The Center for Public Integrity's Corbin Hiar reports that KSTP owner Hubbard Broadcasting, Inc. gave Karl Rove's American Crossroads "Super PAC" $100,000, according to a federal disclosure form filed Tuesday. CPI earlier reported Crossroads-affiliated groups plan to spend $300 million this election cycle attacking Democrats to elect Republicans.

Although Hiar writes, "this appears to be the first time Executive Chairman Stanley S. Hubbard has made a political donation directly from corporate coffers," that may only be true at the federal level. In the 2010 Minnesota gubernatorial race, HBI donated $100,000 to Minnesota Forward, a group backing Republican nominee Tom Emmer.

HBI subsequently donated $25,000 to Minnesota's Future, a group attacking Emmer's opponent, Mark Dayton), and $10,000 to Pro-Jobs Majority, which supported two legislative Republicans.

A Supreme Court decision earlier that year allowed corporations to donate to third-party groups doing "electioneering communications." Stanley Hubbard has been a longtime donor to GOP candidates and causes, with occasional donations to Democrats (including Dayton in the run-up to his abortive 2006 Senate re-election run).

The Center for Responsive Politics ranks Hubbard and wife Karen 11th in individual donors for the 2012 cycle, giving $210,759.

HBI gave American Crossroads the $100K Nov. 29. It's possible that Hubbard and HBI have given even more: Rove's other group, Crossroads GPS, does not have to disclose its donors. It raised $33 million last year, according to Politico.

The American Crossroad super PAC, which raised $18 million in 2011, can accept unlimited contributions for attack ads, but must disclose donors. Crossroads GPS can keep its donors secret, but must spend less than half its funds on explicitly "electioneering" ads.

So what does it mean for a news operation whose owners are contributing on an individual and corporate level, in state and federal races?

At the very least, KSTP must do the sort of disclosure Crossroads GPS need not bother with. The newsroom was red-faced two years ago when it failed to disclose corporate entanglements in news stories about Minnesota Forward's ads. Such disclaimers should become more numerous in 2012.

Beyond that? I've questioned KSTP's "Truth Tests" in the past, though I regard political reporter Tom Hauser as a professional with integrity, and there's no doubt the station has a good working relationship with conservative research organizations like the Freedom Foundation of Minnesota.

Do I sometimes think KSTP has its thumb on the scale about government spending and "your money"? Sure, and I'll be watching their election coverage even more closely in light of this. But I'm also prepared to admit my opinion can reflect my biases as much as any there that may trickle down.

Should you watch them skeptically? Yes, and management's increasing contributions should only heighten that skepticism. But then, again, you should watch us all skeptically.

In his story, the Center for Public Integrity's Hiar noted a "quick search" of news media names or organizations "did not turn up any donations given to progressive super PACs this election cycle"

We may be at the point where newspaper pay walls are no longer news — the Star Tribune, Rochester Post Bulletin andSt. Cloud Times, among others, now have them. But on Monday, the Mankato Free Press deployed one with a slight twist.

Unlike the Strib’s or the New York Times’, the Free Press will make current print subscribers pay more for full digital access. The fee is modest — a buck a month, or $10 a year. Still, it goes against the conventional wisdom that folks already paying you shouldn’t get something (free digital) "taken away."

Free Press publisher Jim Santori says his calculation was simple: “We feel we have developed over the past year a product that has value. We appreciate the print subscribers we have, and have been working toward methods in which we can treat our subscribers as ‘members’ — not unlike MPR’s model. One of the privileges of ‘membership’ is a discount to our online product.”

Otherwise, the Free Press model has similarities to the Times, which Santori says he watched. The pay wall is technically a meter – 10 pages a month are free to anyone, and obits, classifieds, weddings, engagements and celebrations are always free. More than that, non-subscribers must pay $4.99 a month.

Santori says he expects “a very modest increase in revenue.” The point is not to supplant print circulation revenue, he adds, again invoking the “member” ethos:

“I just feel like it finally gets our readers to understand that online has been developed as a separate product with a number of online-only features like CoverItLive, blogs, breaking news, police blotters, crime maps, etc. – and that product is worth something. News coverage is not free and it gives our readers an opportunity to support what we are doing in a modest way.”

Santori says he doesn’t know how what percent of readers will pay — “What, you think we have a big research team like the New York Times to predict such things!” — but guesses a “10-12 percent” page view drop.

“We do know about 60 percent of our users access more than 10 pages a month and seem the most loyal,” he notes.

As for web advertisers, the Free Press doesn’t sell by CPM (a page view measure), instead selling page positions and other various slots. Says Santori, “Anecdotally, we have heard elsewhere advertisers liked the notion of a pay wall, because those who pay are more dedicated and potentially more valuable users. We’ll see if the same holds here.”

For journalism-business junkies, the Free Press worked with Press+, the Steve Brill-Gordon Crovitz start-up that pushed metered pay walls since before they were cool. (Brill, founder of The American Lawyer magazine and Court TV, and Crovitz, ex- of the Wall Street Journal and a current member of the Star Tribune’s board, sold the company to R.R. Donnelly, but remain in management.)

A company spokeswoman says Press+ currently has 220 clients with 300 slated for 2012, but would not say if the Free Press is the first in Minnesota, citing confidentiality.

It’s not a snowy collapse, but the city of Minneapolis faces another dome problem.

An unfortunate design in the Minneapolis Convention Center’s copper domes has blown what could be a $15 million hole in the building’s capital budget. And that could affect plans for another edifice, a downtown Vikings stadium.

Mayor R.T. Rybak’s latest Vikings stadium plan relies on “excess” revenues from taxes meant for the Convention Center. A mayoral spokesman insists the roof problem won't affect the stadium plan, even though it may claim some of those taxes. City Council skeptics aren't as confident, and the building manager calls still-unclear demands on the taxes a "concern."

If nothing else, the costly replacement — potentially costing more than the city charter's $10 million stadium-subsidy limit — shows how aging buildings could trip up new ones.

The ‘ice cube tray’
The 1.6 million-square-foot Convention Center has four domes; three were built between 1989 and 1991, with a fourth added in 2001.

The swirling ridges and diamond-shaped panels are undeniably artistic. However, if you'd hoped to live long enough to see the copper turn as green as the Statue of Liberty’s skin, it is not meant to be.

Convention Center executive director Jeff Johnson likens the ridged design to an “ice cube tray” that holds water. Twenty winters’ worth of expanding and contraction has opened many leaks, predominantly between the older domes’ copper plates.

Each dome has a sealant underlayment. The sealant is like tarpaper, and after 20 summers, has melted down the curved surfaces. Result: the Convention Center spends $250,000 a year chasing leaks, Johnson says.

The tarpaper is the real problem, but once you tear the copper off to get at it “you can really cannot put the old copper back on,” he notes. "It's like a jigsaw puzzle."

Johnson is currently readying bid specifications and expects to present a package to the Council this spring. Without firm numbers, Johnson estimates replacement at “$5 million to $15 million; probably the higher end of the range” if a more modern copper system replaces it.

To offset some of that cost, Johnson told Schiff in November that the city could sell the old copper, though it likely wouldn't come close to paying the bill.

Bad planning?
Despite the design flaws, Johnson says the copper roof lasted 22 years, past its 10-year warranty. It shouldn’t be surprising that that the system is nearing the end of its useful life, he adds: “Call the Mall of America and see if they get roof leaks. Roofs deteriorate.”

Still, dome replacement is not in the building's current 15-year capital plan. “A functional roof is super-important, so we’ll be looking at repurposing money, bonding, looking at all sorts of ways to pay for it,” Johnson notes.

Bonding — another word for borrowing — might sap money from the most recent Vikings stadium plan, if paid off with the same taxes that fund Convention Center improvements.

Unfortunately for both the Convention Center and the stadium plan, there are no excess taxes until 2021. The latest Vikings plan calls for the state to front Minneapolis the cash; when the excess materializes, the city will pay $300 million-plus through 2045.

According to finance projections released last week, the Convention Center’s capital account is slated to get $7.1 million this year, and between $9 million and $18 million per year from 2014 to 2045, totalling $365 million.

If a $15 million expenditure is accounted for somewhere in that $365 million plan, stadium financing might not be hurt. But during last week’s stadium hearing, Schiff pointedly contrasted a new Vikings stadium with needing to sell copper for scrap.

Mayor's office: no effect on stadium plan
Rybak spokesman John Stiles pegs the dome-replacement cost at $5 million to $10 million, well below Johnson's top-end estimate. He acknowledges that Minneapolis "will most likely bond for a significant share of the project, with borrowing paid back over time through Convention Center/hospitality taxes."

Still, Stiles argues the spending "won't be a material factor at all in the existing stadium plan. With or without a stadium, we will annually revist all expenditure needs of the Convention Center and Target Center, and develop plans to accommodate them, including whether to finance capital improvements or use existing cash."

That's what worries another Council opponent, Elizabeth Glidden. Despite Stiles' confidence, Glidden says that because the same taxes would fund a Vikings stadium, Target Center and Convention Center, the city buildings could come last.

"Do you think the state will let Target Center and Convention Center obligations come before the Vikings stadium?" asks Glidden, who has long chaired the council committee that lobbies the legislature. "They're all money holes — we've seen that. What happens if there's a year when the sales tax revenue doesn't come through?"

Although Rybak touts the property-tax savings from moving Target Center onto the Convention Center sales tax, Glidden says surprises like a bad copper roof or a bad downtown economy anytime in the next 30 years could put taxpayers right back on the hook, with the sales tax significantly obligated to Wilf Field through 2045.

A plastic cap?
Copper isn't the only option for the domes. Johnson thinks there's a cheaper one: "Recycled plastic. PVC, actually."

That's right: the Convention Center could soon sport plastic bubbles. The plastic — which would essentially be a sealed cap with no need for an underlayment — might be had at the $5 million end of the range. That price, amid grand plans elsewhere, might be hard to turn down.

Still, wouldn't protruding PVC look a little ... cheesy?

Johnson says he intends to replace the domes with “the same look and same functionality we currently have. My expectation is that a normal person would not know the difference between today and whatever we do.”

The proof may already be visible. “There’s a test section up there right now,” Johnson notes. “I don’t think anybody could ever tell.”

Let's hope that's still true 20 years from now.

Although they have not closed the deal on a contract that expires today, the Pioneer Press Newspaper Guild approved a no-layoff extension through March 31. 

The Guild — which represents the newsroom and many business departments – will continue to swallow a 37.5-hour workweek first agreed to last January. That deal cut pay proportionately from a 40-hour week.

Spending as much time reading online as I do, I get persnickity about what designers call the "user experience." One of the more vexing sites has been the Pioneer Press's TwinCities.com, which once prompted Twin Cities Business editor Adam Platt to ask if it was "the worst major-newspaper site in the country."

We'll leave that provocative question for another day, but at least one new change caught my eye. Like Goldilocks going from too cold to too hot, Twincities.com changed its body-copy font size from fine-print small to grandparent large — in my mind, bypassing "juuuuust right."

Here's how the PiPress (left) looks compared to the Star Tribune. Click the image for actual size:

The move had me scratching my head until PiPress tech writer Julio Ojeda-Zapata tweeted, "You'll like if you're reading on an iPad."

Damned if he wasn't right.

The PiPress text is perfectly sized for iPad reading, allowing you to bypass the paper's fairly kludgy iPad app.

So is this a case of tablets conquering desktops and laptops ... even on websites?

Managing editor Chris Clonts — who's been a fairly good sport over the years about my nags — replies, "We did consider that. Lots of folks are using the site on tablets outside of our apps. As you've no doubt seen, mobile is experiencing fabulous growth."

Since November, the Pioneer Press has benefited from the Strib's paywall, and is now run by DigitalFirst, a management company that thinks web/social networking first, print last.

As to my complaints about oversized type, Clonts notes each story has a text-shrinking option. However, there's no universal setting; you have to do it for every story. He also argues that "at least 59 percent" of Twincities.com visitors use monitors at least 1280 pixels wide, which shrinks the body font's appearance.

(I've checked on a 1920-pixel wide 24-inch monitor and 1280-pixel 19-inch monitor, and they both look huge to me.)

As it turns out, the PiPress body font doesn't look that much bigger than the New York Times, though the Times puts less spacing between lines of copy.

Anyway, Clonts notes other TwinCities.com changes that "don't really add up to a redesign, but we hope provide a better experience":

• Breaking news more prominent on the home page.
• Articles now show the time they were posted and when they were updated.
• The home page shows how long ago a story was updated, rather than merely listing the time (except in the Chrome browser)
• Altered the font, color and size of article page body and headline type.

"Those are just a few, and we're receiving near unanimous, unprompted positive feedback so far," Clonts says. "Our Brian Henderson and the Denver Post's Joe Murphy have teamed up for many of the changes. You'll see more in the next few days and weeks. Some won't be directly noticeable."

So far, Clonts has not given ground on my biggest non-ad gripe web-design gripe: the creeping — indeed skidding — left-hand "share bar" the follows you down the page. I honestly can't read the story with this thing desperately begging for my attention (though it disappears if you shrink the window far enough). If the PiPress must, they should fix the share bar to the screen top, a la this.

Michele Tafoya will step down as WCCO-AM's afternoon host; John Williams will get the 3-6 p.m. slot next week, according to a staff memo from WCCO market manager Mick Anselmo.

Tafoya's ratings haven't been high: in November, she grabbed 3.5 percent of men 25-54, the core talk listenership. WCCO is content with an older 35-64 demographic, but 13th place here — behind KFAN, 1500ESPN, Twin Cities NewsTalk and MPR News — wasn't great.

That said, Williams' 9 a.m. to noon show finished 17th in the same demographic, with a 1.4 percent share.

Here's Anselmo's memo:

Good morning,

I have some announcements to share with you regarding programming on WCCO:

1. Michele Tafoya has decided to spend more time with her family. Consequently, Michele will be cutting back on her duties with WCCO. With two full-time jobs and a beautiful family, it comes as no surprise to anyone, especially me. She's an immense talent, driven and focused, but her new role at NBC includes an Olympic assignment as well as the Super Bowl, and is even more demanding of her schedule. Michele will step away as our regular afternoon host effective this Friday, but will continue with Super Bowl updates through Super Bowl weekend. She will remain with us as a fill in host and commentator, and will continue to do endorsements for our clients.

2. I’m pleased to announce that, effective January 30th, John Williams will move to 3-6pm on WCCO! John’s entertaining and thought provoking talent are an important factor in the growth of WCCO. He is the perfect choice to take over afternoon drive and follow the tradition that was established by legendary broadcasters like Steve Cannon, in a contemporary style that will resonate with Minnesotans of today.

3. Last, but not least, Kyle Shiely is being promoted to full-time Producer. Kyle’s versatility and passion for radio are well-known among the programming staff. As full-time Producer, he will take on more responsibilities, while continuing to assist Bob and his staff as he has since his arrival at WCCO.

Please join me in congratulating Michele, John and Kyle in their new roles with WCCO!

Fourteen years ago, I did an interview with Bill Buzenberg when he took over Minnesota Public Radio’s news operation. The subject of the 9-11 a.m. “Midmorning,” came up, and I mentioned that the show too often featured the “social service provider of the week” – earnest guests who weren’t exactly in the news cycle. Buzenberg made it clear: “Midmorning” would get newsier.

Over the years, it did, especially right after Buzenberg brought on then-KARE11 political reporter Kerri Miller in 2004. To my ears, the show has gotten less urgent in recent years, as (for example) Miller’s literary proclivities can make Midmorning a less-visual version of C-SPAN’s “Booknotes.”  

With my philistine credentials established, I’m tentatively pleased with the news that the new "Daily Circuit" will subsume “Midmorning” and the 11 a.m. hour of Gary Eichten’s “Midday,” beginning Feb. 21. Though the name is awkwardly generic — one click above “MPR NewsQ” — several overdue changes are afoot.

First, Daily Circuit won’t be locked into the guest-an-hour format that dominated the “mids.”

Says MPR general manager Tim Roesler, “As you’ve noticed, in Gary’s show and on Midmorning, the topic sometimes doesn’t really go where you want it to go. We want to treat the audience with respect; we hear the same things you do.”

Miller says the new show will feature “one in-depth interview an hour, 35 to 45 minutes. I feel like that’s our brand, people want it, that’s context, and we don’t want to lose that.”

At the same time, the show will be faster-paced, with more topics and topicality, more newsmakers, more reporter debriefs. (Conflict-of-interest note: Miller invited me to be a guest Friday in the 9 a.m. hour, which should be a stern test of this new paradigm.)

Second, MPR — which has greatly expanded its newsroom since Miller signed on — will actually include original reporting in the show. Tom Weber — until now MPR’s schools correspondent — will handle that. Weber will salt his reporting into his newscasts and, potentially, more in-depth stories.

“We want to follow the news cycle — absolutely,” Roesler says. “We haven’t totally broke something new on ‘Midmorning’ and 'Midday' — Gov. Ventura announcing he wasn’t running on Gary’s show, that might be the extent of the newsmaking. With Tom, we’ll run things first on ‘Daily Circuit.’”

With their growing newsroom, there’s really no reason for MPR to take their foot off the reporting pedal (aside from newscasts) for six hours between “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered.” Anyone who reads MPR’s website knows they produce more news than fits into their current line-up. If Weber’s ascension extends the reporting bridge between morning and afternoon drive, that’s a very good thing.

Third, in grabbing Weber and “Movie Maven” Stephanie Curtis as social media impresario, the show gets younger and, potentially, looser. The stentorian Miller polarizes MPR listeners in a way no other host does; she can be an excellent interviewer — aggressive by the network’s standards — but many find her affected.

Anyone who’s listened to “Movie Maven” segments knows that’s not a problem for Curtis; she’s really one of the down-to-earth people at MPR who can laugh at herself, and even her workplace, while still upholding its values. Too often, the network’s “no rant, no slant” ethos drains correspondents of their personalities; there are plenty of opportunities for authentically fun people to remain authentically informative.

I don’t know Weber well, but he’s held in very high esteem around the shop and appears to “get it” about engaging audiences in new ways while still being a topical reporter.

Miller acknowledges her style hurdle. “I think you’ve got something there; it’s the balance between getting the answers and still be warm to the audience. Do I feel need to work on this? Yes. Is this the opportunity to work on this? Yes. We can have a little fun, be a little warmer” with Weber and Curtis to bounce off of.

She adds, “When I watched [former KARE11 anchor] Paul Magers do this, he had a nice balance, he knew his stuff and it showed, but he was warm and accessible on the air, not afraid to engage in fun, cross-talk.”

Like many new media ventures, “Daily Circuit” also promises more audience interaction.

Roesler says “Daily Circuit” will include “audience input stuff, tweeting, a Facebook page, as well as having a form-builder on the website, so you can just engage via the website if you want to. In the past, we might have taken a look [at Twitter, Facebook, etc.] after the show, or once in awhile during the show. Steph will be doing it minute-by-minute, feeding the newsroom. We’ll also do some exchanges off the air — the ‘always on’ that’s new to this field, so we can keep learning and sharing at, say, 3 p.m.”

Says Curtis, “We’ve never married social media to a news program. That’s all I’m going to do.”

Is this some sort of pell-mell rush for younger audiences, a la NPR’s late, barely lamented “Bryant Park Project”?

Roesler says the changes are “not going to shock. It’s less driven by a need for younger audiences than developing the next, best, talent. When you spot a really good talent like Tom is, you want to take advantage of it. Combining a new voice with Kerri and her success may yield a younger listenership, but we want to honor who’s listening. And we already have a very good chunk in the 18-34, 30-ish audience.”

Roesler says ultimately, "Daily Circuit" will "be in the news cycle, but not abandon literary and authors; there’s a really loyal audience who loves that. We want to make public service interesting and fun — we’ve done an OK job, but with the new format, we can be even better at that.”

On Saturday night, several media outlets prematurely reported Penn State football coach Joe Paterno had died. It started with an online campus paper, spread to CBSSports.com, then the Huffington Post. The latter two ripped off the erroneous student report without attribution – weird justice there.

Naturally, this was all tweeted, retweeted and Facebooked, leading print-dependent organizations like the Washington Post to tub-thump “Social Media sets off firestorm of false reports.” Meanwhile, Star Tribune business editor Todd Stone tweeted, “Most newspapers have high standards for corroborating a story. Follow them and you will be a reliable and accurate journalist.”

One problem: The Star Tribune not only published the erroneous reports on its website, but on the sports front of its Sunday state edition.

The online story — “Media reports: Paterno has died at age 85” — was only up for a scant 12 minutes, from 8:03 p.m. to 8:15 p.m., before it was replaced by “Family denies media reports that Paterno has died.”

The print side wasn’t so lucky: “Report: Paterno dead at age 85” is there in perpetuity for anyone who bought a Sunday Strib a several dozen miles beyond the metro area.

The Washington Post would’ve been more accurate if it had said “Student journalist sets off firestorm of false reports — abetted by thieving online journalists without the decency to credit.” Stone’s tweet — which I generally agree with —would’ve been better if he’d added “but newspapers are not immune.”

So what happened at 425 Portland on Saturday night? According to knowledgeable Stribbers who asked not to be named because they lacked management clearance to be quoted, the Paterno “story” broke within 20 minutes of the Sunday state edition's 8:10 p.m. deadline.

As you can imagine, 8:10 Saturday night is pretty early for the sports copy desk, which is constantly pushing to get up-to-the-minute results into a Sunday paper that is the week’s most widely read (and most profitable).

Copy editor Ken Chia saw the explosion of “Paterno dead” chatter, saw the seemingly credible CBS name attached to “Joe Paterno: 1926-2012” and for good measure, got the HuffPo report. With his boss’s sign-off — though with disagreement from at least one other copy editor — Chia decided to fold that info into an Associated Press report that Paterno was gravely ill.

Associated Press spokesman Paul Colford said the wire service never transmitted Paterno’s death announcement Saturday. “What we have seen is what somebody here politely refers to as ‘mash-ups’ of erroneous reports,” he says.

Essentially, that’s what Chia did. He added a new lead paragraph to the AP story: “Joe Paterno died Saturday night, CBS Sports and the Huffington Post reported on their websites, hours after doctors said the former Penn State football coach’s condition had become ‘serious’ following complications from lung cancer in recent days.”

Chia left on the AP writer’s byline (Genaro C. Armas), normally a very stand-up thing, since everything else in the story came from the wire. And — in one of those nuanced newspapering conventions most readers don’t grasp — his headline included “Report:” to signal a lack of official confirmation.

(A second copy editor, whose name I don’t know, emitted the bad web report.)

In hindsight, of course, the Strib didn’t remotely need to push the envelope. Anyone who consistently reads the Sunday state edition knows they won’t get much happening after dessert. While I’m sure the Strib copy desk didn’t want a “Paterno ailing” headline to hit the news racks after Paterno died, there was no special urgency if this story was missed — by a day on the print side, or 15 minutes on the web side.

As MPR web editor Than Tibbetts put it on his personal blog “Joe Paterno is not a tornado.”

And yet it’s hard for me not to be understanding, no matter how stupid the mistake. The night before, the sports desk had labored mightily to get superb coverage of a thrilling Timberwolves-Clippers game into the paper, even though the West Coast game lasted well past midnight. As Stone’s tweet indicates, newspapers pride themselves on being a culture of verification, but they are also a culture of news, as in n-e-w.

As a journalist who works without copy editors and wishes he did, I appreciate that defending against errors is a little bit like defending against terrorists … you have to succeed every time, they have to succeed once.

In this case, a defender carried a terrorist’s bomb into the terminal. If nothing else, the Strib should clamp down on the “Reports:” gambit in favor of stronger attribution. The CBS and HuffPo story had vague or nonexistent sourcing that didn’t justify risking this sort of embarrassment.

By 8:20, the sports desk knew their story was in error; apparently “stop the presses!” was not an option. The later Strib edition featured a solid Philadelphia Inquirer story. By the wee hours, Chia, who has worked on the desk for a decade, had outed himself to Facebook pals and lamented equating CBS Sports with Walter Cronkite’s CBS.

Cronkite’s dead, and the Internet and social networking are here to stay. But in this contagion, journalists were the most powerful vector, and print provided less immunity that the tub-thumpers would have you believe.

Would you accept an ad from a religious sect touting a divine revelation given to a convicted sex abuser of two girls under 16?

That's what the Star Tribune did Friday morning, running two ads from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. One (on page A5 of my Minneapolis edition), simply says, "Jesus Christ, Son Ahman." The second, on A6, proclaimes "Revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ Given to President Warren Jeffs," and offers serveral writings for sale.

Jeffs, the president of the polygamist sect, was convicted in 2011 of molesting two "child brides" aged 12 and 15. He is serving life plus 20 years in a Texas prison.

I sent an email Friday morning to publisher Mike Klingensmith and sales V.P. Jeff Griffing seeking an explanation. I'll update this item as soon as I get one. [Update: a Strib spokesman is sticking with their policy, below, about not discussion advertiser relations publicly.]

The Strib has rejected religion-based advertising — just seven months ago, they blocked an ad other newspapers ran from the Presbyterian Lay Committee, which opposed gay ordinations in that denomination. At the time, a Strib spokesman refused to explain why, saying, "We consider the ad acceptance process a private business transaction between us and the advertiser — which we do not discuss publicly."

In the past, I've criticized the paper for accepting ads from sketchy mass marketers and defended their rejecting ads from Tom Petters litigants.

In the former case, Griffing described the Strib's process this way:

“We’ve got specific advertising policy guidelines [manuals] in the following categories: General, Automotive, Employment, Housing,” he explains. “There are trigger words and/or illustrations/photos in creative copy that get that ad hard-routed to our policy desk where a policy representative looks at every ad and checks against both our internal guidelines and law.

“In addition, categories like political and advocacy ads require additional forms to be filled out in advance, and those forms also go to our policy desk for deeper review.”

It will be interesting to hear how these new ones passed the smell test.

The most sincere tribute co-workers can give a retiring colleague is that, as his workdays draw short, everyone looks like their dog died. The MPR newsroom air was thick with wistfulness Wednesday, the day before the day before Gary Eichten’s last broadcast. A parade of nominal competitors, including me and KARE’s John Croman, watched through the soundproof glass as the Midday host gently quizzed Minnesota legislative leaders, wrapping up 20 years on the show.

As you’ve surely read by now, the 45-year MPR veteran is a prince of a guy, genuinely revered for his crusty decency and patient interrogatories. (His producer, Sara Meyer, who has worked on Midday even longer, says she’s attended “The School of Eichten.”) He’s a strapping guy — it’s not hard to visualize the cannon-armed center fielder of MPR’s softball team — but when Eichten is in his Midday cockpit, he slumps a bit, looking a tad like a skinnier version of “Up’s” Carl Fredricksen. It’s only then you really see a guy about to retire.

Eichten’s life story has been admirably told — here, here and here among other places — so I thought we’d spend our hour talking mostly about the practice of journalism.

Because radio is such an intimate medium, and audiences have been intimate with Eichten for so long, he is the epitome of objectivity — the “no rant, no slant” MPR famously advertises. We talked about that — the neutrality that New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen criticizes as “the view from nowhere,” limiting in its truth-telling — but also fun stuff like losing it with a guest, getting called into MPR founder Bill Kling's office, and why Jesse Ventura may have put the network over the top.

My questions are in italics.

Were you always in the "objective" mode of reporting?

I came up in the old school, the Cronkite model — you can in fact have objective journalism ... which is subject to debate. I never had a sense that, “By golly, I’m going to become a crusader,” or anything of the sort. I cling to the notion that what I think about a story is utterly immaterial. I have my opinions, to be sure, but no one needs to know what they are.

Will people know once you leave here?

I don’t think so, if for no other reason than I’d like to do some things on occasion here at the station. So I’ll zip my lip, you know.

Do you value journalists who are crusaders, who have an opinion, who are more in-your-face? Or is that all going down the wrong road?

All of the above. I respect people who are good at it. I think history is replete with the muckrakers who really set out to change things, an important contribution. I also think there’s a purpose for that, a reason.

I also think it’s become too much of a norm — everybody’s got to stick their nose in, “I, I, I, me, me, me.” I think that’s bad. I think ultimately the listener, the reader, can be informed enough to judge. "This Brauer guy, he’s out to change the world, he’s got interesting ideas, so I’ll pay attention to him, but I realize what his agenda is." Well, that’s ok, nothing wrong that.

But — I hesitate to use the word amateur — but there are too many people into that sort of thing. I’m troubled that too often people are dismissive of the pursuit of what we used to call objective journalism. It’s not only that there’s nothing wrong with giving people straight, unbiased information — there’s a need for that. And to just to dismiss is as just … a view, is ridiculous.

The case that gets made against objective journalism is that when it's failed, it hasn't challenged conventional wisdom. You heard this talk in Vietnam coverage — the truth was too seldom reported.

Oh sure, you’ve gotta ask the tough questions. I think it’s a false equivalency to say just because you want to be civil and reasonable, open-minded, ergo, you’re not going to ask tough questions. I don’t see any contradictions there.

Good lord, if people had asked tough questions ... let me be blunt, David — if people had asked the right questions about Vietnam, my good friend wouldn’t be dead. So I feel pretty strongly about this stuff.

But that doesn’t mean, even then, that you have to crucify people; let’s get the information out. Ultimately, I think it becomes self-defeating if people are convinced you’re out there to score points. They’re going to dismiss the information you do want covered because, well, he’s loaded the dice, and more likely to dismiss what you have found out. So then you end up with these two camps yelling at each other.

One of the criticisms about Midday, and MPR on-air, is that they spend a lot of time with the power brokers, the establishment, but not enough with truly unconventional political thinkers who might change the way Minnesotans look at things. Do you think that's fair?

I think, yeah, probably. Decision-makers, the people actually making policies that affect our listeners — that really has been the goal all along. Or if they’re not making decisions, like the college profs, somebody who can inform what decisions are being made, what’s happening in the news. 

I suppose there aren’t as many other voices, other approaches heard on the air as there might be — but on the other hand, you only have so much time.

You can have 25 people waxing eloquent with their opinions, but if nobody’s listening to their opinions … I don’t know, it's just kind of an interesting conversation. But if you can get people who are actually make the decision in-studio and have an interesting conversation, then you’ve got a two-fer. 

Now, if you can also get the other voice on, that’s the better approach. I suppose we come up short in that area sometimes.

Have you noticed a change in callers since you've done Midday?

I think so, sure. As the audience has grown, you get a lot broader range of callers. We have people who from the ends of the spectrum and every stop in-between as callers, from the hardcore liberal/radical to the hardcore conservative.

I’m not sure that used to be the case because there weren’t that many people listening, frankly. And the ones who were listening tended to more carefully fit the traditional public-radio stereotype.

When did that change? When do you think MPR really took off? MPR News hasn't always been among the biggest local stations. Was there a person, an innovation, a thing where you thought, "Now we've got everybody listening to us?"

Two answers to that, David. One — no, it’s been pretty incremental over time. I remember making calls to people and they went, “Who? What?” And we were doing some pretty good work at the time but nobody knew we existed. That doesn’t happen now.

But then on the other hand, if you pushed me on this, I’d say, yeah, two things happened.

One is that Bill Buzenberg came [in 1998] as our news director, vice-president for news ... whatever the heck they call it. I think he really gave us a kick in the butt and got us headed in the right direction.

And the other thing that made a real difference in terms of the audience was when Gov. Ventura got elected. Because he was a great audience draw — just interesting, controversial, provocative. And who knows why, he decided this was a place he could come in and take the grilling and answer the questions. He was very religious about coming in on Midday every month, for example, and doing the governor’s call-in.

In fact, as I look back on my time here, one of the really stupid things I’ve done — or didn’t do — I remember Jesse Ventura came in right before the 1998 election, one of our Meet the Candidates show. I’m sure he’s never heard of public radio, much less the audience, and we did the show, and the lines were filled. You couldn’t possibly get in and ask a question.

Had I had any brains I would’ve looked at that and said, “He’s gonna win the election on Tuesday!” This, is, after all, public radio — this is not Jesse Ventura’s natural audience, and these people are just wild, just so happy and interested in what he has to say.

Well, of course, I didn’t put two and two together, but it did help us. That show was a great help to us because he went for a last couple days of campaigning, and he was in, let’s say, Thief River Falls, a long way away from the Twin Cities, and some guy from the crowd yells out, “Hey Jesse, I heard you on the public radio! That’s a good show!” Well, he was shocked, on a couple of levels — one, that you could get public radio up here, and you guys listen to that.

So I think the confluence of those two put us over the top.

And of course, in the ‘80s, when they decided to split the services, that’s when we started to grow. People who didn’t like one service didn’t have to turn us off.

I was thinking there are three significant figures most people could identify from MPR: There’s Bill Kling, there’s Garrison Keillor, and there’s you...

… Boy, that’s some pretty heady company, David … I’m sorry, I can’t ….

… Well here's where I'm going: Those other two have their detractors. I’m more cynical than the next guy, but when I talk to people around here about you, everyone around is super-grateful, super-appreciative, not an unkind word to say. I think that’s quite amazing. I mean, I know you’re irascible, you have an edge, but … where did that come from? Did your parents raise you right?

I don’t know … that’s awfully nice. I guess I just never thought otherwise about it. It’s the old Golden Rule stuff. I never, sounds very self-serving, I’ve never thought of myself as better than anyone else here. I’m just a guy.

We all know people who have a pretty inflated view of themselves, and I never felt that way. I love the people I work with … not everybody of course, some people I’d rather never see again … but thousands of people have come through here, and most of them I’ve liked a lot, so why wouldn’t you treat them nice? They’re good people — they’re smart … hell, they work hard, what’s not to like?

Those other guys, Bill Kling and Garrison Keillor, are geniuses for cripes sake. They are! I’m not. I’m a radio announcer fundamentally, and I’m proud of it, but I am not a genius. I don’t know what else to say.

I know Kling as a guy who's the smartest guy in the room, really successful, really competitive, sometimes needlessly so. You were present at the creation — what insights can you give about him?

Well, I don’t know I could tell you something other people couldn’t. But from the first time I met him, he was just … a single-minded focus on making this station the best that it could possibly be. It was ridiculous, there were five guys hanging around, none of us could figure out what to do next. But that was the focus, that was the goal, the whole point of what we were up to, and that’s never wavered.

A lot of times, it was really tough — in my brief stint as a manager, you’d really knock it out of the park and you might get a pat on the head, but more likely, you’d hear, "That’s nice, but what have you done for me lately?" And there was that constant pushing.

Sometimes it was tough, no question. But you don’t work for somebody for the better part of 45 years and not like the guy and not really appreciate what he’s all about. I don’t know that’s a deep insight, but that’s the one thing. We had our arguments; thank God he didn’t fire me — he had plenty of opportunities over the years, plenty of justification.

Really?

Oh yeah.

Really?

[Laughs.] Nothing that came around regularly. I wasn't ... as much of a cheerleader perhaps for some of the ideas that came down. And as it turns out, he was right about virtually everything, but I would pooh-pooh this and pooh-pooh that.

I remember one that really got my ass in the wringer. It was the start of the split service thing, started the news service on a little AM station and one of the weeklies, the Twin Cities Reader or City Pages, and they asked me what I thought about this. I think my direct quote was, “This is the nuttiest thing to ever come down the pike, unless we have enough money to pull it off in which case it will probably be fine.”

Well, of course, when the story was published, the way the quote was presented, they kind of dropped the second part. And this is not exactly what you’d call the company line. [Laughs.] And we had this company intercom system – you could push this button and you could say whatever you wanted to throughout the building. And the paper had no more than arrived and from the intercom it was, “Eichten! Come to my office!” [Laughs.]

Caught hell about that, but I think I was innocent on that. We had a few of those where I should’ve zipped my lip.

Have you always been a patient interviewer? Is that something you learn, or a temperamental thing?

I think a lot of it has to do with the format. When you have a full hour, you can let people stretch out a bit. I remember when I was doing [the late afternoon] “All Things Considered,” all of those interviews were three, four minutes, we did virtually all of them all live. You didn’t have time to stretch out, to let the guest wax eloquent.

But here, you get more chance to let people breathe — and ultimately, you get more out of that because people end up saying things you haven’t even asked them. They just start talking. And that’s the whole point. It’s just as if you had them over for dinner. Just because you asked them a question doesn’t mean that’s all the answer you’re gonna get. Pretty soon, they’re talking about what they did for lunch, and the person they met five years ago when blah, blah, blah, and you learn some interesting things.

Have you ever lost it on the air — with a guest, with a caller?

Well, I don’t know that I want to go into details and tell you who the guy was, but it was not too many years ago, there was a fellow who was propped up as a real expert on Iraq, he had been to Iraq, a personal perspective. We got him on, and he was, I don’t know what his deal was, but he was … lying wasn’t the right word, but he was completely full of misinformation.

Really bad information — stuff that was grotesquely wrong, American soldiers massacring, desecrating Iraqis, just ridiculous stuff and I finally blew up with him. Had to.

What did you say?

Don’t know, don’t remember. I don’t know what we put on for the rest of the hour but I wasn’t going to go on. It’s one thing to have an opinion, but to provide people with blatant misinformation and B.S., that doesn’t do anybody any good.

So you basically said, "We’re done."

Yeah. Thanks a lot, let’s go to commercial. [Laughs.] That’s the only one I can remember getting that angry.

Did you want to come to Midday from All Things Considered?

No, I was as happy as a clam doing that and I got fired from that job, so …

Seriously?

Yeah, sure! And the fella who gave me the ax, he said, well, why you don’t you do that Midday show, which at that time was well, let’s say it wasn’t the ideal assignment. We didn’t have a lot of listeners, it was kind of a goofy format, it wasn’t anything like it is today. And I thought, “Oh great, isn’t that wonderful.” But he made the fatal mistake of saying, “You can do with it whatever you want.” [Laughs.]

Why did you get fired?

I don’t know, actually. I’m not sure. Part of it of it had to do with a legitimate desire to get more women on the air, and something had to give, somebody had to get moved. So that was part of it. But I’m sure there were other things going on.

[I should note at this point that Sara Meyer pooh-poohs this version of events. "He didn't get fired," she says with the air of a spouse who's tired of hearing a well-worn tale. "They just wanted to rearrange the hosts" and thought he'd do better in a longer format.]

You've told other interviewers you don't consider yourself a journalist, which is insane considering you've been one for 45 years. I think journalism is like a craft — you can learn it by doing.

I have never been in a journalism class. I do not know a lot of things a professional journalist knows. I do a lot of news, kind of self-taught in that sense, but I’ve never felt like a journalist, or my perception of a journalist.

I do honestly believe that people who are formally trained do know stuff that I don’t know. I’m just not that familiar with all the ins and outs of the First Amendment, stuff like that. But I think there’s some truth that you can do the work of a journalist without formal training. There is some truth to that.

Don't want to go without letting you say something about Sara Meyer. What has she done to make Gary Eichten Gary Eichten?

She’s done everything. I'm not exaggerating. She books all the guests, she's been my sidekick right along. She's made this program something it wasn’t when I got stuck on it. She has produced all of our special events coverage, all our election night coverage, all our convention coverage. She’s great. I wouldn’t have been able to do half the stuff I’ve been able to do, or get credited for without her. She’s just really good.