6 minutes now past 12 Good afternoon, and welcome back to mid-day on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Gary I can glad you could join us 1998 has not been a good year for the news media. First. Of course, there was the Lewinsky story and all the criticism that followed more recently. We've had CNN and time apology apologizing for their story and the alleged use of nerves nerve gas during the Vietnam war Cincinnati newspaper had to apologize to Chiquita for running a story that was both untrue and apparently based on Stolen information award-winning Boston Globe columnist, Patricia Smith was forced to resign for making up quotes and making up people and New Republic associate editor. Stephen glass was ousted after it was learned that he was fabricating stories for that magazine all of that and we're only halfway through the year. No, nothing comprable is surface locally so far this year but a new study about today charges the local news media with something that may be at least as damaging study says the media's coverage of life in the Twin Cities really distorts the reality of life in the Twin Cities study conducted by the Twin Cities project on media and the public a coalition of private businesses government agencies and nonprofits cause of news organizations to recommit themselves to higher standards of accuracy balance fairness and accountability and the clearly articulate those standards to the public and sour and midday were going to take a closer. Look at those suggestions. Take a closer. Look at the study first though with a report on the study itself. Here is Minnesota public radio's Chris Roberts. You don't have to look very far to find dissatisfaction even discussed with local news in the Twin Cities the Saint Paul lights took time out from their fourth of July festivities to express their frustration. My biggest complaint about local news is sensational. So I think the best news comes from papers like the Villager in the post because they don't sensationalize everything. They give you all the dreary little details about meetings and public comment periods and stuff like that. Not very thorough not looking very deeply into what's what's happening in the reasons for what happening. They choose one angle and take three steps that direction and that's the end of disenchantment informs the report of the Twin Cities project on media and the public Twin Cities news outlets have had a reputation for being a cut above those in other parts of the country, but that locally held view is beginning to a road take Gus Blanchard CEO of deluxe Corporation in Minneapolis, a provider of paper and Electronic Banking products and one of 19 sponsors of the project Lancer came to the Lox three years ago has lived all over the country and found the local print coverage of business to be in his word. Not as good as he was accustomed to it wasn't that a particular institution chose to disagree with a position that I or Deluxe might have taken it was that the I felt what was being demonstrated was ignorance of facts and in some cases of just the basic nature of what business and commerce are all about what the project was started by businesses worried about inaccurate and unbalanced business coverage it grew to include government and Community leaders use FMJ me is executive director of the urban Coalition in Minneapolis and a project sponsor the degree to which local news had fallen became grossly apparent to M. Janie two years ago when Minneapolis or murderapolis, it's one national news organization refer to it was suffering through a summer of Records, sides anytime a gang member went to the bathroom. It was gang-related. So all we heard about was gangs crimes poverty, and then it was welfare and chiselers and then it was refugees and Losing food stamps being deported for minor offenses and very little discussion about what do we do about it or what are some of the implications of this that Ripple throughout our community and affect the quality of life of all of its residents Kurt Johnson who heads the Metropolitan Council chair of the project Johnson says the group didn't want to merely pile blame on local news organizations. The effort here was to engage the news covering community. To ask them questions about where they think it's going. Does anybody care about trying to make important stories interesting anymore? Is it remotely possible that we might begin to cover stories of more significance in depth or do we just have to give up the report is based on seven forms held across the metro area last winter and spring the project heard from hundreds of people who voice their disapproval of the current state of local news. The report's recommendations are geared toward reconnecting local news organization with the public they serve and restoring credibility in trust at the top of the list is the edict that journalistic standards should drive coverage the report also suggests that local media upgrade their commitment to accuracy provide prompt redress for errors and equal prominence. For retractions in all of these recommendations. There are also actions for the public essentially Johnson says the report urge People to get involved it's not acceptable just to complain about this. If you care about it, then you better be riding those letter to the editor. You better be showing up when there's an opportunity for a public forum. You better be using those email addresses and reporters phone numbers that are increasingly appearing at the bottom of stories. If you would think it was wrong tell him and if you don't tell them stop griping about it. It's a mutual responsibility most news outlets in the Twin Cities while weary of M Physicians on their independence appear to be reading the projects Report with curiosity and interest the Star Tribune was the only organization that refused to take part in the forms arguing that it should have been included from the outset and helping formulate the Project's goals Pioneer Press editor Walker Lundy says, it's hard to take issue with the report's recommendations. I didn't see anything in it that I don't believe we're trying our very best to do. So, it's not like I read the report and said oh, Yes, I curse a good idea. Wilson will start that now likewise forecast EP news director Scott living will appreciate the recommendations as a reminder for news organizations. Not something they don't already know. Nobody here outwardly opposes. Any of these standards the issues are how do you attain them? And how do you maintain them of all the local journalist interviewed for this story WCCO? Anchor Don Shelby had the warmest reception for the report and the deepest lament for the state of local news. Shelby who attended some of the forms says he would like to be a part of a MacNeil Lehrer style broadcast in a commercial medium, but he says it wouldn't compete and certainly wouldn't make money. So when people say it is just deteriorating. We don't watch television a news anymore. I don't altogether blame them and I'm sorry for them. And I'm sorry for me in the process. But at some point the number of people who are dissatisfied has to increase and perhaps things have to get worse before they get better. But I guarantee you than in a market economy that if 40% of the public says will not watch television news until it gets better. It will get better tomorrow to nationally-known journalism experts who also participated in the forums have Divergent views on how the report was put together and its potential impact Tom Rosenstiel has the project for excellence in journalism in Washington Rosenstiel says, the report is short on scholarly research. He says the project missed a golden opportunity to do research on the impact of the Minnesota news Council. The only Arbiter of news complaints in the country. He also believes the project made a bad decision and not approaching local news. Organizations from the very beginning then you have to go to the media and say how do we begin to have a dialogue. We're having a dialogue in your invited. This has the risk of being perceived by the news Community as a kind of media vigilante effort on the other hand New York University journalism Professor Jay Rosen praises the project and its report as unlike any community-based journalism reform effort. He's seen around the country. Rosen says, it's single most important theme is that improving journalism is a shared and civic responsibility. Rosen says while the report is strong and saying the public has to do its part to strengthen coverage. He would like to see more specific recommendations on how newsmakers can contribute. I don't think for example that the the common habits of Ben and advertising and the hype and public relations that have become so ingrained in our major institutions can be ignored when you are talking about the quality of news coverage. So I think a little bit more could have been said about who in the community has to change their behavior while journalists are urge to change their behavior and believes a Grassroots movement to improve journalism is taking shape and the work of the Twin Cities project on media and the public puts Minneapolis-Saint Paul in the position of being a national leader if the effort continues her Johnson says the project is considering setting up its own website will make speakers available and will sponsor one maybe two events in the coming year to keep the dialogue with news organizations alive. This is Chris Roberts Minnesota Public Radio her Johnson the chair of the Twin Cities project in media and the public in the chair. The Metropolitan Council joins us not to talk some more about the study and we also invite you to join our conversation among other things. So how would you write local news coverage? Does it accurately reflect life in the region or distort? What you perceive to be the reality of life in the Twin City area? Of course. What if anything are you prepared to do to influence that coverage that's another key element of this study. Give us a call or Twin City area number is 227-6002 276 thousand. I'll try the Twin Cities. You can reach us toll-free at 1 800 to +422-828-227-6000 or one 800-242-2828 were talking this out about local news coverage and whether it's actually reflecting what's going on in the area for thanks coming in today to my pleasure. News organizations are running more of these focus groups. They're doing more surveys of of listeners viewers readers than ever before to determine what people are interested in and and so on so forth yet you folks say that there is this huge disconnect between what they're reporting and what's what's going on. How can this be? Well Gary the report simply suggest what we are hearing from the public at least the public that seems exercised about this issue the public that showed up at the forms that we did last winter and early spring and they consistently say there's a pattern there that there's been a kind of a drift towards superficiality more and more stories written or playing that seem to be agenda-driven on the part of the reporter more and more kind of opinion pieces or analysis but showing up in a newspaper as though it were straight news just facts and I think if there was up one complaint voiced more often than any other it probably was just not getting the story right heel missing critical facts not putting enough context there so you can see what this actually means so the report reflects what we hear happening in the community. And it is a call Simply to discuss it more. It is a challenge to our news covering organizations to review what standards they have it. They don't have any get some but they do have to make sure that they're operating by them and we would hope that they would share them with the public to because you're the public is kind of drifting into some cynicism about The credibility of news organizations then one. Obvious measure to combat that is disabled. Here are the standards were operating by and I think we're finding that most of our major media organizations in this community are in fact reviewing that and are sensitive to it and are actively engaging this issue. That's the good news side of this. Now the public broadcaster's in town public radio public TV. We're not really part of this study. We're not really reviewed and I'm not here to suggest that that we are the be-all and end-all but it seems reading the the report so I don't think that we should at least kind of move in that in the direction that people say they're interested in yet. There isn't seem to be any great outpouring of listeners are viewers do the public radio or public TV live a nice. Sizable audience, but nothing to compare with the with the big commercial outlets if people are all hyped up about this. Why do you suppose that is well, that is one of the continuing puzzles in this situation Gary obviously that particular television news which certainly came in for the harshest criticism we heard from people and if it was not finding a lucrative Market if it weren't making good profit margins, then they stopped doing it quote that Chris Robertson the store use from Don Shelby is is a pretty stunning thing. I think he's right. If something close to half of the viewing public where to be calling them up saying we want more serious Stories We want more grounding in the actual complexity of its there. We want you to have a higher quality news program instead of things that are trivial they got it. That's the way the market works. So anyway, we're not I hope sounding The Cry of Pollyanna and thinking that the world must suddenly become ideal, but we are calling for a more serious discussion of this and the say is it really necessary for television news to drift toward the infotainment model. Is it possible to take a serious story about important things happening in the community and make it interesting. Maybe that's a bigger challenge to the creativity the people doing it then running the stuff. They run now, you know some station managers tell us that that is exactly the kind of argument going on now on the inside and if that's true, that's good. No question about it more people demanded something different something different would begin to happen. Is it let's assume that there is a serious discussion going on and in the TV newsrooms in the event the newspapers here to want to respond to this the study in a in a significant way and do you suppose that the two two of the people that were featured in Chris's report? Mr. Blanchard from Deluxe Corporation? And mr. And Janie from the urban Coalition do they want to see the same stories covered in the same way. It seems to me they have an entirely different viewpoint on what they would like to see in the newspaper or see on the TV and that if you satisfied one, you probably weren't going to be satisfying the other one. That's true. And that's all the more reason to have standards. Cuz if your commitment as a journalistic organization is to get the facts to present them as fairly and accurately as you can to have balance in the story to put whatever. History to that issue that the reader or listener needs to have in order to understand it. Then it really doesn't matter much who it offends who it plays. Well dude who it does not that's the that's the critical point too much these days and I think we're arguing that if anything some of our major news organizations are too responsive driven by poles to moved by the presumed reaction of the Depart of the audience. They think they're going to this is really a call to get back to the core of some kind of Standards. What's at stake if you increasingly hear people say, you know, I don't think I can believe what I hear anymore or I don't believe what I'm seeing on television news. I don't trust it to be factual or people say, you know, you can't believe what you read in the newspapers. That's a very dangerous sign for a democracy. And when we depend upon these are not merely businesses in this community they are Vertical public institutions in of in some sense. We depend on them for information base. We depend on them to provide a kind of common common context of facts so that we need to make a decision as a community about something we're operating from a common side effects. It's the only means we have of doing that you think this is different today than it has been historically four years newspapers when they were they the primary news Outlet. We're not Paragons of objective news coverage and let me know if anything really changed you suppose or well we're to have people's perceptions of what the news media is doing is that changed there are certainly more pressures. It seems to me there are more sources if people have to get information which has the effect of raising the stakes for everybody for whom information gathering and dissemination is a business. There was certainly a difference in the velocity. There doesn't seem to be the same. Of time in which to contemplate what use this story and how well-grounded is it and how many facts do we need to check out because it's flying around the Internet. It's flying around the news disseminating organizations that may have the lowest standards. And so you either play or sit it out and much of what passes for news today is the recycling of things from some of those sources that didn't exist 10 years ago as opposed to news that some organizationally actually went out and got in the field. Lots of callers on the line with the questions and comments for Kurt Johnson heard is the chair of the Twin Cities project on media and the public the project is releasing a new report today on local news coverage and what the project is found to be a disconnect between what's getting reported the way it's being covered the news that is and what's actually happening in the Twin City metropolitan area. You like to join our conversation again, give us a call. 227-6004 1 800-242-2828. What what do you think about the local news coverage that you read see and hear? What are you prepared? If anything to do about the coverage fail your first wet place as I get there probably 80% of my news from public radio. So I'm completely at your mercy and national public radio for providing me with good in-depth news. And so I I presume and hope and believe you're doing a good job. I haven't watched television news for many many many years. So I've kind of given up on that as a news source, but my comment that I wanted to make is that in the studies that mr. Johnson and the group did I think we're seeing that what people say they want and then what they actually want and do is often very different and this is come out in other kinds of studies in the sociologist or those kind of scientist could probably fill in the gaps better than I could but that that you ask people about their behavior preferences and I'll tell you one thing then when you going deaf, can you actually watch what they do? It can tend to be something very different. So people may say they're outraged at the media and yet by the millions and millions, they're buying the tabloids. They're watching the TV news and others that there may be less than than what we would hope for Oh, I think feels exactly right. It's a telling point and what this report tries to say is if you do want it to be different you've got to behave differently. Now, you got to be good consumed in a different way and you got to give the kind of feedback news organizations that causes them to change their strategy. If you don't then we should continue to Goodwood we get you off and hear an argument made that even accepting done Shelby's point that that you would you would not be making a lot of money. If you were to do kind of the MacNeil Lehrer on Commercial TV. There is an argument to be made that I suppose that that you would you could be at least break even do as a matter of principle do money making corporations have any kind of an obligation to make less money and maybe not make any money on running their news operations or is there cuz their responsibility is to their shareholders. After all, well, there are some stations around the country at least in the throes of Temptation on this issue. There was a station in Orlando Florida that tried to do exactly what you're talkin about insurance at least in the near-term. It hasn't made as much money and it's been under tremendous corporate pressure because of that I think in the next few years are going to see more stations willing to step out and say we're going to try it but to try it it has to be done in a way that doesn't preview lies. The principal is just one of those things are going to do it. You better do it right? You better be spending as much on the research behind the stories as you do today on the marketing surveys about what people are willing to watch to make people believe that what you're doing is a sexy as what the guy down the street that's gonna realize this may sound hopelessly pollyannish, but it's I think maybe not fair to condemn a more serious treatment of the news. As unworkable from a prophet point of view until it's really been seriously tried and I'm not sure it's been seriously tried there must be some ground occupy between what local television news has become and what the Jim Lehrer show is somebody or the end of that territory with an enormous commitment to creativity and try it out. But I think you're right. Whoever the underwriting Corporation is the owner has got to be willing to take a hit maybe for a while to see what happens with such an experiment and you know, you don't get very far calling on people to cut their profit margins for a good cause but that's essentially what we're doing your next right? I think this whole thing is is very contextual and was in that you'll have a half hour of Local news men are preaching at you'll have something like American Journal which is disaster as far as any kind of journalistic Standards concerned people begin to expect a certain certain patterns of cases presented. They begin to expect certain kind of us. You said earlier sexiness and journalism isn't taking The High Ground the same we're going to stick by our standards and you're either going to like it or not. I mean by I realize a profit motive isn't it down to say to the people? Who do you want to hear by McCarthy before he went on to do the same thing for the person to person and that's where he really became famous and popular and that's that's where you made all this money. I need money for CVS, but CVS didn't make money off of his attack on McCarthy. He didn't make money off of off the off the other the work on the migrant to attract him everything. I mean, it's what journalism has always been about in this country. The great journalists have always been people who said to hell with what they think this is but I'm going to present this is my belief about journalism. And I don't think we have new directors locally who have that kind of Courage. We've got some very good news people on Channel 2 News 9 News In Minnesota where to visit just ran the Emmy this a great model there of how why not do a half hour of headline news and a half hour of in-depth coverage hurt when I think the Davis I don't have anything to disagree with here. It's probably worth pointing out though Gary's it. You know the irony of this kind of a project in the sort of a report appearing in the Twin Cities is that at least on the television news side, if you think ours is bad, you should travel there's pretty good evidence to suggest that TV news here is not as bad as it is is other places and I think if you do any investigation and all you'll discover that there is a lot going on behind the scenes now a lot of rethinking a lot of confession of doubt and comparing the different strategies when it comes to newspapers though. You just have to believe given those strong traditions of at least most of the 20th century that newspapers that care about the standards and can play the role of being the verifying Force. I mean we are being inundated with information and stuff travels around at this extraordinary velocity there needs to be something in it on the journalistic landscape that you can turn to and say if I read it here. It must be true. I think it's Pete Hamill that uses phraseology that newspapers have the role of the verifying Force. They do have a little more time to contemplate what they're going to say and how they're going to say it then other forms of the media. Let's go back to the phone. So Rob your question, please last year and my friends and I got together and we were just so disgusted by particularly the local broadcast media that we started a local website cursor. Org to criticize the local media primarily but also the national media and in our first issue, we tried to decide which local television broadcast was the most wretched and we had four people writing about each different television station, and it was amazing to find the kinds of things that we found just by watching the television news for a week and I think that your guests and some of the college have been wrong to assume that a television news show could actually do quality news and still make money. I personally think the the problem is is that in the past news portions of a television station and of networks or sort of looked at as the gems of the news and then of the network in the station and something to be protecting they were willing to lose money doing it. I think television stations and radio stations still have an obligation to serve the public because they use the public Airwaves essentially for free and they give you know precious little back to the community in terms of responsibility or coverage for their public use of the other use of these public airwave. Things that that that we found that were particularly wrong with some of the local stations, especially like on channel for their use of synergy, they're owned by CBS and CBS dictates apparently a lot of stuff that they have to say and they have no celebrities from CBS television stations and they do not tell stories about movie stars who are on so forth. Also, we found a lot of them even going beyond the cliche if it bleeds it leads. I myself wrote a story about Channel 5 here and I in a week of coverage last November it was unbelievable to see the stories that they led the news with. I mean, they would go to incredible lengths to leave the news with a story about a murder in it. Didn't matter when the murder happened a couple times. You know, if it's Rob Rob I'm going to cut you off here and get a comment so we can get some other callers, but Kirk Hammett on what they rob has been talking about here. Well, I think properly sums up the what I meant when I said the harshest criticism was reserved for television news. I think the good news side of it though. And Rob may not agree with this is that there is a lot of rethinking going on right now, even in the television news operations you listen to the new news director of Channel 5, and he doesn't sound like the previous ones. He sounds like he's up to something different now, can he make significant changes in the context of all of these corporate pressures and all of the marketing demands? Who knows? I know that the WCCO organization is kind of rethinking all this on by using of values analysis trying to figure out if we are going to be really driven by Decor set of values. What are they now? That's very good news everything. You see the Pioneer Press doing these days by inviting people to their news huddled by having a reader's representative who feels 3000. Calls year by putting Solutions in the story's not just problems in the stories. I mean not everyone lotion to problems. Is it is it not I think about the experience the Charlotte Observer had about four years ago when they realize that they were covering crime in urban neighborhoods almost preponderantly. They were doing a very good job of it and then somebody when they said, you know aren't there people working on the solutions and wouldn't that be a good story to and they sent some reporters out into the neighborhoods and they found people they didn't even know existed. They founded indigenous network of neighborhood activists who are working to come back the crime who are trying to make the community safer in the process of doing that the police managed to get connected to this and they've completely turned around the way the community saw the police that used to think of Miss heart of a colonial Squad coming in didn't know whether to be relieved to retire. Fried when they saw them and within the space of a year or two, they had pager numbers are there local cops in the new them by their first name and the newspaper was covering the people that were combating the crime. They were covering the solution side of it with an enthusiasm equal to covering the crimes. That's just as solid a journalism and it's a lot better balance and it more accurately reflected the community you think news media want to propose solutions to problems in their news columns are on their news stories or just simply cover what other people are doing be crossing a line. I mean the editorial Pages do plenty of posing for everybody but the news side of a good at least cover what people are trying to do do some evaluation. What works what doesn't how does this replicate what may have been experienced elsewhere and I think both newspapers are moving this direction. I have to say we are very impressed with the new management at the start to be in the McClatchy group has a reputation for being very community-centered as well as excellent. Kushner's of Journalism and the contacts we've had with them so far how you have to be very impressed with their commitment to Quality and accuracy crime coverage. You hear a lot of criticism of crime coverage Rob brought that up in his call. It comes up in your study terms of what appears to be a in a certain amount of crime coverage, especially in the Star Tribune during the study. That you had yet. It's happening. It's going on. I'm reminded. For example, I just the last few days there were they two murders up here on the North Western Avenue and Avenue redeveloped are in St. Paul. There was the cab driver who got the brutally assaulted over here on on Franklin Avenue should the news media just pretend like these things are happening. Absolutely. Not of course people need to know about serious crime being committed. The question is where you play it how you play it how Sensational lipstick Lee You cover? Or what do you cover? It is straight up news. And what do you balance it by other things that are going on at the same time. It's just as important to know about the last two or three small entrepreneurial businesses that have moved into the Phillips neighborhood in Minneapolis in a beginning to make a profit and are providing employment for people who live there as it is to find out if somebody was shot at 33rd and Park Avenue and the complaint that we're hearing is that you don't get enough of what's good about these Urban neighborhoods in which the crimes happening all you hear about his the crime the devastation the terror and the fear and pretty soon. You think that's what the whole Community is. I recall if you can indulge a 45 Second Story here friend who who has a reporter young reporter friend who went to work in Seattle for one of the newspapers. He was an East coaster never lived out there and he found the geography of the Puget Sound area. Just breathtaking. He found the Civic life out there very, Energetic he found that it was just a great place to live. He found that he was writing letters back to his friends on the East Coast couple of times a week about what a wonderful place this was to live and then when they realized what a contrast there was between the writing he was doing as a personal correspond it and the writing he was doing this a reporter for the newspaper and he started a big discussion inside that newspaper by raising this question in a retreat and see if I read the newspaper that I'm contributing to this looks like an awful Community who in the world would want to live here, but I know better I know it's a better balanced Community than that and I think that's pretty what we're asking for is to get an accurate reflection of what the community is about. Ron your next good place for journalism. This was 20 years ago and I think the the major influence that we've seen at least over the last 20 25 years is the influence of Television journalist, and I need so many people get their news and only their nose from the from television the problem here I think is that entertainment is driving news to the extent that you watch the morning news on television. And you think that the whole town is burning down everybody was stabbed and shot and nothing else too often and and I think that the if if if a sense of Shaolin, this has crept into media coverage that's not come from newspapers. I don't think yeah, they've got their problems. The bigger problem is that I just don't think that the entertainers and television news. Is there anywhere at all equipped to interpret at today's events that are going on in the public around us? And that's unfortunate. It's true. And I don't know what the solution is except to do what I do when I see some turbo reports on television and there are a lot of them. I always call up the reporter and tell he or she exactly what I think and that's I guess all I can do. Well good for you for doing that. And I think what we're calling for despite all of the understandable skepticism about whether things can change is just a raise the sensitivity about accuracy for everybody and that applies to newspapers as well as to television applies to public radio. I mean, it's fair to recall the last Autumn you had a little episode here at NPR which some things were said on a talk program that weren't verified in the facts were not corrected and it created of a bit of a tempest for a few days and it presents a dilemma for any news disseminating organization or anybody using the public Airwaves to find out how we can practice a greater reverence for facts how we can be more careful about it because that's the key to credibility and if any of these news organizations lose that that elusive commodity of credibility I think it's over for them doesn't matter much what they do or how big their parent market is when people in in your project complained about accuracy to what extent were they complaining about the stories that they read or heard or saw the complaining that those stories didn't didn't Square was their view of reality that is to say if you're a business exec. I'm sure what you'd like to see it in the newspaper for example is a rewrite of your press release and not much re-writing the by the way and you know, that's it's a human reaction. There are people everybody's got their own version of these things and to the extent that story doesn't quite Square. Does that translate then to an inaccurate story? It doesn't then it should not there's no question though that the bias is each of us carries around or the filter through which we evaluate the biases of these news organizations that we tried to probe beyond that though mean everybody would kind of like to be covered more positively that's not what this report is about. This report says if you get the facts, right if you check them if you if you've done a balance job if this is really objective then if it hurts it hurts if it's embarrassing, it's embarrassing but we just firmly believe that over the past few years, at least there has been some slippage and attention to that and if you dig deep enough into the complaint, even of the business executive at your profile, I think most of them would admit If it becomes consistently accurate, even if it's a little painful they can live with that and if if it isn't done that way than the positive stories don't have any credibility either. I mean both are necessary. I noticed to the Star Tribune yesterday had what I would regard as a very positive story about Northwest Airlines on page one. It was accurate as best I can tell and it was about something that was an interesting and maybe surprising development. That's a pretty good example of what I'm talking about. If the if the newspaper is as interested in that dimension of one Corporation struggle for profits and for standing and for sustainability as they are and embarrassing episodes are in lapses and customer confidence. Then you've got the balance that reflects reality. Oops, we lost our Janet save to move on and marry go ahead and read the news to a twelve-year-old. The other thing was a lot of the large corporations buying of television and radio stations in this area and wouldn't they slant the news? Well Mary Jane, we would hope that no one / the news because it goes back to this issue. We were talking about about credibility and I. Sure over time if even those who are watching the day will continue to watch if there's just no credibility and there's nothing but entertainment there. That's exactly what we all worry about though. And it's a great dilemma for these news organizations to determine what level to fix this at mean something that would inform and entertain a 12 year old is categorically different from something that would actually cause a nineteen-year-old to stay glued to that set for the requisite five or 10 minutes and something very different would move somebody my age. So I mean we're deeply respectful of the Dilemma that they have in the deliver the newspapers have is they look at the declining numbers disappearing number some would say in the under 35 group and reading newspapers talk about a big worry and the Dilemma of whether you do anything possible. However, desperate to try to reach this Market you're not getting to or whether you return to the core of the market that still reads newspapers still trust newspapers. Listen to be as good as they can be right for them and hope the others mature. I don't know anybody that knows how to resolve that dilemma. We don't try to in this modest report. We don't have any Illusions about that. What do you suppose know, their participants would say one of our callers earlier to put some words in his mouth said that they're basically I we have to get in the business of spinach knows it's good for you and by golly here it is take it or leave it. I guess I'm just not convinced Gary that it has to be Bland and boring. If it's significant, I mean where in the world is our creativity if we can't take the things that are really important to the future of the community that are significant issues that are stories of some consequence and state them in a way that is riveting. And if it's television wrap them in the kind of visual context that helps people to remember them and drives the point home. I think it's just more work to do that gets harder and maybe it's more expensive and maybe that's injurious to profits. But that's the challenge. I will I don't think any of us is on this project is prepared to accept the assumption that it can't be done. It just hasn't been consistently, You're next. I've just listen to what the herd has said and to some extent have to disagree at least let's start out though with the situation television news does not cover complicated stories. It does not it's incapable. For example of doing a comprehensive story on a budget or taxes or financial issues such as the building of a office building in Downtown Saint Paul for a Minneapolis business. And so we have to rely on the newspapers. For that for that kind of detail and that's what I find disturbing. And that is that the commitment to I get these facts out the cover these things is eroding and the financing of the Lawson Block in St. Paul, which is a commitment which can affect the taxpayers of Saint Paul for 30 years was never fully explained and certainly never explained in a timely matter. The deal was being cut without the public being aware of the implications. The fact that it is still having in financial difficulties, aren't they? Haven't raised all the money to build it and already they've torn up a city block and have made huge financial commitments and issued bonds, which way should the newspaper shark coming or TVs shortcoming or both TV can cover it and it's not an exciting a bunch of story is not an exciting story, but it's one but it's a significant story. What would you do then Kurt? If you're running though, the Saint Paul or Minneapolis papers and a faced with the prospect. Act of trying to make a complicated financing story understandable and interesting to the point where people would actually read it challenge word stands. I'm not sure that the Saint Paul paper didn't do that though. I think if you go back and review their coverage, you may find that they did an outstanding job of analyzing that and Tom might have missed the particular day or days on which it ran but I would still say that something like the Lawson block you could do this for television. If you were careful to pose the different points of view that whether this is really good in the long term for St. Paul as an economic impact maneuver leveraging all kinds of other developments around it and maybe doing something intangible to the confidence in the psychology of a community that sort of for a long time felt maybe second best or kind of a shadow of its bigger twin. And compare that to the risk side and try to point soberly to what the downside risk might be for Saint Paul taxpayers. If a or b or c bad scenarios were to unfold that could be done objectively and posed as a kind of a trade-off because that's the Dilemma that policymakers face everyday. The public should see the same trade-off. Can your next yes, it's not a little to me. There's a new star in the Twin Cities area. I think the problem is that the devil is in the details and the details are you don't have any choices we have essentially about four fours and news operations can be called legitimately news operations for and television into newspapers in the newspapers won't compete The Divide of the Twin Cities it cut it in half at the river and you don't have your choices. The public does not have any choices. That's a lot of seems like a lot of hand-wringing to me. I don't like you were prepared to spend billions of dollars to you're going to have to live with it. I don't know. I just don't see where you're at where this study is going to accomplish much more than just answering. Hurt when we like to get be on hand when you can if we can can I thought I think your comment touches on the rich irony of this whole issue and that if you talk to the news organizations themselves, they'll tell you how we're just in a day would be inundated with choices. We have so many different places that we can get our information and our news from these days. They feel like they're constantly in the throes of vicious competition to say nothing of the non news programming and periodicals and so on that they have to compete with an absolutely again. If you put on 4 news programs at 10 which are perceived in one way or another be kind of boring. Well people have 500 channels in their cable to choose from they got a bunch of syndicated this week for the first time even though maybe a summer and there a lot of reruns contaminating the analysis watching cable exceeded watching network channels for the first time. So there is a lot of change out there, but I would also suggest a from what we think we've learned in this project that are two newspapers are anything but settled down into a comfortable geographical partitioning of this region. I think they see themselves as very competitive and that edge kind of keeps them alert while short of just bringing your hands. What are you going to do with this now? What happens next on this project? Well, it depends on how the public reacts we will try to to invent some ways for Creative follow-up which may include erecting a website so that we could post the good in the Bad and the Ugly on some kind of continuing basis and invite people to to react there on that website. I think at the very least you'll see a sponsoring a couple of major events every year we bring in somebody that can make a stimulating presentation on this issue and invite people to come and discuss it. And maybe they'll be ideas. We haven't even thought about yet. But if it's as important as the report suggests it is we should not Let It Drop. Do you think that the major commercial news organizations in the Twin City area are not necessarily response to report but are they going to move in the direction that you would like to see the movie and really I want to reiterate that we are not delusional about having some hard-hitting heavy impact the changes the world in these organizations overnight, but I have to say that I am personally and I think our project participants are optimistic more optimistic than when we got into it. We have discovered how much these organizations are already doing and how active they are and rethinking the way they practice their newsgathering and their news dissemination. So I'm very optimistic that we're going to see a moving in the right direction here across the next year to somebody's go Take the leap and try it. I think so. Expert preciate your coming in today always hurt Johnson, who is the chair of the Twin Cities project on media? And the public is also chair of the Metropolitan Council the regional planning Agency for the Twin City metropolitan area. The project Twin Cities project comedian public is out with a new report today on local news coverage in the Twin City metropolitan area and the long and the short of it is that the coverage really doesn't square with the reality of life and lots of suggestions for things that the media might consider doing and lots of things lots of suggestions on things that the public should consider doing if they're upset with coverage if they see like to thank all of you who've been with us this our specially those of you who called in or tried to call him with your questions and comments were going to be rebroadcast in this program at 9 tonight. So you get a second chance to hear the program rebroadcast at 9 tonight. Tomorrow plans are a little unsettled at this point. They're the one thing we know is that senator. Paul wellstone will be joining us from Washington a during the eleventh hour. And so we don't have an opportunity to talk with a senator wellstone Exit 11 little unclear yet. What what's going to be on over the noon hour though sometime this week. We're supposed to be talking with a new Vikings owner Red McCombs. So stay tuned. Join national public radio's Tom gjelten for a free lecture Thursday evening, July 16th at 7 at the Macalester College Chapel in st. Paul tickets are available at the wedge co-op in Minneapolis and Lakewinds Natural Foods in Minnetonka. Listen to Minnesota Public Radio.