(s) would you like to receive news (and entertaining content) if you were a busy suburban household who only lived in an area and hadn't associated with this portion of the community? You probably don't know or even see your neighbors, moved to this area for (relative) housing affordability and your kids (if you have any) may not even attend schools in the city which your neighborhood technically is in.

Would you like to get specific news from area communities which affects your neighborhood? Would you like short videos about the news and the people in your neighborhood? Would you contribute your own photos and feedback on the news stories from the professionals who cover the news? Would you contribute even the occasional blog post? Would you want it light-hearted, serious or a mix of both or something entirely different?

Tell me your thoughts on how to best reach these (hypothetical) folks.

And now for a dose of reality

The Minnesota Vikings are fools
Two wins thus far with seven games played and I can guarantee another 8 losses in the remaining 9 games. Their fans are fools too for thinking that the team will achieve anything beyond a third win this season. The coach, Brad Childress, needs to be fired and the media ought to be kicked in the throat for keeping hope alive. Hope is dead, not to mention overrated.

"Winning" in Iraq will not happen
To me, the true definition of winning is a clear-cut victory in which there is a celebration, usually involving some sort of parade. The only parade will be the endless vehicles of funds borrowed from China to fund a war in which we may or may not be interested in the country's (and region's) oil supply. Sure, we won World War II but the enemy was clearly defined.

The real estate market is down
Whoa. This one's a revelation. The fact remains that when lenders are giving away money to eveyone, myself included, they have lost their minds and practically deserve to be burned. Everyone seemed to think that real estate was the best way to get rich quick but what goes up must come down and when house prices are down for the past 6+ months, a quick recovery to the levels of the former glory days isn't going to happen.

Some new online-only media can actually work
Hey, I'm not above plugging something I like but The Daily Mole is good. It isn't solely a regurgitation of other stories from other media outlets but does include that facet. It doesn't have the typical reverse chronological order setup of traditional (too early?) blogs and the video weather report is top notch. (Full disclosure: If you are interested in checking it out, I can invite five users via e-mail addresses so drop a line in the comments)

What matters the opinions of a few?

That seems to be the basis for a piece running in this week's edition of Twin Cities "alt-weekly" City Pages -- the opinions of a few. Yes, some in-depth investigative reporting about the character of 2008 DFL senatorial hopeful Al Franken. How in-depth was the story? The out-of-state stringer for the "newspaper" relied solely on the interviews of a few of Franken's neighbors who stated that he is...

...vocal while watching Minnesota Twins games.
Damn, how could you not be vocal while watching a team of nobodies lose to the Kansas City Royals. Come on!

...prone to vocally encouraging himself during his workout routine.
He is the guy known best for the daily self affirmation as Stuart Smalley. He is simply playing off his best-known character.

...known for singing along with music while wearing his earphones.
Seriously? This is the best muck these hacks could dredge up on Franken. Hell, at least he only sings along, I often bust out the drum notes on my steering wheel, desk or keyboard tray.

It's official, City Pages is nothing but a shell of its former self just months after a corporate merger whose official outcome is a product of the lowest common denominator. Although I am sure this isn't only a local problem. What poor media outlet changes have you witnessed? Have you seen corporate media mergers or buyouts that resulted in a superior product? Is Franken now a certifiable nut based on some neighbors whose quotes may very well have been take n out of context?

Minneapolis becomes center of attention

Maybe it's because from the moment it happened, we were barraged with coverage. Maybe because it is so damn surreal because it's a bridge I've personally crossed countless times. Whatever the case, the magnitude of an 8-lane bridge collapsing seems bizarre to say the least. I was blown away by the screen capture above because I can't remember the last time a news story featured on the Google News front page has numbered over 3,000 news articles. This is unreal to me. Hell, I'm just a small town farm boy who lives here and works here in the Twin Cities. Minnesotans are humble by nature. Maybe it has something to do with living in the rather low-key midwest.

It seems odd to see what has been known as flyover country for so long being the center of all of the national media attention. It's odd to walk past a TV tuned to CNN and see them featuring live and archived footage from the TV stations I watch on an almost daily basis. It's even more odd that the big three networks will broadcast their national nightly news from Minneapolis as well. The rest of the local media, though, has been intense in their coverage (for the most part, exceptions being the Citadel-owned radio stations KQRS, 93X and Love 105) but strangely calming and soothing. Music-based radio stations have become less "wacky and zany" for the time being and are just more down to earth today.

As with any event of this scope, it will all pass. Tomorrow is Friday and with summers the way the way they are in Minnesota (short and busy), the weekend will bring a return to normalcy and most work-a-day folks will return to their mundane existences next week. Life goes on but people will definitely notice the absence of the I-35W bridge that carried 140,000 vehicles per day across the mighty Mississippi River.