Links

Headline “Defying Crisis in Local News, The Star Tribune Expands’

Sub-Head “The newspaper in Minneapolis is expanding its statewide coverage and changing its name to The Minnesota Star Tribune.”

Article in The New York Times by Katie Robertson, 8/18/24

“The expansion is a rare big bet in the newspaper industry. Local newspapers have been shrinking across the country in recent years. A 2023 report from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern found that almost 2,900 newspapers had shut down since 2005.

“But The Star Tribune has remained a bright spot: It hasn’t made major layoffs in recent years, and its newsroom has remained around 225 people for years.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/18/business/media/star-tribune-minnesota.html?searchResultPosition=5

Media hiding under the covers

From Mother Jones by David Corn, 6/13/24

Headline: “The Most Under-Covered Story of 2024: Trump and Right-Wing Extremism”

Sub-Head: “And it goes far beyond Project 2025.-Wing Extremism”

“One of the most under-covered stories of the Trump era and the 2024 presidential campaign is Donald Trump’s relationship with far-right extremism. This has been going on for years.

“Take Project 2025, the operation organized by the Heritage Foundation and other right-wing think tanks to develop a far-reaching agenda for a second Trump term that would grant him expanded powers to run an authoritarian-ish government

As late as July there was silence in the media, ” A recent poll found that 76 percent of voters said they had heard ‘a little’ or ‘nothing’ about Project 2025.”

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/06/donald-trump-turning-point-usa-charlie-kirk-right-wing-extremism-our-land-david-corn/

Article from The Guardian by Andrew Gumbel, 8/17/24

Headline “Journalist Jeff German was stabbed to death. Las Vegas watches as the accused politician goes on trial”

Sub-head: “German had written about workplace harassment by Robert Telles, a county lawyer, before he was killed”

“Two months after German’s death, his colleagues at the Review Journal retrieved his notes and contacted his sources and fleshed out a long story about . . . ” the alleged murderer.

“Part of the investigative team’s goal was to pay homage to their fallen colleague in the language he understood best: old-fashioned, muck-raking journalism. ‘All we did after Jeff was killed was work on the investigation and deal with our trauma and grief,’ Prast said.

“In a precarious news business, however, in which investigations are expensive and newsroom budgets strapped, the Review-Journal has gone through two years of upheaval, leaving only one of German’s colleagues still at the paper.”

The full story:  https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/17/jeff-german-las-vegas-journalist-murder-trial

Article in Associated Press by David Bader, 8/16/24

Headline:  “They look like — and link to — real news articles. But they’re actually ads from the Harris campaign”

In the struggle for our minds, the line between advertising and actual news is shrinking.

“If you’re not looking too closely, some recent Kamala Harris ads may give the false impression that some leading news organizations are taking sides in the campaign for president.

“The advertisements, which have turned up in some Google search feeds, include links to legitimate news stories but feature — in words that appear to be headlines from the originating news organizations — pro-Harris messages written by the Democrat’s campaign.”

https://apnews.com/article/advertising-harris-google-guardian-2551b67dcf742df0d079122b25dd63d9

From an article in Politico by Joanna Weiss, 8/11/2024

Headline:  “Send Snoop to the Convention: What Political Media Can Learn From the Olympics “

“Let’s face it, political TV is in a rut. Nine years after former President Donald Trump burst on the scene, upending every political convention, his behavior has become familiar, and the countdown to the next election has started to feel stultifying for many voters — especially after months when Americans seemed bored by the most recent iteration of a race between the same two old white guys.

“Now, there’s an opportunity to build on the energy of Vice President Kamala Harris’ entrance in the campaign — and perhaps make the coverage of the next few weeks even livelier and more revelatory than before. ”

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/08/11/celebrities-political-coverage-convention-olympics-00173462

Media pundits know best!  Always believe the pundits!

Article by Jennifer Rubin in her weekly ‘live-chat’ session in the Washington Post on 8/14/24.

Answer to a reader’s question in regard to the recent over-reaction of most media to the stock-market dip:

“‘How does an old guy in Wisconsin, with a modest but very real portfolio, understand the economy better than the would-be “experts” on the East Coast? Why are the pundits and “experts” so quick to shout “doom.” It can’t all be clickbait…or is it?

“The negative news bias and hysteria-to-induce-alarm might get eyeballs and clicks in the short term, but they undermine the credibility of the press. The latter winds up misinforming the voters. It would help if major outlets brought back competent ombudsmen.”

response by another reader:

“Yes, the mainstream media continues to lose credibility and this past weeks’ market reports prove that. No way would there be a collapse, though it was reported as such. The market recovered by the end of the week. Those of us “little guys” out there know this. It’s the media (and the Trumpers) that look for disaster around every corner, looking for that needle in a haystack, and yet they largely overlook Trump’s alarming mental deterioration (Re: his Harris/Brown fantasy helicopter trip).”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/08/14/jennifer-rubin-live-chat