Dear Katherine (Kersten): I'm Sorry.
By Brian Lambert
Judging by the question I'm being asked most, the number of hours until the Star Tribune declares bankruptcy is of secondary interest to media-watchers.
What people want to know most is whether C. J. will remain as the gossip columnist. One rumor has her already being given assurances that she will. If this proves true while the "newspaper" (quote marks for hyperbole) presents Katherine Kersten and Nick Coleman with the "cub reporter option"--a low-level job so demeaning and saturated with purposeful humiliation they take the buyout and go--the Strib may finally achieve the status the Power Line boys incessantly say it has long been, i.e. "a national laughingstock."
The "boys," Scott Johnson, John Hinderaker, and Paul Mirengoff, are worth mentioning here because they have played a critical role in this latest episode of self-abasement by Minnesota's largest news organization
While the Strib has always been attacked by right-wingers, usually for not adequately parroting the same talking points read off by Jason Lewis, Hugh Hewitt, and the rest, the Power Line trio, Hinderaker and Johnson in particular, put a snake rattle in Anders Gyllenhaal's head. Their legalistic, grad-school punditry and high standing among echo-chamber "base" Republicans combined with Time magazine declaring them "Blog of the Year" after their assault on Dan Rather, gilded their reputation and legitimized their relentless criticism of the Star Tribune.
Now, it has never been proven that it was Power Line specifically that pushed Gyllenhaal to commit himself to a conservative "counter balance" to Nick Coleman, but Coleman himself aside, I've yet to hear anyone at the Strib doubt that that's the way it went down. There are idiot ranters who don't give a damn about facts and fairness. They can be ignored. And then there are well-educated, well-connected ranters who craft cleverly parsed, fact-like assertions and make demons out of those who show them no respect. Those are more difficult to ignore.
The point here is that Power Line, in effect, created the conflict that required the Strib to hire a Katherine Kersten and then pretty much delivered Kersten herself as the solution. (Kersten and the Power Line trio are more than just tight. There's an intellectual umbilical involved.) Power Line's complaints about the Strib's coverage are largely bogus and self-serving. But they were effective in convincing Gyllehaal to act. The irony is that whatever "problem" Gyllenhaal thought the paper had--balance-wise--with Nick Coleman (and the far less incendiary but equally "liberal" Doug Grow) cranking out columns accelerated with Kersten.
Her arrival on the metro pages sent a clear message. Here was a purely partisan pundit with no reporting experience whatsoever. Moreover, she was being set in place with instant equal standing to a couple old dogs who had spent decades covering every imaginable facet of local culture, and she was there with one clear mission: to speak for and defend "the base." Battle lines were drawn.
If Gyllenhaal cringed at the type of ideological fire that draws howls of complaint from fringe watchdogs and sitting politicians, suddenly he had twice as much of it, if not more. Kersten became the ying to Coleman's yang, the quid pro quo, the internal counter shot. That's another way of saying that Nick saw Kersten for what she was and for who and what she represented (right-wing journalism haters and Power Line, to be clear, delight in vilifying Coleman), and Nick rose to the fight, caution be damned. (Nick is Irish. He can't help it. It's an ethnic curse.)
A couple people today kicked over the link to Kersten's blog, the one where she drags out a nearly two-year-old profile I did on her for The Rake as an example of how mean people have been to her. Personally, I thought I was more than fair in the piece. Hell, to a fault. (Looking back, it would have been a better read if I had just gone after her hammer and tong.) Kersten apparently thinks otherwise. But an essential part of the right-wing, media-loathing shtick is their constant assertion of victimhood. They may be well-educated, upper-middle class, and nicely cushioned from the worst horrors of American life, but darn it, those biased reporters are always dismissing their arguments and accusing them of being inaccurate.
As I tried to get across in the Rake piece and in countless blogs since, I had no quarrel at all with the Strib hiring a conservative metro columnist. They needed one. The problem was hiring a conservative columnist who was first, foremost, and solely a partisan voice. Had they found someone on staff or around town who had the breadth and depth of experience Nick Coleman and Doug Grow had acquired from years of covering the full spectrum of culture, the destitute to the sanctified, the squalid to the polished, I would have felt different. Her point of view would have had more credibility. (I doubt it would ever have had much humor, but you can't have everything.)
The fact that Kersten was largely a one-trick pony, rarely wandering more than a couple feet off the same pasture the Power Line boys chewed, was unfortunate and something for which Gyllenhaal deserves more blame than her. I mean, the lady yam what she yam. He hired her.
All that said, it is a giant, groaning pity Gyllenhaal's successors chose to wipe both Kersten and Coleman off the company ledger. But then, it's break-up-the-furniture-for-fuel time at the Strib. The only thing that'll add loud, resonating insult to injury to this move is if Avista Capital Partners's newsroom managers keep . . . a gossip columnist in place instead of two people who, say what you will, waded into serious, relevant issues and provoked constant reader reaction.
Or, put yet another way, I'm sorry, Katherine, that you've had this job yanked away from you. I really am. I've been there. It sucks. The thing is, another few years, a dozen or so ride-alongs with city cops, a week or two on a reservation up north, maybe a chat with a fund raiser for the Dorothy Day Center, and a stint watching traffic through an emergency ward, and I'm sure you would have been writing stuff that even I'd approve of.
You'd feel better then, wouldn't you?
What people want to know most is whether C. J. will remain as the gossip columnist. One rumor has her already being given assurances that she will. If this proves true while the "newspaper" (quote marks for hyperbole) presents Katherine Kersten and Nick Coleman with the "cub reporter option"--a low-level job so demeaning and saturated with purposeful humiliation they take the buyout and go--the Strib may finally achieve the status the Power Line boys incessantly say it has long been, i.e. "a national laughingstock."
The "boys," Scott Johnson, John Hinderaker, and Paul Mirengoff, are worth mentioning here because they have played a critical role in this latest episode of self-abasement by Minnesota's largest news organization
While the Strib has always been attacked by right-wingers, usually for not adequately parroting the same talking points read off by Jason Lewis, Hugh Hewitt, and the rest, the Power Line trio, Hinderaker and Johnson in particular, put a snake rattle in Anders Gyllenhaal's head. Their legalistic, grad-school punditry and high standing among echo-chamber "base" Republicans combined with Time magazine declaring them "Blog of the Year" after their assault on Dan Rather, gilded their reputation and legitimized their relentless criticism of the Star Tribune.
Now, it has never been proven that it was Power Line specifically that pushed Gyllenhaal to commit himself to a conservative "counter balance" to Nick Coleman, but Coleman himself aside, I've yet to hear anyone at the Strib doubt that that's the way it went down. There are idiot ranters who don't give a damn about facts and fairness. They can be ignored. And then there are well-educated, well-connected ranters who craft cleverly parsed, fact-like assertions and make demons out of those who show them no respect. Those are more difficult to ignore.
The point here is that Power Line, in effect, created the conflict that required the Strib to hire a Katherine Kersten and then pretty much delivered Kersten herself as the solution. (Kersten and the Power Line trio are more than just tight. There's an intellectual umbilical involved.) Power Line's complaints about the Strib's coverage are largely bogus and self-serving. But they were effective in convincing Gyllehaal to act. The irony is that whatever "problem" Gyllenhaal thought the paper had--balance-wise--with Nick Coleman (and the far less incendiary but equally "liberal" Doug Grow) cranking out columns accelerated with Kersten.
Her arrival on the metro pages sent a clear message. Here was a purely partisan pundit with no reporting experience whatsoever. Moreover, she was being set in place with instant equal standing to a couple old dogs who had spent decades covering every imaginable facet of local culture, and she was there with one clear mission: to speak for and defend "the base." Battle lines were drawn.
If Gyllenhaal cringed at the type of ideological fire that draws howls of complaint from fringe watchdogs and sitting politicians, suddenly he had twice as much of it, if not more. Kersten became the ying to Coleman's yang, the quid pro quo, the internal counter shot. That's another way of saying that Nick saw Kersten for what she was and for who and what she represented (right-wing journalism haters and Power Line, to be clear, delight in vilifying Coleman), and Nick rose to the fight, caution be damned. (Nick is Irish. He can't help it. It's an ethnic curse.)
A couple people today kicked over the link to Kersten's blog, the one where she drags out a nearly two-year-old profile I did on her for The Rake as an example of how mean people have been to her. Personally, I thought I was more than fair in the piece. Hell, to a fault. (Looking back, it would have been a better read if I had just gone after her hammer and tong.) Kersten apparently thinks otherwise. But an essential part of the right-wing, media-loathing shtick is their constant assertion of victimhood. They may be well-educated, upper-middle class, and nicely cushioned from the worst horrors of American life, but darn it, those biased reporters are always dismissing their arguments and accusing them of being inaccurate.
As I tried to get across in the Rake piece and in countless blogs since, I had no quarrel at all with the Strib hiring a conservative metro columnist. They needed one. The problem was hiring a conservative columnist who was first, foremost, and solely a partisan voice. Had they found someone on staff or around town who had the breadth and depth of experience Nick Coleman and Doug Grow had acquired from years of covering the full spectrum of culture, the destitute to the sanctified, the squalid to the polished, I would have felt different. Her point of view would have had more credibility. (I doubt it would ever have had much humor, but you can't have everything.)
The fact that Kersten was largely a one-trick pony, rarely wandering more than a couple feet off the same pasture the Power Line boys chewed, was unfortunate and something for which Gyllenhaal deserves more blame than her. I mean, the lady yam what she yam. He hired her.
All that said, it is a giant, groaning pity Gyllenhaal's successors chose to wipe both Kersten and Coleman off the company ledger. But then, it's break-up-the-furniture-for-fuel time at the Strib. The only thing that'll add loud, resonating insult to injury to this move is if Avista Capital Partners's newsroom managers keep . . . a gossip columnist in place instead of two people who, say what you will, waded into serious, relevant issues and provoked constant reader reaction.
Or, put yet another way, I'm sorry, Katherine, that you've had this job yanked away from you. I really am. I've been there. It sucks. The thing is, another few years, a dozen or so ride-alongs with city cops, a week or two on a reservation up north, maybe a chat with a fund raiser for the Dorothy Day Center, and a stint watching traffic through an emergency ward, and I'm sure you would have been writing stuff that even I'd approve of.
You'd feel better then, wouldn't you?
© 2008 MSP Communications, Inc. All rights reserved
Given the state of things at the Star Tribune, shouldn't Coleman and Kersten be glad they've been helped onto the lifeboat?
LAMBERT: Well yes, I guess, at least up to the point they realize the lifeboat is an iron deck chair and the seas are peaking at 20 feet.
Posted by: Frogman of Grant on December 18, 2008 at 7:27 AM
I didn't have too many happy days in my last few years at the Strib. But one of them was a day when I got Scott Johnson to admit on the Powerline blogsite that he made a factual error in commenting about a court decision that I had reported on. He said I was wrong. But eventually - after we exchanged several calls and emails - Scott admitted that he was wrong.
It was as near a proof of the existence of God as I have experienced. It was a miracle.
LAMBERT: This should be on a plaque somewhere.
Posted by: Paul Gustafson on December 18, 2008 at 9:46 AM
I loved this line from Kersten's blog post:
Doug Grow thinks a better hire for my position would have been someone “who actually live[s] in the exurbs” and practices “that kind of red-state lifestyle.” Huh? “Someone who rides ATVs on the weekend and goes deer hunting.” It’s true: I have never (in Lambert’s words) “field-gutt[ed] a twelve-point buck.”
Just think how forward thinking Grow was-- if Grow was management, he would have had hired Sarah Palin and no doubt, the paper's circulation numbers just might have ceased to decline.
Posted by: Mike V. on December 18, 2008 at 9:48 AM
Powerline blog "assaulted" Dan Rather? Presenting clear evidence of forge documents... Someone had some journalistic standards in that case but it wasn't Rather or CBS.
Maybe Gyllenhaal listened to the fellows at Powerline. Or maybe he realized that the Strib's high standing among echo chamber "base" Democrats was essentially alienating a significant portion of the Twin Cities newspaper market.
LAMBERT: It is "clear" that the documents were "forged"? Is that what you took away from CBS's investigation?
Posted by: Bob on December 18, 2008 at 10:27 AM
BL - The fact that Kersten was largely a one-trick pony…
True
BL - The point here is that Power Line in effect created the conflict that required the Strib to hire a Katherine Kersten and then pretty much delivered Kersten herself as the solution.
Gyllenhaal and Nick created the environment in equal parts. Gyllenhaal’s hiring of Nick was over the top redundant - unless Gyllenhaal thought his publisher’s mission was to maintain a place where end of the line lib journalists could parachute into.
“The conflict” was Rathergate, during which time Nick reached new heights of ridiculousness and near slander. I’m sure we can revisit most of Nick’s falsehoods here in the next few days while this thread is hot. The Powerline guys protested formally. The Strib ignores them. Nick then makes a dubious assertion of Powerline’s complicity with Bill Cooper, along some other mumbo jumbo about TCF. Cooper pulls his ads. Nick starts picking fights with out of town media professors.
BL - Now, it has never been proven that it was Power Line…
This is such a hack statement.
The newspaper was having a credibility crisis and Gyllenhaal finds he has to react. You think this was in consultation with Powerline? Document it. The obvious truth is Gyllenhaal wasn’t a very smart publisher, and flailed for the low hanging fruit. Kersten was already writing conservative opinion pieces on an ad hoc basis.
I don’t know any of the parties here, I’ve merely been an amused newspaper and blog reader for some time. Still, it’s my good instinct that Powerline, et al, would have been content to merely make fun of Nick and the Strib for some years had Nick not created the circumstances that forced Kersten’s hiring.
BL - Kersten became the ying-to-Coleman's-yang, the quid pro quo, the internal countershot.
True
BL - That's another way of saying that Nick saw Kersten for what she was, and for who and what she represented, (right-wing journalism haters and Power Line, who to be clear, delight in vilifying Coleman) and Nick rose to the fight, caution be damned. (Nick is Irish. He can't help it. It's an ethnic curse.)
So? Sorry, I have never bought into the cult of Nick and his Irishness. It’s called obnoxiousness. I guess I never fully appreciate that though - obnoxiousness is what passes for political insight on the left.
But again with context. Nick v. Powerline preceded Kersten. So I don’t know what to take from the idea that Nick rose to the fight against Kersten, having rose to the fight against Powerline before that. All Nick’s blogging columns were an embarrassment.
BL - Personally, I thought I was more than fair in the piece.
I thought it was fair on the whole, but you open by pre-supposing she should be a dragon lady. You know - because she’s a conservative. You’ll have that forever, one of the great moments in intellectualism. You set out to do a hatchet job, but filed down the teeth for the sake of your journalistic credibility.
BL - The problem was hiring a conservative columnist who was first, foremost and solely a partisan voice.
Nick is just as solely a progressive partisan voice.
BL - It sucks. The thing is, another few years, a dozen or so ride-alongs with city cops, a week or two on a reservation up north, maybe a chat with a fund-raiser for the Dorothy Day Center and a stint watching traffic through an emergency ward and I'm sure you would have been writing stuff that even I'd approve of.
My favorite metro column to ever appear in the Strib is one of Grow’s. He visits the leftist T-shirt shop to ponder the phenomena of corporations maintaining intellectual property rights over the image of Che Guevara.
BL - after their assault on Dan Rather gilded their reputation and legitimized their relentless criticism of the Star Tribune.
I would love to hear your defense of Rather.
BL - All that said, it is a giant, groaning pity Gyllenhaal's successors chose to wipe both Kersten and Coleman off the company ledger.
True.
BL - Kersten apparently thinks otherwise. But then an essential part of the right-wing media-loathing shtick is their constant assertion of victimhood.
I full expect a goodbye screed from Nick that presents something of a progressive’s unified conspiracy theory that touches on everything from Oswald to Halliburton (and Powerline too).
LAMBERT: I seriously doubt current Strib management will allow Nick to say what wants to say as part of any "farewell".
I'll defend Rather more when his suit goes to trial -- which I suspect CBS will do just about anything to avoid.
And I will not buy that Nick is "solely" progressive. (Not that that would be such a bad thing, since progressives seem to have a closer relationship with factual accuracy than their conservative counterparts.) But if by "progressive" you mean expressing some sympathy for the disenfranchised ... well, you may have me there. But generally speaking, a big city newspaper always make certain someone is speaking for those who don't have the publisher's number on speed dial.
Posted by: 108 on December 18, 2008 at 10:37 AM
I don't think you have to worry about Kitty. One imagines she'll soon find work back in her former milieu cranking out agitprop copy and conservative cant for one or another of the right wing partisan think thank.
As other non-profits find their funds shrinking, it's been reported that more partisan organizations are enjoying an infusion of donations. For Kitty, this was just a tawdry parenthesis in a career of ideological advocacy.
As for Coleman, let us hope someone around there has the good sense to loose him from the constraints of a metro column and lets him wander the state writing features in much the way he did when he was at your former paper back in the halcyon days.
Sadly, I have to like Kitty's odds a lot better than Nick's.
LAMBERT: How is it that the conservative think tanks pay better than the liberal ones?
Posted by: Jim Leinfelder on December 18, 2008 at 10:51 AM
How many entry-level journalists could the Star Tribune retain just by getting rid of CJ and twisting Hartman's arm to get him to retire? Enough to cover some real news where it matters most (like at city hall, state capital, cops and such). If the paper is serious about getting rid of gasbags, tub-thumpers and salary sinkholes, it needs to go after all of them, not just Coleman, Kersten and the cartoonist. Enough Sports already too and more news reporting please!!!
LAMBERT: The paper floats on the shallow sea of sports. If they whacked Vikings coverage tomorrow 75% of male subscribers would disappear overnight.
Posted by: Craig Plumfagen on December 18, 2008 at 12:00 PM
Holy cow, my first time in a long while reading a Lambert piece and what a fact-lite, posing, posturing, too-cool-for-school non-serious piece of work it is. "legalistic, grad-school..." You should be so fortunate to have any similar attributes. And to the commenter, Scott Johnson admitted an error? 's called intellectual honesty, something Mr. Coleman is completely unfamiliar with, witness his bridge opinion legacy. You guys are blind. When did Coleman ever break a national story like the Muslim charter school piece? In the marketplace of ideas, the ship of Coleman, Black, Brauer, Lambert, Grow and all the Strib liberals is going down without a trace. Block that metaphor if you can.
LAMBERT: All that and you miss mentioning Katherine's courageous "reporting" on the grave and gathering threat of The Flying Imams? The Patriot will yank your license.
Posted by: JB Saundes on December 18, 2008 at 3:17 PM
Er, CJ has Vikings "un-coverage" handled...
Posted by: bertram jr on December 18, 2008 at 3:28 PM
So Kersten goes down once and for all and the best you give us is another partisan piece? Coleman is just as partisan as Kersten and for me just as stubborn and ignorant at times.
Regardless if we agree or disagree with their writing, both did their job. They got reaction from readers. Coleman and I agree on few things, but he is a hell of a writer and didn't deserve this fate.
I still remember the day when Barriero on his show said the Strib was very left leaning during his time there (and Barriero voted Democrat the last two elections). Dan is as moderate as they come and an insider to boot.
Yes, Powerline is partisan and I'm not a real fan of theirs. But spend a few quality moments surfing the Huffington Post and see all the warmth out there.
LAMBERT: Nick is a partisan, yes. But hardly what anyone would call in lockstep with DFL dogma. Can you say the same about Kersten? I like Barreiro, but Dan 's grand strategy is all about avoiding being pigeonholed. It works for him. But good columnists are supposed to be pretty clear what they like and dislike, think is wrong and what is right. On that level both Kersten and Coleman delivered the goods. I'm saying that Kersten simply didn't have the life-experience to deliver the depth and breadth of stories that Nick (and Grow) did, and that that was not an issue in her hiring. I'm also saying that her presence, as a sop to conservative partisans, created more partisan rhetoric, not less.
Posted by: Dave on December 18, 2008 at 4:50 PM
For the sake of accuracy, in 108's post he states: "The obvious truth is Gyllenhaal wasn't a very smart publisher, etc." Gyllenhaal was not the publisher of the Strib, he was the Editor.
Posted by: Charlie on December 18, 2008 at 5:08 PM
BL - Now, it has never been proven that it was Power Line specifically who pushed Gyllenhaal to commit himself to a conservative "counter balance" to Nick Coleman, but Coleman himself aside, I've yet to hear anyone at the Strib doubt that that's the way it went down.
I think this is a real gem. “But Coleman aside” qualifies “I've yet to hear anyone at the Strib doubt that that's the way it went down.” Now, you’re not actually intending to exclude Coleman from the group that agrees with the Powerline conspiracy. I know that. You’re just saying, Coleman is singularly willing to positively assert that’s what happened, and the others don’t doubt it when presented with the scenario. But they won’t go on record, or as a professional courtesy you don’t put them on record. Or these conversations are all just speculations that can never be taken past the hypothetical, so no one commits to a real answer. Because no one knows. Except Nick. He’s got the Irish temerity to go on record.
What does ‘pushed’ mean to you? That the Rathergate/Powerline/Coleman exchange had an influence on Gyllenhaal? Or that Gyllenhaal was actively trying to mollify Powerline as if they had actual leverage?
You’re the guy that wrote the definitive piece on Kersten. Why couldn’t you ‘prove’ it? In your piece you looked to document the Powerline angle. You started the project with that premise. I’m looking for a copy of your original piece. You can correct me, but in it I recall you acknowledging a narrative that explains Kersten’s arrival at the Strib with a little less intrigue.
BL - But if by "progressive" you mean expressing some sympathy for the disenfranchise.
Chortle, chortle. Agnostics trying to buy their stairway to heaven is such a paradox.
BL - Their legalistic, grad-school punditry, high standing among echo chamber "base" Republicans, combined with Time magazine declaring them "Blog of the Year" after their assault on Dan Rather gilded their reputation and legitimized their relentless criticism of the Star Tribune.
Too high brow?
I’m sure you can provide an alternate history more to your approval, where Powerline’s Killian objections to CBS were mediated out in a manner that more reflected Rather and Mapes good faith and effort. Maybe we can create a national journalism review board, and they can make findings. But I think that’s nitpicking. It played out the way it did, and Rather was in malfeasance. The main objection is really who gets to assert themselves in the media.
BL - And I will not buy that Nick is "solely" progressive.
What’s he conservative on? He’s a garden variety progressive, to the left of centrist Democrats. I’ve seen nothing in his columns that strays from a leftist position on the war, guns, taxation, abortion, social programs, church and state, the climate. What’s left?
BL - But generally speaking, a big city newspaper always make certain someone is speaking for those who don't have the publisher's number on speed dial.
Granted, and that’s been true in the culture of journalism for more than 100 years. But it’s also irrelevant for the purposes of this discussion. Kersten’s presence doesn’t preclude also having progressive muckrakers. Those characters have been mostly abundant on big city papers.
I agree with Brauer’s short post today. Grist for the chattering class. But particularly for those who’ve suffered from Kersten derangement syndrome. You’ve been at the front of that pack.
LAMBERT: This one has you in a dither doesn't it? I say, "Coleman aside", because Nick was emphatic about about Power Line's influence on Gyllenhaal, but like everyone else he had no smoking gun. As visibly annoyed as Gyllenhaal got when I pushed him on the notion -- annoyed most at Power Line, not my insinuation -- I was not able to get him to "confess". Many Strib staffers don't pay much attention to these sorts of things. But let me attempt to assure you that those who do see Power Line, the preeminent "base blog", as a likely key player in Gyllenhaal's decision to bring in a conservative counter-balance.
"Derangement" is a self-consciously silly overstatement. I follow the media. When the biggest media operation in the state sets aside an unwritten criteria for metro columnist status -- i.e. a distinguished history of solid reporting work, and the man who does it freely calls it "an experiment" -- I watch the results.
Posted by: 108 on December 18, 2008 at 6:55 PM
I think the PowerLine Boys and the NeoCons pay their fraternal dues to the same slappy netherworld thinktank organization, however I'm too busy listening to my 8 year old daughter armpit fart tonight to take any really interest in poor Ms. (whoops, sorry, I mean Mrs.) Kersten's demise and her hurt feelings that her whacked out Bachmann-like paranoia didn't bring in the pennies needed to keep the Strib ship afloat.
My only concern is for my mother, who has her coffee and crosswords every morning from the paper we grew up with and respected no matter the ideological tilt. What happened?!
LAMBERT: Greed and fear converged. That's what happened.
Posted by: Stephanie on December 18, 2008 at 8:27 PM
Eric Alterman has a concept called "working the refs"; the basic idea is that the right whines incessantly--and inaccurately--about the "liberal" media to get the media to lean their way. Gyllenhaal was rather thoroughly worked. I had a strange interchange with him when he was redoing the comic pages by among other things canceling the brilliantly drawn 9 Chickweed Lane and replacing it with the dim witted and timidly drawn Mallard Filmore; he explained that because of strips like Doonesbury he had to print a conservative strip and MF was the best he could find.
I don't have any sense of what things cost papers, but the gasbags on the op-ed page can't be free. Anyone who has the fantods over the liberalism of the strib ought to inventory the last couple of months of the crap on the op-ed page. I don't have the stomach for it myself, but I'll bet a six-pack of best beer available that of the national columnists for every one like Krugman, there will be four the likes of Kristol or Krauthammer. Take out local boy made good Keillor and the ratio gets even worse. In fact Keillor is the only reliable liberal voice on the page (and don't conservatives whine in the letters column because of him). Except for Steve Chapman the national conservatives they print are just the usual hacks saying the predictable things. I'd say that except in rare cases of unusual interest, the strib should not pay for Brooks, Kristol, Kauthammer, Will, Saunders and the rest; instead they should turn the real estate over to local talent. The upper midwest is full of people who are both expert and literate and who have something interesting to say on a variety of important subjects. In fact, the most interesting and useful writing at the end of each legislation session is done by the vets of the Carlson and Ventura administrations.
Kersten is actually a two trick pony: besides reliably retailing the Republican line on any given subject and routinely complaining that the wicked secular society is persecuting conservative Catholics and not persecuting Muslims, she does touching little vignettes on the order of the Readers' Digest's "My Most Unforgettable Character" series. Since reporters are required to do fact checking, Kersten could never be a reporter. She'll go back her wingnut welfare job at the Center for the American Experience.
LAMBERT: I don't think it's a secret that the current Strib Op-Ed page bends over backwards to run quality conservative commentary -- and has trouble finding it on a regular basis. The minders there would be delighted to find a local conservative thinker who can write coherently and with a touch of style a couple times a week.
Posted by: john sherman on December 18, 2008 at 9:07 PM
Hey Brian,
Here's a challenge for you. Let's see if once in the next year you can actually do some "reporting," as you disdainfully refer to Ms. Kersten's work on the Flying Iman's litigation-based propaganda campaign. See if you can craft one original story that breaks new news by discovering and pulling together relevant facts (recall these are things such as dates, names, actions that actually occurred, cites to relevant laws or court rulings, quotes, etc.). Pieces that hinge solely or primarily on use of phrases such as "echo chamber," "parroting," "talking points," "base," "partison," "rant," "fairness," "bogus," "agitprop," or "cant" do not qualify, nor will vague allegations made with ordinary words that are intended to carry additional weight or be more insinuating because they are highlighted by quotation marks. Bet you can't.
LAMBERT: Been there. Done that. You understand this is a blog, right? Not a metro column?
Posted by: JB Saunders on December 19, 2008 at 9:59 AM
Further to my challenge--you will be victorious if the story is of sufficient newsworthiness to get picked up by any outlet that is arguably a "national" press outlet. To make it easier for you, we can count any of the more prominent bloggers on HuffPo or DailyKos for this purpose. Or are you satisfied in your own little TC lib echo chamber? Cmon, take the challenge.
LAMBERT: Google around. See what you come up with.
Posted by: JB Saunders on December 19, 2008 at 10:06 AM
It's worth mentioning that if you asked them I think the terminal dyspeptics over at Powerline would tell you that the the heavy lifting in the alleged Rather expose was done by their compatriot over at the Little Green Footballs blog (the forensic typography analysis) and that Powerline amplified LGF's scoop and gave it wider exposure.
Of course, what always gets left out in the telling of this story is that the woman actually typed the memos did say that the ones that Rather and company were fed were not typed by her, but that they pretty much said the same thing that the memos she did tap out on her IBM Selectric said.
LAMBERT: Moreover CBS's problematic investigation did not conclude it was a "clear" case of "forgery".
Posted by: Jim Leinfelder on December 19, 2008 at 11:03 AM
One of the problems of finding a useful conservative voice is that sometime in the last decade or so conservatism ceased being a political point of view and started being a cult which entailed among other things public and frequent assents to propositions that can most kindly be called counter-factual. And like other cults, they are assiduous at hunting out heresies and expelling heretics. Also like other cultists they are eager to repeat the latest dogma when delivered from on high, in this case Drudge or Rove.
So, if the strib were to print, for example, Arne Carlson, there would quickly be complaints that he's not a real conservative or is a RINO. Still, Arne Carlson, who I don't much care for, knows something about governing and expresses himself clearly. Certainly there are members of the legal community who, though they might not pass Monica Goodling's scrutiny, most people would think of as conservative; for example, Andy Brehm, who I think is a bit of a wanker, nonetheless is not a deranged bore like Gerson or Krauthammer. The business community is full of people who haven't sworn fealty to the no taxes now or forever party line.
Eventually conservatives are going to have to pry loose the clutch of the wingnuts and bible-thumpers and become a political party and not a cult or they will join the Know Nothings as a weird footnote in American history. The strib could help the process by giving voice to people who are neither liberals nor "movement conservatives."
LAMBERT: The underlying issue here is how much pressure the Strib feels -- from corners of the public and its owners -- to publish "base" commentary.
Posted by: john sherman on December 19, 2008 at 12:42 PM
Took me a while but I finally found something. Searched w/ Google but didn't really turn up anything, went to HuffPo and DailyKos but nada, even tried Rotten Tomatoes but I guess they don't archive movie reviews, or at least you can't search them. But then I thought IMDB, and you were quoted for a great piece of work you had done on the Franken/Fox suit, and I requote: "The sight of Fox News, a plump, consensual parasite on the rump of the Republican National Committee, accusing anyone else of being 'deranged,' 'intoxicated,' 'shrill' and 'unstable' is like Saddam Hussein filing for a restraining order against U.S. Special Ops." Quite incisive, and a fine legacy. Actually, the only national outlet that apparently deemed you newsworthy was, ironically, Powerline, which will show up on a Google search. But then they call you a triumph of "attitude over analysis" which was exactly my point, which is not that helpful to establish your credentials or capabilities. Sorry, this may be an anti-George Bailey experience for you, but that's what I came up with.
LAMBERT: Well this is proof that you will find what you search for. I'm obviously pleased though to have touched a nerve. That's a big part of this job.
Posted by: JB Saunders on December 19, 2008 at 12:44 PM
If I remember correctly, Sarah Janecek's name was kicked around before Kersten's. She would've been infinitely better at a weekly Conservative column -- she has interesting ideas but still a conservative slant.
You could easily make up an ad-lib for Kersten's columns. Victimhood, scary blacks/liberals/atheists etc ........ it was pretty bad. Thank God she's gone.
Too bad there's a never-ending source of cash for people like Kersten from think tanks or whatever ... funny how that happens ...
LAMBERT: Yes, by all accounts Sarah was the other finalist. But as even Sarah will admit, she is nowhere near as doctrinaire as Kersten, and, as a previous commenter mentioned, considered a "RINO" by precisely the "cult" ... I believe ... Gyllenhaal was hoping to appease.
Posted by: Yep on December 19, 2008 at 12:59 PM
"Eric Alterman has a concept called "working the refs"; the basic idea is that the right whines incessantly--and inaccurately--about the "liberal" media to get the media to lean their way. " ....
It's the same with the courts. Everything is right or left, and people with professional loyalties that get in the way must be seen as the enemy.
Posted by: yep on December 19, 2008 at 1:02 PM
BL:"The thing is, another few years [blah, blah, blah]... and I'm sure you would have been writing stuff that even I'd approve of."
Sure, 'cause then she'd "know stuff" (TM).
Pfft.
How sweet will it be when after scurrying fruitlessly hither and thither, Nick settles down to a nice sock puppet job with MiniSoros Dependent, or one of the other lefty astro-turf puppet theaters...the dawn of "Nick the Blogger" HA!
LAMBERT: And who I wonder do you regard as credible?
Posted by: TJSwift on December 19, 2008 at 1:22 PM
Posted by: Brian Lambert on December 19, 2008 at 1:40 PM
Say, I like this new crop of posters - BL is getting some heat!
Sweet.
LAMBERT: Heat. Like from a 5 watt bulb. No chance of a burn.
Posted by: bertram jr on December 19, 2008 at 2:24 PM
Hey Brian, you'll note that in my final days I'm repeating some of my favorite blog posts, not those I'd just as soon forget! Actually, I thought your Rake piece was quite fair and accurate -- full of the light touch that doesn't always come naturally to me.
One of your frequent criticisms of me has been that I'm not a life-long journalist. But isn't it possible that the journalistic world is a closed one, and that an outsider can sometimes offer a perspective that is otherwise unavailable?
By the way, would Mpls St Paul mag pay serious money for a "one trick pony"?
LAMBERT: I don't know about "serious", but they are after all paying me. Shoot me your resume, I'll put in a good word.
To your point about an outsider, that was Gyllenhaal's official position, and it's worthy of discussion. But it's the positioning as a metro columnist, which, traditionally anyway, was a place for dogged reporters with both storytelling flair and an idiosyncratic personality to provoke emotions.
I just always though someone such as yourself was a far better fit on the opinion pages. Frankly, I think you might have been more comfortable there.
Obviously I've had my fun at your expense, but I never anywhere to anyone said you should be muzzled or yanked out of the paper. The already bland Strib will be a lot less interesting without you and Nick.
Oh, one last thing. Could I have an autographed copy of your Rolling Stones column?
Posted by: Katherine Kersten on December 19, 2008 at 10:33 PM
That last comment wasn't me. What's the point of faking a fake name?
Posted by: yep... on December 20, 2008 at 12:22 PM
I think it was authentic - it was sincere.
That is what BL and the other lib chatterers hate the most.
Honest sincere moral grounding.
Anethma!
Kersten is right - as long as they view themselves as some sort of (ELITE) protected class (a union even!) "journalists" will continue to wander in the wilderness, moaning "why us, oh, why us" while the world evolves around them.
Rather blew the lid off, BL, the jig uis up.
Posted by: bertram jr on December 22, 2008 at 9:12 AM
Brian you seem to be through a last salvo on your way out like you did when you commented on Jason Lewis leaving AM1500!!! You are so predicable. What is so fascinating to me is that Liberals/Democrats use surreptitious methods to control people like welfare (you make it palatable to be on it to secure jobs for those running those programs) instead of allowing the free-market to decide winners and losers. You want government to make everybody equal and its ok to use whatever means to do that. So your enemy, the free-market you legislate out of existence and your socialistic ideology gets governmental assistance eg. welfare and the many other programs that liberals run, and amendments to constitutions to force the majority of people to put up with what they do not enjoy "the arts" they, the majority, contemporary music and country etc.
I just wish you and the rest of your ilk would be honest about your intentions and desires. Hey Brian, you want to do some true journalism? Why not report on Zimbabwe.... How President Carter(the Black caucus and Andrew Young) forced Zimbabwe-Rhodesians to put a terrorist (someone who believes using forceto bring about change) Robert Mugabe in power to enact Liberal philosophy which he agrees with; and where it has taken, a once prosperous country (which copied the USA, check out the declaration of Independence of Rhodesia and the declaration of independence of the USA) and totally destroyed it!!! Now that would be journalism. Liberals here talk about taking the profits of businesses like Exxon, Robert Mugabe does it ... He told businesses to sell their goods below cost and if they did not they would be jailed.... he jailed hundreds of CEOs and Managers. Liberals talk about the distribution of wealth... Mugabe takes farms from one group of people and gives it to others (his comrades). Hey Brian you want to do something great report the news not your ideology masked as news. You are just too scared because your ideas never win in an open forum. Hey Mugabe knows that ..... and so does Nelson Mandela, Idi Amin, Mbeki and countless others whom liberals love.
LAMBERT: Quintin, I'm sure you won't mind if I hold you up as an example of the average "base" conservative. You don't listen to a lot of talk radio by any chance, do you?
Posted by: Quintin reece on December 27, 2008 at 10:07 AM
And you, BL, (once again) refuse to answer the fellow's challenge. Or refute his assertions.
When you respond only with Attempted insult, it is clear you have no cogent response.
LAMBERT: I spent seven months refuting Quintin's assertions, all of which lacked even a whiff of factual certainty. A lot like yourself, come to think of it.
Posted by: bertram jr on December 29, 2008 at 10:27 AM
I don’t think so Brian. His calls are perhaps funny for their stridency. Speaking personally, my entire frame of reference for Zimbabwe was created by Quintin and his calls to Lewis on 1500. He was correct some ten years ago, as you well know. I recall you giving the man his props on your brief show – acknowledging his expertise on that subject in a rare moment when you weren’t trying to talk over Sarah. The man can claim quite a bit more than a whiff of factual certainty.
LAMBERT: Uh ... I do NOT "well know". I couldn't begin to ascertain what Quintin is "correct" about, and other than playing Warren Zevon's "Excitable Boy" each and every time Quintin called in I don't know what I would have given him "props" for.
Posted by: 108 on December 29, 2008 at 3:12 PM
So, you're pro-Mugabe then?
LAMBERT: Why do I even bother?
Posted by: bertram jr on December 29, 2008 at 4:14 PM