Posted on 12/28/2006 7:36:46 PM PST by LdSentinal
When the McClatchy Co. got the keys to the Star Tribune in 1998, McClatchy's patriarch hailed the merger. James McClatchy called it a wedding of two newspaper traditions that shared "a deep-rooted commitment to building a just society." You now are permitted to laugh derisively.
Eight years later, hardly anyone in the newspaper business talks about anything other than building profit margins that would choke a robber baron.
Mercifully, Mr. McClatchy passed away in May and did not live to see the Sacramento-based company that bore his name disgrace his legacy by dumping its largest newspaper -- the most important one between Chicago and the West Coast, the one that serves 5 million Minnesotans and that can be a conscience, a scold, a cheerleader and an interpreter of life on the tundra.
On the day after Christmas, the McClatchy Co. took the Star Tribune to the return window and sold us to a company that removes medical wastes, drills for oil and (quoting its website) "operates four off-shore jack-ups, three mobile off-shore production units and one self-propelled completion and work over rig" in the Gulf of Mexico. Not to mention a newspaper in flyoverland.
Maybe we're an on-shore jack-up.
You are what you eat. So when McClatchy swallowed the larger Knight Ridder newspaper chain last spring, a lot of people worried that the $6.1 billion deal would spell trouble in the Twin Cities.
Both newspapers here were in play: the Star Tribune, as the "flagship" of McClatchy, and the Pioneer Press (where I worked for 17 years) as one of the Ridder heritage newspapers.
We were right to worry.
First, McClatchy sold the Pioneer Press to MediaNews Group. Staff reductions followed, with threats of more to come.
Now McClatchy has dumped the Star Tribune
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
Nothing like watching a flaming, shooting star.
My question to Mr Coleman is, "why would any respectable company want to own a newspaper?"
That arrogant whine will soon turn to desperate, pathetic mewling as the Red Star starts circling the drain faster and faster.
Ahhh....the anticipated spew from Nick Coleman!
Maybe his brother, the Mayor of St.Paul, will get a law passed or a tax or.........
Wrong preposition.
"a deep-rooted commitment to building a just society."
Okay! I'm laughing!
HAHAHAHahahahahaaaaaaa..........!!
After all the damage that Democrat papers like the Star Tribune did to this nation over the decades, they cannot die fast enough for me. I just want them to DIE.
Whatever happened to REPORTING the news? What is all this nonsense about building a just society? According to who? Do we have any input? Sheesh...
Beautiful news. I don't feel their pain, but I sure do enjoy it.
One would have to have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing.— Oscar Wilde.
Lot of brave words for a guy working for a paper not competing successfully against Craig's List and Ebay.com.
Free advice to the new owners; fire Coleman.
“Newsroom Joe Hates Bloggers: Nick Coleman’s Classic Hit” (Oct. 2, 2004.) It came today:
Gosh. Do you THINK the press is being de-certified? Which side are you on? I thought that was your game plan. You ripped me last fall without even speaking to me because I had the poor judgment (or maybe the balls) to confront right wing wingnut bloggers who have my newspaper (and most others) in the crosshairs of a constant all-out partisan attack. And they are winning, prof. The Star-Tribune now has hired a by-god certifiable right wing activist and power megaphone. Funny, I haven’t seen you make any mention of that yet. Nor do I remember you defending me in December when I criticized the dudes at Powerline, who I called extremists while most of the academic press fakers of the world were bending over to kiss their jodhpurs. By the way, in case you haven’t paid attention, many other journalists have since come to the same conclusion. I could cite chapte and verse, but why bother.
Press Think? I’d like to see that some day.
Nick Coleman
Columnist
Star-Tribune
August 03, 2005
Nick Coleman flips out
Nick Coleman is the pathetic Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist, and a guy with a lot of issues. He takes liberties with the truth that a man who responsibly wielded a columnist's power would never do, and he disgraces himself in correspondence with readers and others who disappoint him.
Coleman predicates his column today -- "President's salutes demeans us all" -- on a false premise. According to Coleman, President "Bush jabbed his middle finger in the air [at reporters], the way you would give a farewell salute to a jerk disappearing in your rearview mirror. It was unmistakable."
Just one problem: it was the president's thumb rather than his middle finger. The online version of Coleman's column links (click here) to Jay Leno's Tonight Show shtick with the premise, but the link also includes Keith Olberman's multiple replays of the video plainly showing that it's the president's thumb.
As Olberman reports, "a finger would be funnier, but according to those who were there it's his thumb." The link update also provides a quote from John Godfrey of Dow Jones Newswire: "I was in the scrum of reporters at the event. Bush did not flip anyone off. He was clearly giving a thumbs up in response to a question shouted from the crowd."
Reader William Fields wrote Coleman:
Had it been me I would have given you and your ilk the international high sign. G. W. has too much class for the likes of you. I would bet you still think it was only about private sex with Bill & Monica. Perjury had nothing to do with it.
Coleman wrote back:
you'll like this for your desk: [click here] http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y241/janelah/Bush.jpg
What the guy lacks in accuracy and subtlety, he also lacks in class.
Posted by Scott at 10:16 PM
"It lost its compass."
Dude. Everybody uses GPS now. Maybe that's the problem...newspapers are still in the 19th century....
Apparently he can't spot an obviously manipulated image, either. Or, can he? Hmmmmmmm.........
That's perhaps reason number one that the MSM is failing -- or as Rush put it at least a decade ago, the number one reason kids want to be journalists: "because they want to make a difference." (Journalists? I call 'em employees; i.e., when I don't use my scatological version of skid marks on journalism's underwear.)
How about a deep-rooted commitment to reporting news?
McClatchy's paper in Sacramento is the Bee. The best and brightest Bee brains proudly proclaimed their rag, "a continuing education." Sure.
I'm still wringing the stupid out of my brain from the last time I read something by Nick Coleman.
Scold? Cheerleader? -- Well, Nick-boy certainly got that right! I wonder if he understands the irony? Those two words sum up the Strib better than I ever could. Need any more hints, Nick, as to why the Strib's readership has been plummeting?
A minor league propagandist, cut by the big club, he soon will have to get a real job.
Thank God for the Internet.
Maybe, soon, the AP and Reuters will be forgotten.
Anyone remember the UPI or Newsweek?
Nick,
I've been reading the Strib for 30 years and won't miss it a bit when it's gone. Watching its downward spiral into non-existence is fun. The world is passing you and yours by, brother. You are doomed by blogs, Craig's List, and the fact that half the population holds the paper in great contempt. You were never nearly as important as you figured, and your absence will hardly be noticed. Reading you personally whine and complain about your paper being sold for less than half of what it was bought for a few short years ago is most delicious. When the operation folds perhaps Keith Ellson can help some of the staff get new jobs in the CAIR PR department. He's gotta be awfully grateful for the great you job you guys did for him.
Now that I think about it, I guess I will miss seeing the Powerline guys eat your lunch and push you over the edge on a regular basis.
You used to actually be fairly likable, if a bit loopy, on the radio. What the hell has happened to you?
My Grandfather told me about them once, on a late snowy evening, but I wasn't paying much attention at the time... CA....
Almost as much fun a watching a train wreck!
Maybe he should go write copy for CNN or Al Querty @ CBS.
After reading this I can only hope that the new owners can screw Nicky boy out of his pension before they are done.
Loss leader, for tax purposes.
Hook em !
Nick Coleman, a left wing loon in a loony left wing state. I am so happy that the Star has been sold, now maybe we can get a little more fair and balanced reporting! Being one of the dwindling subscribers, it would make this a much better paper to read. Now its time for them to start cleaning house.
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