Well, that was inevitable. Just shy of a week since KSTP aired its highly questionable report accusing Mayor Betsy Hodges of making a gang sign in a photo, a story that was instantly and widely mocked with the Twitter hashtag #pointergate, Jon Stewart jumped in on the criticism during a 5-minute segment on the Daily Show Wednesday night. Thanks, KSTP — they’re talking about us in New York.

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13 Comments

  1. Pointergate/postergate WWII?

    Anyone recall the vintage World War II recruiting poster for the US Army with Uncle Sam pointing “I WANT YOU”

    …Gang sign way back when,eh?

  2. Good Job

    Thanks to the Minneapolis Police Department and KSTP for making themselves the laughingstock of America. It’s good to have a bit of humor coming out of our great northern state and give us something to chuckle about while we’re fighting this cold blast.

  3. A stupid accusation just because she wants good cops

    The point is that the mayor wanted the cops to better police themselves.

    If this is the way they respond, if the accusations that it was driven from within the department are valid, it doesn’t leave a warm fuzzy feeling about the police.

    Why haven’t we heard more details from KSTP about how this “news report” came about?????

    1. Yes

      I don’t think KSTP quite realizes how much this has damaged their reputation.

      Local evening news is already deplored for its insipidity and irrelevance by a not insignificant part of the public. This self-created and utterly avoidable debacle on their part cements in the minds of many the justified suspicion that journalistic standards in this news medium are heading for the basement.

      The damage will be semi-permanent of an apology and retraction isn’t offered.

  4. And he got the call sign wrong!

    I believe JStew referred to the station as KTSP (although I will have to re-watch to confirm). Serves ’em right.

    Sad that Mpls’ finest look like a bunch of petty children in all this.

  5. No wonder she wants to get the police to straighten up

    I’ve known several police officers and county sheriffs and while they have a less than optimistic view of people they sure weren’t as dumb as the president of the union.

    I like Dave Dahl for the weather, but no more KSTP for me.

  6. And here…

    I thought racial profiling was an urban legend… until the MPLS police racially profiled their Mayor. D’oh!

  7. Nice bird…Leave it to leftist media to take a tawdry issue right into the gutter. sheesh

  8. Are these only ….

    the ripples on the surface of the realtions between the police union and the Mayor ? What about that civil rights lawsuit among reassigned Captains ? The claim of gang signs is asinine. However, what news source is trying to expose all of what seems to be going on ? Is this all about upper management trying to move away from a sowmewhat collaborative working model to a top down corporate style management model ? Nevertheless, it is very ham handed and intensely laughable. If the union is concerned about labor issues get those out in front of the public. Love to see KSTP and the Hubbard take the hit.

  9. Enough already, but…

    So much for looney tunes Pointer-gate and even the mayor calling the situation racism seems a bit over the top; but then who knows…

    Yet think of it this way… Hubbard has nothing in his cupboard with KSTP and a reporter hack way off-track…and then Hubbard defends a stupid remark stretched beyond any credibility?

    And doesn’t make it better, no – but consider also the China incident where World Press plays the same sick speculative game with Putin and the shawl for the ‘First Lady of China’?

    The press become baboons tossing coconuts at the audience mocking its own profession I would say and it happens here, there…we are not alone with bad press coverage?

  10. and then again

    …could be Racism is so embedded in the human psyche in degrees of ‘exclusivity’ ( like I/we over them); hate even in a tepid form at times but hate against whomever represents the ‘other’?

    …or call racism a bad seed, a sickness buried so deep it flashes its own ‘gang signs’…words this time, but oh so subtly full of hate the words don’t even register in their minds… their own attitudes don’t even register with the speaker of same so defensively trying to wash it all away…cop or media person,whomever?

    Hate, self doubt must exist in the mind but hides behind cold words that essentially define racism rather than recognize it, with even an apology? That’s sad sick; denial in all its elusiveness?

    There is no cure here but an apology might help a wee bit?

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