Johnson charged her campaign $1,154 for hairdresser appointments and $986 for dry-cleaning during the current four-year election cycle. No other city council candidate used campaign funds for personal grooming, the article notes. Johnson also tapped political donations for cell phone bills and AAA car coverage.

Reporter Erin Carlyle asked Hamline University political science and law professor David Schultz about the legitimacy of such spending. His verdict was not flattering to the city council president.

“Campaign funds are supposed to be spent for things that are campaign-related, not expenses that you would normally incur as being a human,” Schultz said. “I would hope that hygiene is something that you would spend money on as a normal person.”

Tomorrow has created the album-cover art for Pearl Jam‘s next release, due out September 20. Fans can get a free downloadable mp3 of a track from the album, Backspacer, by doing a sort of “internet Easter egg hunt,” as Wired puts it, searching for all nine of Tomorrow’s images in order to get the freebie.

In January, City Pages editor Kevin Hoffmann told the Minnesota Independent he hoped the economy would improve enough to bring back cartoons in the second or third quarter of this year — i.e. approximately now. I emailed him to see if strips like “This Modern World” might be coming back.

His reply:

Sadly, as you know from watching the news, the economy has not improved as fast as Obama (or any of us) hoped, so we’re still in cost-reduction mode. That means hiring and wage freezes, a continued 10-percent salary cut for both me and the publisher, and, unfortunately, no Tom Tomorrow for now (though I continue to be a fan of his work and hope to include him in the paper when the economy improves).

City Page’s annual “Comix Issue” comes out August 19, and local artists are encouraged to submit work. Unlike Tomorrow, these artists will get paid, according to a communique by City Pages art director Nick Vlcek: $25–50 per piece.

Here’s all nine of pieces of the cover art:

The Grand Forks Herald editorializes today that if Coleman is “pursuing his appeal only (or even mainly) to keep the Senate seat vacant, then he should withdraw.”

It was only Tuesday morning that The Politico’s Ben Pershing offered this prediction:

My guess is that most of the media — editorial boards, etc. — will hold off on calling for Coleman to concede at least until after the Minnesota Supreme Court looks at the case.

But that was before (or during, actually) the election-contest court’s counting of 351 more ballots, extending Democrat Al Franken’s lead from 225 to 312 votes.

As noted here Tuesday, an editorial in the Albert Lea Tribune  – which like the Grand Forks Herald, endorsed Coleman last fall – quickly advised Coleman to “throw in the towel,” and the National Review Online said it’s time he “give up this fight.”

With a new editorial headlined “Norm Coleman – Go Away!,” City Pages maintains its stance (from January) that Coleman should concede.

MSNBC’s First Read blog says, “The question for many is no longer whether Coleman is going to lose; rather, it’s when he’s going to lose.”

Brian Lambert writes in his “Lambert to the Slaughter” blog that Coleman and GOP leaders ”have effectively won their case in that they have successfully deprived the people of Minnesota and the Democratic Senate a vote for four critical months.” He concludes:

So, having achieved “mission (pretty much) accomplished,” someone claiming to practice journalism for the greater public good should then summon the courage to tell Coleman that having won, the time is now right to concede.

Indeed, the outlier appears to be the Star Tribune editorial page. The writers there come close but don’t actually call for Coleman to appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court. They do, however, go out on a limb and urge the justices to take his case:

Coleman appears intent on giving the high court that opportunity (to review election issues); if he does, we hope they seize it.

And while it’s not explicitly advice, National Review Online readers got another dose of discouraging news about Coleman today. This time it’s from Power Line’s Scott Johnson, who gives his exceptional criticism of Coleman’s post-election performance this twist:

The erosion of Senator Coleman’s approximately 215-vote lead over Franken after the election canvass, and the emergence of Al Franken with a 225-vote lead over Coleman on January 5 after the recount, have given rise to the implication that Franken stole the election. …

For a while, I thought so, too. If I had observed the events through the media outside Minnesota, I would still think so. As a Minnesotan with a closer view, with friends lodged in every corner of the post-election proceedings, I have a different perspective on the chain of events that has brought Coleman to his imminent loss to Franken. …

I can’t find a single good thing to say about (Franken) except that he didn’t steal the election.

As media outlets continue struggling with the bad economy, City Pages has cut back on its online budget allocated for food and music blogging, after bumping up those budgets in January, editor Kevin Hoffman confirms. As he told me early this month, food blogging is one of the areas he hopes to build traffic, yet it’s one area that took a hit “when the economy soured.” While both areas are seeing cuts, he says online food and music have seen a net gain in funding over the past year.

One City Pages writer to feel the budget axe is James Norton, who until his late-December layoff, served as the paper’s under-$20-per-meal restaurant reviewer. Tuesday morning, Norton’s next move was unveiled: He’s launched The Heavy Table, a foodie site covering all things edible and imbibable in the upper Midwest.

“Our mandate is broad,” Norton writes in an email. “We’ll have articles of interest to the home cook, to the restaurant diner, and to the food enthusiast who cares to know the story of how his or her dinner got to the plate. We appeal to those who are looking for what’s in season, what’s local, what’s heirloom and what’s new.”

While the funding situation’s gotta be tough, Norton, a veritable jack of all media, has diverse enough experience to give it a good shot. The former Middle East editor for the Christian Science Monitor, co-creator of Flak Radio, and former producer for Al Franken’s radio show, he’s written on food for Chow.com, Minnesota Monthly, Saveur, Salon and others. He’s also the author of the forthcoming book “The Master Cheesemakers of Wisconsin.”

Two other local sites are testing out new funding models for online content. Based on the popularity of his recent posts at The Deets about online practices by City Pages and its parent Village Voice Media, tech blogger Ed Kohler is asking readers to ante up if they want him to publish his next piece on the Minneapolis altweekly this Thursday. By noon, he said he’s raised $26 dollars toward publishing the piece. His goal is $50, but he says he’s raised more than $26 because some contributors are donating so he doesn’t publish. He credits consultant Jeffrey McManus for his inspiration for the microfinancing idea.

Since City Pages seems to be the connective tissue here:

Mediation, voted best local blog of 2008 by the altweekly, is trying out an inventive funding model: content partnerships. “Instead of just posting ads that interrupt the normal flow,” writes Taylor Carik, “I’ve approached some folks who are doing cool things in the Twin Cities, and I’m helping them create web content for this here blog that might be something you’d like to check out. In return, they’re hooking me up with something.” First to take part: Uptown Minneapolis’ handmade fashion and jewelry hub Design Collective.

Meanwhile, Mediation tips us off that Bleat, the personal blog by the Star Tribune‘s James Lileks, was named one of the top 25 blogs by none other than TIME magazine.

CityPages.com image courtesy of Ed Kohler

City Pages, courtesy and copyright: After looking at how City Pages and its parent, Village Voice Media, apparently “game” social-bookmarking sites like Digg, The Deets’ Ed Kohler is again gunning for the Minneapolis altweekly – this time over the paper’s rather rampant disregard for image copyright.

“Photography kleptomaniacs,” including editor Kevin Hoffman, use images without permission, sometimes even slapping “Courtesy of” credits for publications, without ever linking to — or, one would guess, contacting — the source. (Several MnIndy photographs have ended up on City Pages site, including photos we purchased through WDCpix.com which, therefore, we wouldn’t be within our legal rights to “courteous”-ly offer up to anyone else. Another time my photograph, shot in former MnIndy editor Steve Perry’s house, ended up illustrating their story about how Perry left our fair site for MinnPost. When I asked Hoffman about lifting it, his response was to say he found it on Google Images and then to add a linkless credit. Curiously, that picture is no longer attached to the story, but it was — as recently as this Feb. 6 Google cache of the page [screengrab]. According to a Deets commenter, most of the images Kohler lists have also been removed from CityPages.com)

Brautweets get results: After David Brauer ribbed the Strib via Twitter about its long-neglected online newsroom directory, the page today is now not functioning. Hopefully, it’s evidence that it’s offline so Star Tribune staff can cull departed employees, rather than an indication they’re throwing in the towel on a treadmill-like job of erasing reporters and editors after a seemingly unending cycle of layoffs and buyouts. Or maybe it’s the new directory of the newsroom of the future?

Collardgate, ahem, blossoms: Brauer also reports that “Collardgate” — the story about Rainbow Foods’ move to promote collard greens during Black History Month — has gone national, with pickups by Gawker and (by way of WCCO’s Jason DeRusha), BrandFreak, BrandWeek’s blog.

Attention reporters, here’s how NOT to use Twitter.

When City Pages editor Kevin Hoffman told me recently that the paper’s Blotter blog saw traffic jump from 25,000 pageviews in October to 235,000 in December, he offered an explanation: While most news sites, including the Minnesota Independent, saw a traffic dip after the election, City Pages didn’t because their array of content goes beyond politics to cover food, sports, breaking news and quirky items. But the sheer jump in numbers struck local technology blogger Ed Kohler as strange. In a new blog post today, he asks, “How does one manage to grow a blog’s traffic by 7X over two months?”

The answer, according to his extensive research, is that City Pages and its fellow Village Voice Media papers seem to be gaming the most popular social bookmarking site, Digg. Hoffman isn’t saying much about the story, so it’s unclear whether advertisers are getting the full story about where the paper’s big traffic comes from and therefore how much local business can expect to profit from it. But that’s not the only question that remains: Is City Pages (or its VVM Diggers) in violation of the site’s Terms of Use? And does Digg’s national and international traffic do much for local businesses?

Kohler’s story revolves around how Digg users (and apparently VVM employees) “Philostrato” and “IvanB“, as well as some City Pages staffers, use Digg to almost exclusively promote stories on Village Voice Media sites. My own research shows that the same users do the same thing on less well-known social bookmarking sites. For instance, here’s current activity by Philostrato — whom Kohler identifies as VVM social media manager and Houston Press web editor Keith Plocek — on  Stumbleupon and Reddit. Last summer, he seems to have given Furl a whirl, not to mention Newsvine, Twitter and Mixx, but ditched them all after about a month. (Full disclosure: Kohler and I discussed his story and shared research prior to publishing; also, I’ve dabbled with social media in the service of this site as well, although in a far less systematic way.)

Kohler created this chart to show how good Philostrato and IvanB are at getting submissions to Digg’s front page, which is a traffic goldmine for Web sites — not to mention a difficult task. One top user says it’s easy to get from 20,000 to 100,000 pageviews — or more — if your site gets front-paged on Digg.

Kohler argues that VVM uses its paid staffers at its various sites, including City Pages web editor, Jen Boyles (Digg name “jbizzy“), to promote its work. And, almost exclusively, that’s what they do: Whether Boyles is submitting stories or Blotter writer Emily Kaiser is “Digging” — voting up — them, they’re doing so mainly with VVM content. And, since individuals doing it are employed by VVM and almost exclusively promoting their employer’s product, this could be construed as a violation of Digg’s Terms of Use. On condition of use, Digg users agree not to use the service:

… with the intention of artificially inflating or altering the ‘digg count’, blog count, comments, or any other Digg service, including by way of creating separate user accounts for the purpose of artificially altering Digg’s services; giving or receiving money or other remuneration in exchange for votes; or participating in any other organized effort that in any way artificially alters the results of Digg’s services; …

In addition, a terms-of-service clause meriting all-caps treatment states:

IN ADDITION, YOU HEREBY AGREE THAT YOU SHALL NOT USE THE SERVICE (INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, BY “DIGGING” ANY CONTENT) ON BEHALF OF (OR PER THE REQUEST OR INSTRUCTION OF) ANY THIRD PARTY. FURTHERMORE, YOU SHALL NOT REQUEST THAT ANY THIRD PARTY, OR PAY OR OTHERWISE ATTEMPT TO INFLUENCE ANY THIRD TO, MANIPULATE OR OTHERWISE AFFECT THE SITE IN ANY MANNER (INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, BY PAYING ANY OTHER USER TO “DIGG” ANY CONTENT).

Another issue might be whether City Pages and its VVM siblings are fairly representing their traffic to potential and existing advertisers. “Frankly, Digg traffic is fairly worthless for most advertisers (at least those paying on an impression basis) and for publishers (if they’re earning on a per click or conversion basis),” writes Kohler. Later, he adds, “Advertisers buying impression-based advertising from any website should ask where the site’s traffic is coming from. If Digg users are what you’re looking for, you could just as easily buy traffic directly on Digg.”

I’ve asked Hoffman to comment on Kohler’s story. He replied to my email, stating that, “This one is more about Web strategy than editorial content, so it’s out of my wheelhouse.” He didn’t answer my question about whether he knew that such practices about Digg and other social bookmarking sites were going on, but directed me to Bill Jensen, who’s director of new media at VVM’s Phoenix New Times. He hasn’t returned my call yet.

I’ve also left messages for a Digg representative and media experts, including some at Nielsen NetRatings, which tracks news site web traffic. I’ll post whatever they have to say.

Kohler, who surely knows that stories about Digg tend to skyrocket to the top at Digg, ends with a few questions, including whether Digg is too easily gamed. More importantly, he adds, “Will Ivanb or Philostrato Digg this story?”

Update: As of Friday, Feb. 6, Village Voice Media’s new media director has not returned my call. A representative of Nielsen NetRatings says “this is not something that our data can speak to.” But there is one development: Kohler’s story, unsurprisingly, has made the front-page of Digg, with, I should add, no help yet from Philostrato.

Confirming the network-wide move, City Pages editor Kevin Hoffman said he expects some reader backlash over the suspension of “This Modern World,” which he called a popular feature. “I’m a big fan, but unfortunately it’s one of those functions of a bad economy,” he said. Cutting out syndicated comics, he added, is part of an effort to “trim where we can while inflicting the least damage — realizing that we’re already cutting bone.”

City Pages finished out 2008 by laying off food writer James Norton and Assistant A-List editor Ben Palosaari. Hoffman said Norton was offered a job blogging about food for the City Pages Web site, but because he already writes at Chow.com, he refused. (At his blog, Norton wrote that he’ll be “starting up a new venture, a web magazine dedicated to food in the Upper Midwest).

Food blogging is one area Hoffman said the paper is hoping to make gains. And it’s part of the mix that’s delivered success to the paper’s online endeavors. According to internal numbers, Web traffic was up 40 percent in December, Hoffman reported, with The Blotter blog doing much of the heavy lifting. In October, Hoffman said, the blog garnered around 35,000 page views; by December, that number rose to around 250,000.

He said he hopes that in the second or third quarter of the year, the economy will have improved enough that cartoonists (and theater reviewers, he said) can be brought back on. The belt-tightening now only affects network-wide cartoons, Hoffman says; other syndicated features — like Dan Savage’s “Savage Love” and Rob Brezsny’s “Free Will Astrology” — will continue to run at City Pages.

An experimental geographer based at the University of California – Berkeley, Paglen has long tried to peer into the murk of the U.S. government’s “black” world, which makes up around $30 billion of the annual budget. He looks at where these secret projects interface with the so-called “white” world, using public documents (including some that expose front companies created by the CIA to aid its “extraordinary rendition” flights), views beyond the fences at sites like Area 51 through high-powered camera lenses, and the identifying shoulder patches worn by personnel at black ops. His views are rarely clear, as you’d expect. One patch Paglen found (above) speaks directly to the secrecy. Worn by personnel that ran nighttime flights between aerospace contractors and secret sites, its embroidered acronym reads: “NOYFB”—None of Your Fucking Business.

Read Schmelzer’s piece.

Obama leads endorsement count: With the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chattanooga (Tenn.) Times and the Durango (Colo.) Herald as the latest paper’s to endorse Barack Obama, he’s taken a 3-to-1 lead on endorsements. Erica Smith is updating the tally as a GoogleMap.

“That one”: PDN Pulse, the blog of Photo District News, asks: if you were an editor would you have run that embarrassing John McCain debate-night photo (you know the one)? Commenters almost universally agree it’s newsworthy.

Big gains (mostly) for online news traffic: Nielsen Online’s monthly ranking of the top-30 news site had a new entry for September: The Anchorage Daily News, thanks to a 928-percent increase due to its coverage of Sarah Palin’s nomination as the GOP’s vice presidential choice, landed the 20th spot, with 2.1 million unique visitors. While politics and the economy drove the upticks in traffic — Politico spiked by 219 percent — there was only one top-30 site that saw a downturn: Village Voice Media, owner of City Pages, saw a 13 percent decrease.

Good question: As a reporter is kicked at a North Carolina Sarah Palin rally, Dan Savage asks, “Why are reporters still covering Palin rallies?“

The question in question:

Since political reporting comprises a large portion of the beats you cover, it is surprising you have no explicit guidelines against stereotyping based on political party and ideology. Don’t you think such stereotyping is perhaps the biggest cause of the growing partisan divide in this country? By permitting, if not encouraging, political stereotyping, does not Minnesota Monitor contribute to this partisan divisiveness in our culture?

After the jump, editor Steve Perry’s reply.Perry:

MM: No, I do not think “stereotyping” is the biggest cause of the growing partisan divide. I think factors such as a costly war mounted on the basis of fabricated threats, coupled with a stateside economy that is foundering badly and the approach of an election that will select a successor to the most unpopular President of the modern age, probably have a little more to do with the growing partisan divide than stereotyping does. And more fundamentally, I do not buy your premise that the growing partisan divide is a bad thing. Considering the enormous change of course at home and abroad that the Bush era has represented, I think anything less than a “growing partisan divide” would be a symptom of the failure of democracy.

An excerpt of Jeff Shaw’s response:

Let me contribute to divisiveness by pointing out that this is a bone-chillingly stupid question.

Equating political beliefs and ideology with qualities like race and gender isn’t just false equivalence, it buys into the whiny dodge that all beliefs are worthy of equal respect. First, race and gender are not like political party affiliation because the former qualities are not chosen. The question implies that painting with a broad political brush (“People pushing tax cuts for the rich are greedy”) is the same as ethnic stereotyping (“Jews are greedy.”)