Today, a block away from where nine African Americans were slaughtered in Charleston, S.C., Don Lemon was again the target of complaints that he undercuts African American struggles against racism.
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MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
Tag: Media
In the big scheme of things, Kim Kardashian appearing last weekend on ‘Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me!’ isn’t a huge deal. The show isn’t journalism, but public radio fans know a groundbreaking descent into garbage when they hear it.
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Did you hear? A person made a mistake on the radio the other day and you won’t believe what happened next!
Actually, nothing happened except the usual amount of bead-clutching by partisans and media writers.
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We don’t like to admit it, but many of us are closer to rock bottom than we might think.
Even TV news celebrities — a high-ego community if ever there was one — aren’t shielded from the ‘shame’ we tend to heap on people who are unemployed. The Great Recession should’ve taught us how vulnerable we are to the whims of employers and a shaky economy, and to think about what we’d do when the ax falls.
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For most of us, a minute or two of our workday in the context of our lives doesn’t define us. Read more →
A good screaming match is great for ratings. If intellectual curiosity gets slaughtered in the process, so be it. Read more →
Ryan Larson, the man wrongly accused in the November 2012 killing of Cold Spring police officer Tom Decker, is suing more news media organizations. Read more →

Country radio executive Keith Hill is telling radio programmers at country radio stations that if they want to get better ratings, they need to get female singers off the air.
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It’s a pretty fair bet that few people are going to feel sorry for the change that might’ve presented itself on your doorstep today.
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If you didn’t read all the way through the Associated Press’ story on Bob Schieffer today, you might’ve missed an important cultural nugget. Read more →
The Associated Press stylebook, the bible of newswriting, is announcing several changes and additions this week at a convention of copy editors. Most of them are of little consequence; you can now write BLT on first reference in a news story, for example. But the AP’s directive on suicide is another matter altogether. In its Read more →
In my idealistic world, it’s hard to believe that a journalist would be stupid enough to donate money to a politics-based organization, but Judy Woodruff was just that stupid. Read more →
The most interesting quote from this week’s Robin Huebner story about a Fargo TV reporter/anchor who was the victim of domestic abuse is this one: ‘She’s the last person you’d ever expect that this would happen to.’
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CEO John Paton has sent a memo to employees that a sale ‘is not in the best interest of shareholders at this time.’ Read more →

Herb Morrison was the guy who covered the Hindenburg disaster in New Jersey. Nobody heard his real voice that day. Read more →