So editor Steve Perry first ran a recent Kersten column through Juicy Studios’ readability tester (her writing was judged to be on a sixth-grade reading level) and then sent it to a high school English teacher in Alaska, asking her  to “assign a letter grade to it, and write a summary feedback paragraph.” Said teacher wasn’t told Kersten is a professional writer, nor does she have knowledge of the columnist’s work. Her critique begins, “Your sentence structure is fine, your paragraphing works, but your argument, frankly, reeks of oversimplified blather.”

White male: News about minority groups a “waste of space.” In his “six rules for MinnPost,” Adam Platt calls for the site to “Stifle the Social Agenda” — and takes aim at the liberal “trope” of multiculturalism. “In an era of dwindling resources,” he writes, “celebrating multiculturalism is a waste of space, yet seemingly every [Star Tribune] Metro section covers [sic] for years had a daily story validating some ethnic or racial group.”  When you’re white and male, maybe it seems like “validation.” But to those ethnic groups it could be construed as, y’know, representation.

Correction of the year? Sheesh: Talk about kicking a woman when she’s down.

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AP head calls for adaptation not arrogance: In a speech to media execs on Thursday, Associated Press CEO Tom Curley had stern words for his industrymates.  “Editors need to stop pining for the old world and intensify the leading to the new one,” he said, later adding, “The first thing that has to go is the attitude. Our institutional arrogance has done more to harm us than any portal.”

Redesign time: The Rake redesigns, and City Pages announces it’s doing the same.

Radio reciprocation: Flak Radio does a stint on KFAI’s Art Matters and kindly mentions yours truly. And for its near-historic 49th episode, Art Matters’ Marya Morstad guest hosts the Flak podcast.

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“Craigslist killer” has been worked into many headlines, says Perry, including at least three in Pioneer Press stories. But the coverage tends to “ignore both victim and perpetrator in favor of dark musings about scary Internet monsters that place the popular free-classifieds site — which, perhaps not incidentally, has also been a leading agent in decimating daily newspaper revenues — front and center.”

His fake ad suggests a way the paper could leverage this fact.

So count him as the first to offer Par Ridder a new job. Barred by a judge from reporting for duty at 425 Portland Avenue for a year, the Star Tribune publisher’s schedule should be wide open to become The Daily Mole‘s latest hire.

Or make that intern.

In an open letter that isn’t — Perry is stocking the site with stories before the beta test starts any day now — he offers the Star Tribune publisher an unpaid gig, complete with desk, chair, phone, and business cards. “You would need a laptop computer of your own,” the letter states, “but we assume that’s not an issue.”

Read the letter after the jump

Dear Par,

We at the Daily Mole were saddened to hear of your abrupt exit from the Newspaper of the Twin Cities this morning. We can only hope it spells an end to the scorn and mockery you have endured in your time of trial. People can be so judgmental. Especially judges.

As your friends have no doubt pointed out, sometimes the best thing one can do with such adversity is to turn the page. In that spirit, we want to be the first to offer you a chance at clearing the slate and earning back your good name. (And make no mistake: Ridder, under normal circumstances, is a very good name.)

We’re talking work. A job. And by “job,” I mean unpaid internship. If you will agree to sell advertising for the Daily Mole for a period of six months, gratis, we will pledge to consider hiring you full-time.

As a Daily Mole intern, your perks would include a desk (with chair), access to a telephone, and a whole box of business cards. You would need a laptop computer of your own, but we assume that’s not an issue.

Courage!

Best wishes,

The Mole People

Photo via Editor & Publisher

Minnpost’s props: The chatter about the other online news startup continues as MinnPost gets props in an interview with VoicesofSanDiego.org executive editor Scott Lewis, who tells Media Life Magazine that the site is among a “new breed” — “funded organizations that are hoping to be the new face of local journalism and the answer to the angst many people are feeling as they watch their local news sources wither.”

Iraq Op-Ed writers killed: The Rake’s Tom Bartel delivers sad news: Two of the eight active-duty soldiers who wrote a controversial op-ed piece for the New York Times a few weeks back about their experiences on the ground in Iraq have been killed. Staff Sgt. Yance T. Gray, 26, and Sgt. Omar Mora, 28, died in Baghdad Monday — the first day of Gen. Petraeus’ testimony on prospects for progress in Iraq — when their cargo truck flipped. In the op-ed piece, the soldiers wrote, “[W]e are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day.”

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Collins corrects Kersten: In her column linking arrests at a recent Critical Mass ride to “anarchy” at the 2004 Republican National Convention, the Star Tribune’s Katherine Kersten “worked overtime to create an image of New York that would make it easier to make her point,” write’s MPR’s Bob Collins. Among the facts he’s questioning: GOP delegate Annette Meeks’ charge that protesters spit on her. “[D]elegates didn’t mix with protesters,” he wrote. “See, the way it worked was a ‘tiered’ security area was placed around Madison Square Garden… the closer you got to it, the tighter the security.” Kersten also choses not to note the peaceful — and sometimes creative — protest by 100,000 people the Sunday before RNC2004 began.

WWW inventor fears end of free internet: “When I invented the Web, I didn’t have to ask anyone’s permission.” That’s not Al Gore talking (although, for the record, Gore never made the claim), but Tim Berners-Lee, the guy who created the World Wide Web in 1989. In a recent blog posts he writes that a free internet is threatened — and along with it the kind of innovation he’s heralded — and that regulation enforcing “net neutrality” must be considered. He defines the term: “If I pay to connect to the Net with a certain quality of service, and you pay to connect with that or greater quality of service, then we can communicate at that level.” Learn more at Save The Internet.

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