As former elected officials, we can attest to the vital role a probing independent media plays in making certain we have a competent and honest system of democratic governance and perhaps that is why the press is the only industry granted special protections in our Constitution.
This also carries with it an ongoing responsibility of high standards and expectations, which is financially challenging in an industry that is beset with competition from social media and other technological advances. However, compelling questions that determine our quality of life remain and the media must lead the effort for a full and complete understanding.
The Humphrey School of Public Policy informed us nearly two years ago that our Legislature was rewarding large campaign contributors with special favors, including the opportunity to “shape” legislation. Three months later, we put out a report noting that the four legislative caucuses raised more than $26.5 million or some $130,000 per incumbent for the 2020 elections and had partisan staffs that worked at the direction of caucus leaders and exceeded the size of both major parties. All this paid for by the taxpayer.
This is the face of corruption and, yes, it is in Minnesota. But, in order to have an informed public that can deal with this assault on honest governance, we must have a probing media.
No company has thrived more in this environment than the foreign mining conglomerate, Glencore, one of the world’s most corrupt enterprises with a global record of bribing public officials and extracting valuable minerals utilizing the cheapest methods and leaving behind a trail of environmental destruction. In May of 2022, Glencore pleaded guilty in a U.S. Federal District Court to charges of bribery and price fixing and was fined $1.4 billion. The Justice Department issued a statement concluding: “At bottom, Glencore paid bribes to make money -hundreds of millions of dollars. And, it did so with the approval, and even encouragement, of its top executives.”
This fits the definition of a criminal enterprise and, yet, the governor and legislative leaders are intent on granting mining permits to Glencore, the major operator of the New Range Copper Nickel mining project, which is adjacent to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) and operates in the Rainy River Watershed that extends from the BWCA to Kenora, Canada through Lake of the Woods, thereby placing all those waters in serious jeopardy since sulfide mining is highly dangerous and releases deadly toxins that last into perpetuity.
Putting the controversy of mining aside, the key question remains: “Why are we in business with such a corrupt company as Glencore?” For four years, the governor and legislative leaders have refused to respond even though our state’s drinking water, the BWCA and so much of our fishing, hunting and camping is at stake.
Interestingly, in August of 2019, MinnPost ran an excellent interview by Walker Orenstein with Gov. Tim Walz in which the governor promised to “modernize” the laws governing mining, pledged that Glencore would assume full liability, and that the entire deal would be fully transparent. Every promise remains unfulfilled. A probing follow-up is desperately needed otherwise deceit will become the norm.
Further, we now have a departing president at the University of Minnesota and a growing realization that leadership of that beloved institution has shifted its emphasis from improving opportunities for student success to a culture of self service with opaqueness replacing transparency. For years, we have endured scandals in our medical research that has attracted embarrassing national headlines typified by this one in the New York Times: “The University of Minnesota’s Medical Research Mess.”
The most current research scandal involves charges of “fabrication” relative to the University’s Alzheimer’s project. This raises very basic questions about the continuing poor management and appalling absence of internal controls.
Additionally, the plight of the student has grown more challenging with rising tuition and increased stress over being able to pay for adequate food and housing. While this is a national problem, tuition and fees at the University of Minnesota exceed the costs of all universities in our bordering states.
Average student loan debt is more than $24,000 and all too many students struggle to meet housing and food needs. Even after it was reported in March of 2022 that “An astonishing 37% of Minnesota college students reported experiencing food insecurity” this failed to become a concern of the administration with one Regent stating: “I don’t recall any meetings, special committees, or task forces to look into these disturbing numbers.”
That is the problem. Our overpaid leaders are focused on improving their lot and not that of the student.
Just think how much time and resources were expended to grant President Joan Gabel a 56% pay raise to more than $1 million and the effort involved in giving the chancellor position at UM-Duluth to an unqualified regent who was a leader in President Gabel’s pay raise. To make matters worse, President Gabel did not authorize a legal opinion to deal with all the conflicts involved including the new chancellor’s past ties as a vice president and registered lobbyist for Allete, a Duluth power company with extensive financial relationships with the university. Certainly those relationships and his ownership of $1.5 million in Allete stock warranted a legal review.
And then we have President Gabel’s bid to serve on the board of Securian Financial and, in spite of the obvious conflicts of interests involved, she again refused to seek an independent legal opinion.
Clearly, we need excellence with quality management, independent oversight from the regents, and a commitment to students. Money is not the solution. Frankly, it is the problem. When Mark Yudoff served as our university’s president, we had competence with a genuine focus on students and his salary was $500,000 in today’s dollars. That should be the ceiling for the new president. Right now, we are paying twice as much for mediocrity.
That is also not only a generous income but it is $100,000 more than is paid to the President of the United States.
The only way we can preserve our quality of life is with constant oversight from an independent media that truly insists on the public being served with competent management, full transparency and accountability. This also means leadership that understands that public service is not a vehicle for wealth nor a place where public policy can be tailored to the wishes of the highest bidder. We can, and must, do better.
[image_caption]Arne H. Carlson, Tom Berkelman, and Janet Entzel[/image_caption]
Arnie, Tom, and Janet continue to call attention to the ongoing culture of non-compliance that goes unchecked at the Capitol and at Morrill Hall.
Unfortunately, they are voices in the wilderness, as very little changes.
“Unfortunately, they are voices in the wilderness, as very little changes.”
Indeed. And, not to disparage our hosts but, this piece likely won’t get much attention either.
That’s perhaps the bigger question. Here we have a group of respected people making valid points about public institutions that should be subject to better oversight. What’s the next step in building a consensus that things do need to change?
The authors make such an important point. I’ve often complained about the lack of timely investigative journalism in the Twin Cities. A recent example: media inattention to the highly questionable actions of the other party, Securian, in the Joan Gabel conflict of interest issue (an issue that author Carlson helped bring to the fore).
Another example, lack of attention to 19 years of child sex abuse at the Children’s Theatre Company and School; nothing but praise from the media until WCCO finally took an interest in the 20th year. In sentencing the principal perpetrator, the judge denounced the entire community for knowing and letting it continue.
Yet another example, the City of Minneapolis’ repeated inside track awards of subsidized Cedar-Riverside housing redevelopment contracts to a company headed by the City’s former head of HRA, in a process that effectively excluded competition, climaxed by the City’s active efforts to undermine federal rules and regulations and have HUD award the present Riverside Plaza complex to that same city-favored developer. All pretty much a public good, according to the media. At least Arne Carlson, then State Auditor, got the head of HUD to admit post-facto that the transaction was improper. City Pages later did an expository cover story about that deal and the consequences; the city tried to suppress it.
By the way, thank you, Arne, for all your years of service and concern (even though you didn’t want an elected Met Council)!
Thank you Janet Entzel, Tom Berkelman, and Arne Carlson for using your insight and former experiences to speak out. The public, who as a rule does not have access to background information such as you spoke of, needs and appreciates quality independent journalistic writing and commenting like this.
This is the first article I’ve read written by these 3 authors. WOW! What an informative article! And: more please! I’m having flashbacks to the years when investigative journalism was a real thing & the reading public could trust the media to provide them w fair & objective reporting. Just the facts, ma’am. We must get back to that; it is the only way to expose & then get rid of all the massive corruption so prevalent & destructive today.
A valuable story from the three authors as well as the addition of Mr Markle’s long memory.
I love Arne for his devotion to the University, and I think that he would be a splendid Regent candidate.
The only 2 Presidents in recent history who have had lasting, terms of accomplishment, Hasselmo and Bruniks were internal hires. With 8 colleges and 5 grad schools: Pick one
“The only way we can preserve our quality of life is with constant oversight from an independent media that truly insists on the public being served with competent management, full transparency and accountability.”
Millionaires hire PR firms. Billionaires buy newspapers, very few of which turn a profit. Why is that?
People pursue their hobbies. Some build rockets. Some buy mega yachts. Some buy newspapers. Some do them all.
I agree! Thanks to the authors and to MinnPost for running this opinion piece. We do need more of this, and it is why I financially support MinnPost — the mining, the U prez– this all needs to be publicized and investigated!!!!
The problem with the proposed nickel mine is that a strong majority of voters across Northern MN are wild to have a corrupt foreign mining company come in and likely destroy the environment, they want the miniscule number of jobs at any environmental cost. They want to listen to pro-mining propaganda, talking points and Repub shills, not scientists.
In some ways this mine has become merely another symbol, which it certainly is for the committed rightwing base outside the Iron Range, whose only desire is to “own the libs”. In any event, the media HAS told the pro-mining electorate all of this; they simply don’t care.
You mean a probing media that wouldn’t call 500 businesses getting burned down in Mpls a “peaceful protest “? That ship has sailed and already sunk somewhere far away!
First, I don’t recall anyone saying that burning buildings was a “peaceful protest,” and don’t think I can’t tell when a statement has been taken out of context.
Second, your comment had nothing to do with the article. Nothing, except it was a way to keep grinding the same axe (your grinding is convincing no one of anything, BTW).
Many thanks to the three authors Arne H. Carlson, Tom Berkelman, and Janet Entzel (listed as they are at the start of this article) for writing this, and as Dennis Litfin comments above – for using your insight and former experiences to speak out. (And all else Dennis wrote, I second.)
Why it strikes a personal note is that while attending UMD many decades ago, I would from time to time stop into see my business school counselor, who was more or less – never there on the job. I would ask when the next appointment was to be told that it was in a couple of weeks, or possibly next month. I was a B plus, A minus student. Not a slacker. “A couple of weeks?”.
Sometimes I would ask where she (my counselor) was and hear, Gone, attending an honorarium, as the standard reply. Little did I know back then that an honorarium was typically a paid appearance. I recall talking to others in our business school and they reported the same of this mystery counselor. I transferred into Lib Art’s up to my last quarter, because at least I saw a guidance counselor in a timely manner.
I cannot help but wonder how many fellow students she affected adversely in her cash grab.
My junior year, I was talking with a fellow student who did work-study in my former business school counselor’s office. And told me that yes, she was out of the office more than she was in school. This fellow student also relayed that my former counselor collected a truly notable sum on honorariums.
As an aside, one of my fellow business school students glowingly called all of this “Clever on her part, cause most honorariums are packaged so the IRS never sees them. It’s like free money!”
There is also the comment, “The University of Minnesota’s Medical Research Mess”. I recall that breaking and some of the Doctors I worked with shaking their heads, however sadly and not too terribly surprised. As a younger doc laughingly commented, “I was wondering when that would float to the surface and become a problem.”
So in sum, the last paragraph of the article above and especially the words, “This also means leadership that understands that public service is not a vehicle for wealth nor a place where public policy can be tailored to the wishes of the highest bidder “, really hits home with me.
Many, many, thanks to you three for your continued support of fighting the good fight.
RB, it has everything to do with this article. A non biased media has left the arena years ago. Just the FACT that most liberal media called 2020 riots “mostly peaceful protests “. That right there shows you lack of an unbiased media on the Leftie front.
“A non biased media has left the arena years ago.”
Truly the most preposterous utterance in a tidal wave of preposterousness…
Years ago:
2 Daily newspapers
4 TV stations
3 Radio stations that cared about news.
(And you all weren’t too happy with them back in the day either)
Today:
Thousands of print newspapers accessed online
Tens of Cable News channels
Thousands of news web sites
Thousands of political pod casts
Millions of social media personal opinion sites
And:
2 Local daily newspapers
6 Local TV stations
3 Local radio stations that care about news.
And the claim is an inability to find non biased media? The problem is that you can find whatever you want to find, regardless of the truth and when that “non biased media source” is found and they don’t tell you what you want to hear folks flee to a biased media source that always will offer a comfortable lie instead of an uncomfortable truth.
“Truth? You can’t handle the truth!”
Colonel Nathan Jessup USMC
“Just the FACT that most liberal media called 2020 riots ‘mostly peaceful protests ‘.”
I don’t recall anyone calling riots “mostly peaceful protests,” and I would be prepared to bet you can’t come up with any sources for that assertion, other than what you want to think. The fact is that most BLM protests were peaceful – the riots were not. Unless, of course, you think all BLM protests were “riots” because you personally did not approve of them.
“That right there shows you lack of an unbiased media on the Leftie front.”
First, the word “media” is plural. I may have gone to unionized public schools, but I know English usage.
Second, you may want to look up what “unbiased” means. It doesn’t mean “reporting on stories in a manner that conservatives like.”
Third, it would be far too obvious for me to point out the number of right-wing agitprop outlets from which conservatives choose to be informed (Alpha News, anyone?)
Well, it’s certainly true that 30 years ago we did not have a nationwide television network devoted to providing “conservative” infotainment products to committed rightwing partisans seeking confirmation of their existing (or manufactured) prejudices. A situation which is ten times worse on the nation’s appalling radio networks.
Times have indeed changed, and not for the better.
To all of the “we have a fair and balanced media” folks, how did the pushback on COViD go for the folks who were proven right, the “vaccine” did not prevent you from getting or giving the virus? The media and the Lefties here at Minnpost immediately said anyone not getting the experimental vaccine was killing grandma. As more folks got the vaccine and the number of cases did not drop, simple math proved the “vaccine” did not work. When it was shown the CDC changed the definition of vaccine, the media still stayed with the government narrative. That is not a fair and balanced approach.
Simple epidemiology and virology would tell you that no vaccine is 100% effective, and that viruses will mutate and adapt themselves if allowed to spread widely enough.
Simple investigation would tell you that even though a person calls themselves a PhD, puts on a white coat, and goes on YouTube we should evaluate what they say and dismiss them if they are purveying nonsense even if that nonsense happens to be what you want to hear (“****ing liberals and ****ing smart-a** scientists! They think they’re so cool!”).
Mostly off topic, but whatever.
1. No one objecting to the CDC’s Covid policies has been “proven right”. I know you saw articles that said that about masking; it was a misrepresentation of a single study.
2. The Covid vaccine prevented millions of people from getting and transmitting the virus and saved many lives; that there were more breakthrough cases than expected after the virus mutated does not mean the vaccine did not work properly or was ineffective. No sane physician thinks this.
3. There is a substantial likelihood that those who refused the vaccine did spread the disease to the elderly they ran across. Why do you think health care workers were mandated to get vaccinated? Medical Science 101, Joe.
4. Many of those millions of (largely rightwingers) who refused the vaccine unnecessarily caught Covid, meaning cases remained high. And there were still some breakthrough cases among the vaccinated.
5. The CDC did not change the definition of “vaccine” as a result of the pandemic. It couldn’t do such a thing even if it wanted. The fact that you think it did is a result of either willful ignorance or rightwing disinformation.
6. Responsible media reported all of the above. Irresponsible media reported the nonsense you are peddling (thinking you were “proven right”, lol).
Have a great day.
Exactly to Point 6
Every conservative’s favorite news source just paid out nearly a billion dollars for lying with a written acknowledgement of lying, another billion likely on the way accompanied by more documented facts of seeing their audience as a bunch of dopes and it is business as usual for the FOX audience: Nothing to see here let’s just move along…