Edward Schumacher-Matos’ contract with NPR is up in about a month and since the NPR ombudsman authored a takedown of his employer’s coverage of the removal of Native American children from their families in South Dakota, he has written very few analyses of NPR since. Today he authored an assessment of NPR’s decision to cancel Read more →
NPR president and CEO Jarl Mohn says his commercial media expertise will help NPR grow. Read more →
If you read USA Today (or watch KARE 11), you’ve probably seen or read the story this week asserting that the National Transportation Safety Board is too quick to blame pilots for crashes involving general aviation airplanes. Nearly 45,000 people have been killed over the past five decades in private planes and helicopters — almost Read more →
A Seattle newspaper is banning the use of the name Washington Redskins in an acknowledgement that it’s a racist expression.
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The interview carries a significant message: Politicians in the coming elections — especially Democrats — are going to have to answer for their past positions on same-sex marriage, the same way politicians of days-gone-by had to answer for their views on race and segregation. Read more →
Rev. Adam J. Copeland, a member of the faculty at Concordia College in Moorhead, loves Fargo. He just doesn’t subscribe to the apparently journalism commandment: ‘Thou shalt speak no ill of Fargo.’
Copeland stirred things up in paradise this week when he wrote on his blog — A Wee Blether — criticizing coverage of Fargo by the media. He says stories about the city are heavy on glowing praise, absent of critical perspective.
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The Minnesota Court of Appeals today ruled that an organization created by the Minnesota Legislature isn’t subject to data rules designed to allow access to some public records. Read more →
Next week, France will recognize the 70th anniversary of D-Day — a day when foreign troops helped saved France — and the country’s broadcasters aren’t allowing free coverage of it.
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There’s something not right at all about this morning’s NPR story from Texas in which a Texas family dropped their Blue Cross Blue Shield health insurance because not a single one of the 28 obstetricians in their area ‘took Obamacare.’
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As MPR cancels Tell Me More, can public radio, long linked with upscale white Americans, make significant progress in appealing to communities of color? Read more →
Jill Abramson, the ousted boss at the New York Times, is expected to speak for the first time about her firing from the Times. She’s giving the commencement speech this morning at Wake Forest.
Watch it here. Read more →
Carl retired as an NPR newsreader a few years ago, and last night he taped his final episode of Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me. Of his many accomplishments, proving that a serious news person can have a personality may be the most important, especially for public radio types. Read more →
Isaac Kolstad, beaten nearly to death outside a Mankato bar last weekend, remains in a coma. Philip Nelson, the former University of Minnesota quarterback, is facing up to 25 years in prison. Both men’s lives will never been the same.
Was it racist of me to point that last part out? Read more →
The New York Times is in the eye of the hurricane in the storm over the different treatment of women in the workplace compared to male counterparts.
The Times fired its editor, Jill Abramson, today, replacing the first woman to hold the job with the first African American to have it. Read more →
Not too many people apparently saw the new CEO of NPR coming. Jarl Mohn takes a job that has been the center of turmoil for years. He comes from a radio disc jockey background and used to be known as Lee Masters before he became an exec at MTV and VH1 back when they were Read more →
Bob Collins
Bruce MacDonald