Nick Coleman and Jeanette T. Have Left Their Building(s)
By Brian Lambert
The combination of premature spring and some technical issues has taken
a toll on my blogging the past few days. But now, like Nixon in '67,
I'm back, (not so) tanned, rested, and ready to bloviate. (I am also,
BTW, your go-to guy the next time you have to uninstall a satellite
dish and re-wire cable.)
Since I guess I'm a poor man's Boswell to Nick Coleman's Samuel Johnson, it is up to me to announce that His Nickness left the Star Tribune building for the last time this past Friday . . . the 13th . . . four days before St. Patty's day, which could have set off a long bender even for a career Irish guy were Nick not an upstanding role model for a brood of, well, a lot. The "deal" for him to contribute a weekly piece/screed for the paper's lulling Op-Ed department is something that could still play out. But don't expect to read anything incendiary on those pages until late summer at the earliest.
The Strib, of course, has yet to say anything about . . . well, anything. Coleman has become a nonperson to them, one of the "disappeared."
This is in stark contrast to both papers' coverage of the departure of WCCO-TV's 5 o'clock anchor, Jeanette Trompeter. CJ, the gossip columnist, led her column Monday with the news and Trompeter's teary story of being whooshed out the building ten minutes after hearing the news. The PiPress did Trompeter even bigger, slapping news of her heave-ho on a flag at the top of the front page. Not quite, "Asteroid Strikes New York" but right up there with "Will Smith Flushes Toilet in Twin Cities."
To put a point on it: A guy who has been a household name for thirty-seven years for reporting on and writing about the lives and characters and folkways of these cities packs up his desk and disappears without his employers so much as acknowledging he ever existed. Simultaneously, an attractive—blond female—television performer with four years of familiarity with TV viewers is let go, and both papers treat it as, well . . . celebrity news.
Now, this isn't a shot at Ms. Trompeter, whom I've never met and who did her job just fine as far as I could tell, or care. But it is a shot at the editorial judgment/sensibility of both papers for calculating that their readers have infinitely more interest in attractive, ingratiating blonds who know how to seduce a camera than a bald, almost-sixty-something with a reputation for being cranky when he isn't furious about some transgression and whose powers of seduction pretty much begin and end with plying his long-suffering wife with green beer and promises of a glimpse of his shillelagh. Never mind that the latter at one time worked for each paper, which could trigger the "professional courtesy" clause, if such a thing existed at daily papers.
I won't bore you (again) with my experiences covering local media for the PiPress except to say that hustling to over-play the slightest hiccup of a TV personality fits a verrry familiar pattern. The machinations of the celebrity anchors' managers and corporate overlords never had anything close to the same appeal to research-driven editors. No one knew who those people were. So why would they care what they did?
As it was explained to me at one point, the tribulations of local TV anchors qualified as "celebrity gossip," which focus groups had said was an "area of interest" (because they were on TV, not that they were necessarily attractive personalities). Therefore, at a zany moment in time, when newsroom leaders actually tabulated the ethnic diversity of news subjects and sources and counted whether women were mentioned as often as men in stories, you earned points with every reference you could make to [insert name of anchor of your choice]; the more female, the better, since the features section, where the media column ran, was deemed a primary attraction for female news "consumers."
Only the most delusional newspaper writer thinks the public will miss him the day after he files his last story. It isn't that kind of a game. One reason for this is that by the time they leave, the good ones have made at least as many enemies as friends. For calling a crook a crook and a blowhard a blowhard, half the public wants the cranky newspaper guy/gal's carcass burned in a pit and their Social Security number expunged.
TV, on the other hand, is all about selling the classic criteria of appeal—physical attractiveness and warm, neighborly demeanor—not that any of that necessarily has anything to do with telling people what they need to know as opposed to what they want to know.
My beef here is that even after all these years and all the dissipation of newspapers, it is still a disappointment to watch newspaper people perpetuate a double standard that works to their own disadvantage.
Since I guess I'm a poor man's Boswell to Nick Coleman's Samuel Johnson, it is up to me to announce that His Nickness left the Star Tribune building for the last time this past Friday . . . the 13th . . . four days before St. Patty's day, which could have set off a long bender even for a career Irish guy were Nick not an upstanding role model for a brood of, well, a lot. The "deal" for him to contribute a weekly piece/screed for the paper's lulling Op-Ed department is something that could still play out. But don't expect to read anything incendiary on those pages until late summer at the earliest.
The Strib, of course, has yet to say anything about . . . well, anything. Coleman has become a nonperson to them, one of the "disappeared."
This is in stark contrast to both papers' coverage of the departure of WCCO-TV's 5 o'clock anchor, Jeanette Trompeter. CJ, the gossip columnist, led her column Monday with the news and Trompeter's teary story of being whooshed out the building ten minutes after hearing the news. The PiPress did Trompeter even bigger, slapping news of her heave-ho on a flag at the top of the front page. Not quite, "Asteroid Strikes New York" but right up there with "Will Smith Flushes Toilet in Twin Cities."
To put a point on it: A guy who has been a household name for thirty-seven years for reporting on and writing about the lives and characters and folkways of these cities packs up his desk and disappears without his employers so much as acknowledging he ever existed. Simultaneously, an attractive—blond female—television performer with four years of familiarity with TV viewers is let go, and both papers treat it as, well . . . celebrity news.
Now, this isn't a shot at Ms. Trompeter, whom I've never met and who did her job just fine as far as I could tell, or care. But it is a shot at the editorial judgment/sensibility of both papers for calculating that their readers have infinitely more interest in attractive, ingratiating blonds who know how to seduce a camera than a bald, almost-sixty-something with a reputation for being cranky when he isn't furious about some transgression and whose powers of seduction pretty much begin and end with plying his long-suffering wife with green beer and promises of a glimpse of his shillelagh. Never mind that the latter at one time worked for each paper, which could trigger the "professional courtesy" clause, if such a thing existed at daily papers.
I won't bore you (again) with my experiences covering local media for the PiPress except to say that hustling to over-play the slightest hiccup of a TV personality fits a verrry familiar pattern. The machinations of the celebrity anchors' managers and corporate overlords never had anything close to the same appeal to research-driven editors. No one knew who those people were. So why would they care what they did?
As it was explained to me at one point, the tribulations of local TV anchors qualified as "celebrity gossip," which focus groups had said was an "area of interest" (because they were on TV, not that they were necessarily attractive personalities). Therefore, at a zany moment in time, when newsroom leaders actually tabulated the ethnic diversity of news subjects and sources and counted whether women were mentioned as often as men in stories, you earned points with every reference you could make to [insert name of anchor of your choice]; the more female, the better, since the features section, where the media column ran, was deemed a primary attraction for female news "consumers."
Only the most delusional newspaper writer thinks the public will miss him the day after he files his last story. It isn't that kind of a game. One reason for this is that by the time they leave, the good ones have made at least as many enemies as friends. For calling a crook a crook and a blowhard a blowhard, half the public wants the cranky newspaper guy/gal's carcass burned in a pit and their Social Security number expunged.
TV, on the other hand, is all about selling the classic criteria of appeal—physical attractiveness and warm, neighborly demeanor—not that any of that necessarily has anything to do with telling people what they need to know as opposed to what they want to know.
My beef here is that even after all these years and all the dissipation of newspapers, it is still a disappointment to watch newspaper people perpetuate a double standard that works to their own disadvantage.
© 2008 MSP Communications, Inc. All rights reserved
Full Disclosure: I cannot even pretend to be the normal target of any marketing campaign.
Jeanette, God bless her, has been on TV for 5 years you say...and I cannot recall ever seeing her. Good luck to her.
Nick, God bless him, I actually know his work, and he actually has talent (people need to forget that 'fer or agin' us shinola...did ya read him, admit it, you did), and I will not grieve his departure as it will be the best thing that could have happened to him.
Jeanette will join a thousand other blonde TV reporters whose names do not even register a blip on our consciousness in two months time. TV stations are little different than any media in understanding how to develop talent, to say nothing of managing it, which brings us back to Nick.
Nick will be free to actually be Nick, which if he wants it...will be the scariest job he has ever had and demand of him his full attention for the first time in his career. He might become the TC version of Royko...or he might drift away to write (yawn) Op-ex columns twice a month. The key is that it is up to him, instead of being hidden behind some overbearing editor/corporation.
I have faith in the man...is that strange?
LAMBERT: I'm actively encouraging him to let "the real Nick out of his cage", terrifying as that may be for elderly women, small children and family pets. He has this strange idea that he should be paid for it. Big problem, there.
Posted by: The Other Mike on March 18, 2009 at 9:46 PM
Many years ago I cared enough about TV news to write about it and criticize it. After awhile it became clear what a discredited and worthless enterprise broadcast news (including Money Public Radio) had become, so I ceased writing about it (except for the occasional screed on a blog). I'm afraid that criticizing the Strib has now reached that point, too. Certainly Nick's exit is noteworthy both for the quality of his career and the craptacular treatment he received from the incompetent uber capitalists who now run his former paper.
LAMBERT: Well, I hear you on the carping about the Strib. It is clearly what its owners want it to be.
Posted by: Rob Levine on March 19, 2009 at 7:45 AM
If it's any consolation, I consider myself a pretty avid follower of the media and I hadn't even heard of Jeanette Trompeter until I read C.J.'s column. Luckily, I can live on Google Reader and track 750 blogs and other new sources so I can get up to date info (and formerly a certain surly columnist for the Strib) rather than be forced to listen to bubble headed blondes struggling to pronounce words like "4Her" (remember that one?).
LAMBERT: Just to reiterate -- my point is that modern newspaper editors regard the likes of Ms. Trompeter, (a fine human being, I'm sure) has highly relevant to their audience, the likes of Nick Coleman ... not at all. What does that tell you about the condition they are in.
Posted by: howardwolff on March 19, 2009 at 9:37 AM
If TV newsreaders had not degenerated to the equivalent of their "Q" scores, they would not be so "celebrated" when they are mercilessly "disappeared". They're smiling, they're happy, they chit chat with their set-mates!
They're certainly not encouraged, or rewarded, to make people think, or to piss people off.
It is the sad de-volution of the local AND national TV news product (see: Couric, Katie)that causes this "celebrity" phenomena.
I know you're buddies with (Komrad) Coleman, but Royko, Greene even the locally vaunted Klobey just pretty much walked away, too.
Non-withstanding, where's your comment on the general PR impact on WCCO handling her that way, so soon after the Douglas dumping?
PS: I think Coleman would be interesting on radio - your thoughts?
LAMBERT: Coleman and I are prepared to infuriate you 24/7/365 if given half the chance. I of course would never speak. Just an occasional, "Right, Nick. Right. uh huh."
Posted by: bertram jr. on March 19, 2009 at 10:09 AM
It's all part of a bigger conspiracy. I mean, wasn't the actress who played Patty Hearst euthanized the same day Sarah Jane Olsen was released ? I shouted out, "Who killed the Kennedys?!?" and after all, one of them died on skis.
And speaking of Youth in Asia, aren't they the ones taking our jobs !!?!?
LAMBERT: Kid, you got shtick. I like that.
Posted by: Jed Leyland on March 19, 2009 at 10:23 AM
I live in Moorhead, i.e. the Fargo media world, my daughter lives in the twin cities, and my sister lives in Brooklyn. My daughter and I on separate occasions recently visited my sister. As my daughter and I were later comparing notes, she remarked that she couldn't see that the NYC news readers were in any way superior to the ones in the cities, and frankly as purveyors of news, I don't believe that either are much better than those on the Fargo channels. I also watch WGN sometimes when my brain is too tired to read but not tired enough to consume the prole-feed on the other channels, and I'm underwhelmed by the Chicago people too.
This raises to me the question: what separates good, better, best in the local, or national, news readers? Show me somebody who uses a keyboard for a living, and I'll have pretty firm opinions on his or her competence, but with t.v. news? Back when Chuck Klosterman was burning through the Fargo Forum on his way to fame and fortune, he had a gig on one local t.v. news show where he did movie, and occasionally music, reviews as the anchor played straight man. Klosterman is a very bright guy with a lot of information and a kind of manic energy; he was worth watching for information and entertainment. Otherwise, as far as I can tell tell, the brightest people on local news are some of the weather casters, and the rest are indistinguishable. For that matter, other than salary, why are Glenn Beck and Lou Dobbs any improvement over the drunk at the end of the bar bellowing ignorant right wing nonsense? Why should I take Charlie Gibson more seriously than Charlie Pierce when the latter is ten times as smart and a lot funnier?
LAMBERT: Obviously you've never been invited to a focus group, where you watch clips of upper-middle level corporate executive style males and vaguely alluring females and are asked to assess their authoritativeness. By now its quaint to me. But its working at least as well as newspapers.
Posted by: john sherman on March 19, 2009 at 2:42 PM
It'll be good to hear you and Nick join Tommy Mischke on the new on-line "Talk Radio" channel!
(Trying to start a rumor).
LAMBERT: Well while you're at it, mention that our salary demands are beneath pitiful.
Posted by: Mark Durenberger on March 20, 2009 at 8:25 AM
I'm not much of a WCCO fan, but I always found Jeannette to be engaging and intelligent. She could have bought me a drink anytime. In contrast, the new blonde-ish woman reading their weekend news doesn't smile and has the personality of a gnat. They should have dumped the newbie and moved Jeannette to weekends.
Nick should consider himself fortunate to be gone before the doors are locked.
LAMBERT She might have bought you that drink, but she heard you never kiss on the first date.
Posted by: A Son of Mississippi on March 20, 2009 at 9:36 AM
Megyn Kelley on Fox News is the new standard.
She is uber-sharp, doesn't back down and calls it the way she sees it. Would thatthat could translate to local news standards.
I am impressed with the presentation and the "authoritativeness" of the Fox News female line-up.
You can insert your snark here:
LAMBERT: If I follow you, the lower the neckline the deeper the intellect?
Posted by: bertram jr. on March 20, 2009 at 12:23 PM
I am thinking that cutbacks in anchor staffing around town might be the best way to tip off our legions of clueless that newspaper (all?) journalism has started to not respond to its chemo.
Posted by: Paul Scott on March 20, 2009 at 1:51 PM
Not to start some kind of argument here but I think if you were to take a poll, more people would be happy that angry Nick is gone than sad. Not that I am anyone, but I just learned by reading this that he was no longer around. You are biased, you actually like the guy. And, in your circle of friends I am sure Nick is loved. But also consider that GWs friends probably found him to be a great president. I guess my point is that I am sure Nick appreciates your praise and since your name is at the top of the column you are allowed to write what you want but I just think that in the general public, Nick will not be missed. Now, if you want to write about how screwed up the StarTrib is that they actually keep CJ and lose Nick, that is a different story. Where You only need to read one CJ column to fully understand what is wrong with quotas. Sad.
LAMBERT: Somewhere in that post I noted the delusion of any newspaper type thinking they'd be missed a day after they left. It ain't that kind of business. And while I both like Nick and miss his column, the larger point was the commercial/ethical calculus of modern newspapers that says a 5 pm anchor is more newsworthy than a guy who has covered the town for 37 years.
Posted by: carterino on March 24, 2009 at 12:32 PM