Newspaper pumps up own controversy

(image from "destination small town")

Sat down last night (Tuesday) to write email to friend about the brouhaha involving the Morris newspaper and Donnelly city council. I had just discovered the matter in a visit to our library. My email grew long so I changed the purpose of my communication, opting to make it a blog post. You see it here. I keep the salutation at the start to make it authentic-looking as an intended email. Donnelly in the news!

 

Hello (name withheld) - Just got back from the library, a routine visit to among other things look at Morris fishwrap. So we have a full-blown local controversy in which the paper happens to be a player. I am always suspicious of these. The paper can overinflate its own importance. Would a disinterested person consider this subject so important? Rhetorical question. Reminds of when the paper's then-editor decided the county commissioners' meeting hours were so important or controversial. They were not. 

Such a dominant article in today's Morris fishwrap, jumps off the page at you. And through it all there is the suggestion that the paper is "the good guy." Any surprise there? Maybe a little holier-than-thou sounding? We have to tap our sense of basic logic: Is the paper justified in expecting a city council to tape its meetings in lieu of a paper's rep actually being there? If a rep can't be there on a Saturday, why? Just "time off?" Well heck, you can lump that suggestion. 

I hope the Donnelly city council has consulted with a good lawyer by now, perhaps a lawyer with the preferred expertise. They must have an official lawyer. I have been around the block a few times dealing with newspaper issues. Papers do not have the power to harrumph any more. They stick around as legacy products, that's all. A paper might lecture a government body on how it has the God-ordained right to publish legal notices (and get paid for it). But on the other hand, a paper reserves the right to simply go out of business. Seems like a one-way street. 

There is a legacy effect of newspaper publishers feeling they have a lot of power, which in fact they once did. The Internet has changed all that of course. So a Donnelly person was quoted swearing in article (with abbreviations)? I'm not so much offended by that as I am by the paper devoting coverage to it. I don't really care to fault the Donnelly council at all. But if I were to, I'd say they should have just stayed relaxed and politely said "no" to what the newspaper was requesting, then let the ball be back in the paper's court. The paper was arrogant in suggesting that it could not provide a reporter for the meeting, yet they wanted someone to record the meeting for them. It isn't Donnelly's problem. Maybe the council members would have liked some time off too. 

I remember when a Forum-owned communications property got taken to task by the legal authorities when it thought it had the right to set up microphones on a table in front of where board members were sitting. The media has no right. It is intrusive. But papers have a trace of arrogance left over from "the Watergate years." Nixon today would have a whole apparatus of right wing media ready to do his bidding and to stomp down the pesky news media. Not that Nixon really governed like a conservative - in many ways he did not. He created the EPA. Imagine Trump doing that? 

Ignatius Donnelly

Maybe we should be amused by Donnelly "getting in the news." People in the Twin Cities would be amused by this: a throwback to "Petticoat Junction" and "Green Acres." I remember playing elementary basketball at the Donnelly town hall. Man if the walls of that place could talk. I remember the Donnelly team had cheerleaders! Now why would I remember that? 

The Donnelly kids had very much of a "group identity" when I was in school. Marv Stoneberg was back for our 50-year reunion about a month ago. Our Homecoming queen was from Donnelly. She was not at the reunion. I should name-drop: Jane Larson (Jane Sassenfeld now). I remember being in an ensemble of Morris High School musicians for the annual ice cream social. 

Getting back to the subject at hand: I think the Donnelly interests need to have a good lawyer available to tell them what exactly they are legally required to do in connection to news media. And do not feel obligated to do anything beyond that. I trust the Donnelly council's preferred system for getting news out about itself. I don't have the kind of suspicion that was common during Watergate and its aftermath. These are good sincere people doing the work. 

The Morris paper should not get so cotton-pickin' excited about its own importance. There was chutzpah bleeding off the page about the paper. The "Times" I guess it's called. Early in the paper's article there was a reference to someone named "Ennen" but with no first name. The paper should try to set an example with its own professionalism in an article like this. Katie Erdman is a 1972 high school graduate and is past retirement age. Maybe she should avail herself. 

Our radio station has been bleeding talent over the recent past. Remember, it does not matter if you feel these are wonderful people doing wonderful work. In many cases they are, but a media business is like any business. It is all about money. Resources get squeezed. It is inevitable in the age of the Internet. The media has gotten fragmented in limitless ways - a trend still continuing - and much of the new media does not operate on business terms. For example, I don't think our school "YouTube geniuses" have any financial incentive, do they? Isn't it just done (up until now) as an outreach service for the school? My own frequent writing on MACA sports delivers no financial compensation for me. Money does not have to be part of the process. 

In the pre-digital days, we all understood we had to pay for a newspaper because of the paper's obvious printing and distribution costs. Much of that seems quite out of bounds from being essential now, even though the Morris paper's publisher seems to preach quite to the contrary. And that is getting redundant and annoying IMHO. Of course he wants to make money. How would you expect him to think? And I get the impression from headlines - I don't always bother reading the text because I think it can be preachy and predictable - that this fellow wants government to subsidize newspapers. On the face of it that is a horrendous thought. We do not want a SYMBIOTIC relationship between government and the press, shudder. 

The old Donnelly school

These days yours truly is completely in the alternative media. Maybe I did not want to leave the corporate media. That was mostly out of my hands, so I have had to live with it, Kemosabe. But journalism is in my blood. The paper needs to cool it a little now. Remember how often Nixon swore? Oh, but that's another world, right? The world of the Beltway. In that world we see this Rudy Giuliani able to put himself forward as lawyer to the president. The cold reality is that Giuliani would not be passable as lawyer for the village of Donnelly. Good luck to the Donnelly people. Bless you in your little town. I don't pass through very often any more. 

If the newspaper really wants to do muckraking, maybe it could find out how much money is being spent for the big crane-like device at East Side Park, hoisting this dude way up high to do some painting on the "Killoran Music Arts Center." Whatever contractor that is, I'm sure it's not cheap. Do you deal with contactors these days? The Killoran Center - and bless the memory of Eleanor Killoran who I knew well - is the epitome of a boondoggle. The extent of use is less than negligible. When the UMM welcome picnic was held a couple months ago, you'd think the organizers could have just arranged for some dude with his guitar to stand up there and sing. No, no one takes the trouble in Morris, Minnesota. We used to be able to try to justify the stage in the days of Prairie Pioneer Days. That was just two or three days. Then PPD just faded away while other towns keep their summer events going. Way to go Morris. Maybe this along with the city's cost for upkeep of the Killoran building are bigger scandals that what happens in Mayberry, I mean Donnelly. The City of Morris just gets the money from the people.

 

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com