Local "commercial media" looking more outdated

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Went to our wonderful Morris Public Library yesterday (Wednesday) to get a little enriched, hopefully to deal better with the dead of winter. We most certainly are there now. The library is where I take at least a quick look at the newspapers: local and state. Really, I must question the value of the local newspaper in the Internet age. 

The Internet has become so ubiquitous and relied-upon, we hardly hear the word "Internet" any more. Years ago it was a novel thing. Today it is most certainly not a novelty. It is fully blended into our lives and can satisfy any of our needs. Maybe a dozen years ago we could not have said that. Back then as a defense of newspapers, some advocates for the print industry would say "not everyone is online." Hint: So local government entities would have to keep paying what newspapers demanded for "legal notices" pertaining to meetings. 

Like we could not trust such entities to simply report themselves. I think today, we have become pretty trusting on this. I really do. And to what extent does our local paper behave like a "watchdog?" It does not, not even close. Newspaper people at the local level have the common impulse of not wanting to step on toes. So protective they are of their business model, they want their product to be seen as "positive" in the community. 

Our local office-holders like the mayor are elected by the people. It is not wise to alienate such folks. Not if you know what side your bread is buttered on. 

Maybe there's no real risk in alienating the Donnelly folks. The local newspaper behaved like a bear with boxing gloves on that one. The paper was trying to put itself forward as the "watchdog" in this instance. It did nothing more than irritate people IMHO. Why the scrutiny of the humble little Donnelly city council? Is there a basis for being suspicious of those people? Can this be documented? 

Picking on Donnelly? Why?

I didn't understand the fuss to begin with. The paper had a big heading on its website for a long time, about how its "reporter" had gotten "abusive treatment" by the council. Makes the council come across as real scoundrels. Certainly that was the impression readily gained. Well I have no such suspicion. Nobody abused anyone. A guy used a couple profanities. My God, no great indiscretion there. 

I might suggest a little background here: My generation of the boomers got accustomed to hearing profanities because our fathers of the WWII generation found such talk to be, to a degree, fashionable. We were happy to give them slack on this because of all they had been through with WWII and before that the Depression. So we got rather numb to it, put up with it with no consternation, though we knew such talk was not exemplary.

 

Vices, unfortunately

Worse than such talk, was the custom the WWII veterans developed of drinking alcohol to excess. The younger people were happy to give them slack on that too. Doubt me on this? Just consider the term "Legion convention." Ray Stevens mined that imagery for some of his humorous music. The Legion, VFW and even the Shriners were notorious for having gatherings where guys ended up stumbling around.  And us younger folks responded with. . .amusement! Yes, we joked a about such things.

On a more serious note, we unfortunately reflected the drinking habit ourselves, and this migrated to drugs like marijuana. We had no excuses like our fathers had. I can think of not one constructive reason why we did it. The outcomes were destructive in a variety of ways. 

Then MADD came along (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) and there would be hell to pay for people who consumed alcohol and then got behind the wheel of a car. An incredibly rude awakening for so many. Well, they "had it coming," right? We must realize that some pretty big cultural norms had been established, norms that equated drinking alcohol with "maturity." I guess we can look back and feel dumbfounded. Then again we can look back and feel dumbfounded by lots of things. 

 

On another front

How else might the local newspaper be counterproductive? I thought it was totally out of bounds in connection with the Morris water treatment plant. Here, instead of being a watchdog, the paper acted like it was a cheerleader for the City of Morris. Or more accurately for the state, because as time passed it seemed evident that the plant was really a state project. 

This was a question that the Morris newspaper could have helped answer: is the plant truly a city project or basically overseen by the State of Minnesota? The newspaper acted like cheerleader with effusive advice: You'll be "violating the law" if you continue to have a certain kind of water softener. As time passed I realized that the city had no such intention of being so heavy-handed. The whole thing seemed so unfair anyway, as you'd have to give the local citizens time to deal with it, more than a little time in fact. 

My parents had a name-brand Kinetico softener in the basement that was operating according to manufacturer's recommendations. Was I going to be suddenly at risk of having authorities show up at my front door? Our city manager had to go to Marshall Hoffman at the radio station to try to assure everyone that no such panic was called for. 

What would happen today? Because, so much talent has been lost at the Morris radio station. Hoffman was so incredibly helpful keeping us informed on various local and state matters. He explored topics, finding various nuances. Nuances? We can expect no such quality in our local news reporting now, whether from the radio station or paper. These vestigial institutions are scared every day of shrinking further due to the obvious pressure from the online world. We all ought to just move on to a world without them. 

But old customs or conventions do hold on, just like the customs that were bequeathed by the WWII generation, of men "drinking and swearing." But we loved those people. Few remain among us.

 

Paying attention

My little "adventure" of taking a look at the Morris newspaper ("Stevens County Times") prompted this email that I sent to friend Del Sarlette:

 

Del - I was at library this afternoon. Have you looked at the Morris paper? The photo at top of page 1 of the New Year's baby, the caption does not identify the two SCMC people. One of them is Dr. Barnstuble. Plus there's a nurse. I wonder if the paper will re-run the photo with a complete caption. This is harder to excuse these days when the paper publishes just once a week. They have time to touch all the bases. We did more than double the work. I spent all day Friday loading the Ad-Viser which does not exist anymore. Canary is only eight pages. 

Cute how Michael Bjorklund of First Luth. brought the Ad-Viser to you.

 Top half of page 1B is devoted to Hancock girls basketball. I wonder what the Morris fans think of that. What does Shelly say when she gets a complaint about that sort of thing? What does she say when people complain about the useless website? I wonder how many calls they take each day from people who say they didn't get their paper?! This could be a real nightmare now.

I saw the article about the Morris teacher who went bellyaching to the board about teacher pay! People like me who are benefactors do not like seeing an article like that. I'd feel insulted if I was on the school board, because I as a board member would know all the facts and I would expect teachers to be happy with their compensation. If they don't like it, they can look for another job, Kemosabe.

What if our teaching staff starts to get disgruntled? This happens. It happened here in the 1980s with the notorious penny-pincher (according to legend) Fred Switzer.

We shouldn't be under pressure to pay more just because certain other schools apparently are. Where would this "race" stop?

 

Oh, and I was prompted to send the following email to Jim Morrison who was once in charge of the Morris newspaper. Never a dull moment, eh?

 

Jim - Well it is fun to second-guess sometimes, so I notice the photo at top of page 1 of this week's Morris paper, New Year's baby, where the caption fails to identify the two SCMC people in photo. I can guess how this photo was acquired: it was "contributed" and the contributor didn't bother supplying those two names. So, it was up to the paper to go get them, whatever it takes. I'd hop in my car and drive up to SCMC if I had to, and I did that kind of thing on occasion, sometimes under deadline pressure. I did too much under deadline pressure, but I always had to justify my timesheets. I couldn't sit on stuff. In retrospect that was a mistake.

I wonder if the paper will re-run the photo next week with the names of Barnstuble and the nurse. 

I remember when I arrived at the emergency room a year ago in a crisis state, Barnstuble came along with a student observer. And then along came the doc whose last name is pronounced "Robby." I found out he's their emergency physician. And then most important, Dr. Sam just happened to be in vicinity, so now I had three expert doctors standing over me! Dr. Robby burst out "you have diabetes!" He could tell just by looking at me. Dr. Barnstuble had been Mom's physician. I can't say enough about those three guys.

The whole top half of page 1B this week is Hancock girls basketball. They must get complaints about this.

I see in the school board article that teachers are bitching about their pay. Benefactors like me do not like to see this kind of coverage. We want teachers to be happy, otherwise they might get disgruntled, which is what happened here in the 1980s. The teachers hated Fred Switzer with a passion and they stated this all over town. There had to be a better system than that.

 

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