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John Reinan

Minneapolis, MN
Commenter for
5 years 15 weeks

Recent Comments

Posted on 04/12/11 at 08:00 am in response to Compounding journalism's Original Sin: Publishing free content online

Very true. There's more onus on the individual now not only to find various sources of information from the expanding pool of offerings, but to judge their credibility.

Posted on 04/11/11 at 11:29 am in response to Compounding journalism's Original Sin: Publishing free content online

Here's more: dozens of news organizations last week used a passenger's Twitpic of damaged Southwest Airlines plane -- only one (Reuters) offered to pay her for the photo.

http://bit.ly/eyo42p

Posted on 04/05/11 at 08:45 pm in response to House Republicans unveil federal budget with aggressive cuts

You quote "Dem" Joe Lieberman offering praise for tackling entitlements. Lieberman caucuses with the Democrats, but he is not a Democrat. He's an independent -- elected as the sole member of the Connecticut for Lieberman Party.

He does not represent a mainstream Democratic voice -- he's to the right on many issues and can generally be counted on to praise the GOP and buck the Democratic leadership.

Posted on 04/04/11 at 11:33 am in response to Videos explore life in Twin Cities' skyways

I'm not optimistic. As long as the skyways exist, people will use them. It's just easier. I work in the North Loop and am not connected to the system, but even when I was, I made a point of using the sidewalks, even in winter. But that made me a rarity, if not an oddball. Most people are not going to give up the skyways. Stairways to street level will not work. I bet not 10% of people would use them.

Minneapolis sure screwed things up, first by indiscriminately leveling the Gateway...

Posted on 04/04/11 at 09:41 pm in response to How the 'Mad Men' era differs from today's marketing

I was hoping to hear from you on this one, Myles.

Posted on 03/30/11 at 06:09 pm in response to Star Tribune's 2011 ad revenues already under budget

Jeez, it's a tough time to have a labor contract come up. It's hard to imagine the paper will want to give back many of the cuts -- as you point out, David, they were at the core of 2010's financial success. The management may be genuinely good guys, want to treat the news staff fairly, and still feel they have to preserve the cuts to be viable going forward.

Certainly all the newspaper industry contracts signed over the last couple years have been pretty unfavorable to the...

Posted on 03/29/11 at 11:00 am in response to Bachmann, light bulbs and contradictions

I've never understood the continued references to Obama and teleprompters. Every single national politician of both parties for the last 50 years has used teleprompters to give televised speeches. It's a standard part of a televised broadcast, just like lighting and microphones.

Politicians who go on TV also wear makeup. Why not make fun of that too, BD?

Posted on 03/29/11 at 07:26 am in response to Bachmann, light bulbs and contradictions

I'm not wading into the political waters, but it does seem like there could be better subjects to pick a fight over than incandescent bulbs.

I once read a description calling them "heaters that happen to give off some light."

Posted on 03/28/11 at 11:13 am in response to First impressions: the Star Tribune's new website

Elsa -- on the web, you always know exactly what people are reading. So the predominance of sports and entertainment reflects what your fellow citizens are most often clicking on.

People have a great appetite for that stuff, and the Strib can't ignore that. It's why T&A TV shows do better in the ratings than documentaries. At some point, you've got to give your audience what it wants.

Posted on 03/28/11 at 09:38 am in response to Don't get out enough? This technology offers a solution

Dick, there actually should be many opportunities for the musicians to share the revenue. Just to take on example -- they can sell their music or anything else during their performances. Just put up a link on the screen during the performance that says, "click here to buy our CD (or T-shirt, or tickets, etc.)."

And if a nightclub sold subscriptions to a oconcert series, presumably they'd cut in the artists for some share of the proceeds.