Let Duluth Vote supporters are quick to see pro Red Plan editorial preferences in the Trib. I’m an old hand at reading between the lines and I know that traditional journalists take an almost masochistic delight in showing their impartiality. Some of the letters they print excoriate them for their bias. Editors especially love to publish letters accusing them of being liberal or conservative side-by-side to demonstrate that they are neither.
While I sense some Red Plan bias, particularly in downplaying possible criticism of the Red Plan, the Trib has a good excuse. Like most daily papers the Trib has made huge staff cuts leaving fewer experienced reporters to investigate complicated Red Plan complaints. Although I should note that at last night’s LDV meeting both Brenda Anderson and Gary Glass reiterated what they’ve told me repeatedly that the Trib’s education reporter rarely quotes either of them after interviewing them. The Reporter routinely hectors us with questions that seemed to have been posed by Move Forward Duluth. I wonder if Mimi Larsen or Dr. Dixon or the School Board members feel the same way?
I get quoted a lot but that may be because I’m a lot more colorful in my denunciation of the Red Plan making for more entertaining stories. That’s what you’d expect from the man who is responsible for dividing Duluth by insisting on playing by the rules and all that democracy rigmarole.
The Editorial Page appears to have been scrupulously fair about putting both pro and anti Red Plan letters on the Editorial page. Whether they discriminate by skewing the letters one way or another we don’t know. For instance, if three times as many anti Red Plan letters are sent to them (or visa versa) there’s little evidence of this because the letters are roughly 50/50 like they were today with one pro and one con. Well, Well Well!I just checked the online Trib. Today’s “con” letter isn’t in the Online Trib. How careless. How skewed!
One of the most egregious cases of downplaying the anti’s viewpoint was yesterday’s paper with its dueling pro and con Red Plan columns. In the corner of the page was a little teaser about a seemingly cute “eh column” style letter about a licence plate humorously spelled out “709 BAD.” Readers were encouraged to read it online.
The letter turned out to be so persuasive and its author so authoritative that the paper couldn’t in good conscience simply bury it in their online paper but had to draw attention to it in newsprint. However, that attention made it look frivolous.
I’ll put the whole thing in one of my next posts. Shame on the Trib for burying this.
