Minnesota Independent » Paul Douglas

Media Monitor: UpTake on NPR, City Pages on Demko, and the end of an era in Wisconsin

Paul Schmelzer — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 17:05:20 +0000

WI progressive daily stops printing: Madison, Wisconsin’s 90-year-old afternoon newspaper is no more — at least not in print. The Capital Times published its last print edition on Saturday; it will continue to report online news as well as put out two free tabloids, which will be inserted into the morning paper, the Wisconsin State Journal, each week. The paper’s circulation has been steadily dropping, and 24 staffers were either laid off or took buyouts. William Evjue, founder of the State Journal, launched the Cap Times in 1917 as a progressive response to those who painted former Sen. “Fighting Bob” LaFollette unpatriotic for opposing World War I.

Do you get a free City Pages t-shirt for that? The UpTake‘s Chuck Olsen appeared on NPR’s Sunday Soapbox yesterday to discuss the citizen journalism organization’s plans for the Republican National Convention. Couldn’t help but notice one bit of product placement: in one shot, blogger Noah Kunin holds the copy of City Pages that features the best-of-the-Twin-Cities honor for top citizen-media outfit. Watch the video.

Quickly, now: Ed Kohler writes on weatherpreneur Paul Douglas’ soon-to-launch online digs, David Brauer chronicles the Strib’s circulation skid, and City Pages’ Jeff Shaw says goodbye to Paul Demko (who starts here today) by recalling his “legacy of great stories, and some really weird shit.”

City Pages “Best of” issue: Media notables

Paul Schmelzer — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 18:02:20 +0000

After a technical glitch kept City Pages’ “Best of” edition offline awhile, one of its winners, the blog Mediation, offered a quick tweet: “I think it takes guts to not have your biggest issue of the year online on time and then go after vita.mn instead. Well done, CP.” Now that it’s up — and Mediation’s honor still a part of it — here’s an utterly incomplete list of the media standouts:

Best columnist: Nick Coleman. I agree: This longtime Stribber “found a cause big enough to support his righteous outrage” in the 35-W collapse. Can’t wait to see the ipecac-like effect this has on rightwing bloggers, who already rack up thousand-word screeds on their dislike of Coleman.

Best weatherperson: “Filthy rich” Paul Douglas

Best (non-TV) weather person: In a wide, wide field of possiblities, the nod goes to Jimmy “Dutch” Gaines of Dude Weather for his “hilarious skewering of the cult of the ‘meteorologist.’”

Best citizen-based media outlet: Duh. The UpTake.

Best local website: MNspeak. I like it too, for the info and odd assortment of personalities, but shouldn’t technology play a role in a best-site honor? As its creator Rex Sorgatz told me last year, MNspeak hasn’t implemented any site updates since he sold it in 2006; by outward appearances, at least, that still seems to be the case. (A biased aside: for sheer technical weirdness, my vote would go to my old employer, the Walker Art Center, for its new site for teens.)

Best local blog: Mediation. I agree on the choice, but City Pages fails to mention the entire point of Taylor Carik’s site — media — and seems clueless about his Tumblr template: “[H]is stripped-down site simply offers links to other web pages he finds interesting, with perhaps a sentence or two of comment, as if he’s doing this simply as a public service.”

Media Monitor: Strained economic forecasts, Twitter’s power and non-combat fatalities

Paul Schmelzer — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 15:51:28 +0000

Bellwetherman? In an email Thursday about its campaign opposing the governor’s bonding bill vetoes, the Alliance for a Better Minnesota used a bizarre example as proof of an ailing economy’s effect on working Minnesotans: the firing of weatherman Paul Douglas (whose salary is estimated variously at between $250k and $500k). “Many families across Minnesota have already experienced Minnesota’s failing economy,” the email began. “But the news has gotten worse in recent weeks, first CBS announced that WCCO fired Paul Douglas. If the much popular weather man is losing his job, there must be storms ahead for Minnesota’s economy.” Dylan got it right: don’t need a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows.

Who gets Twit? UC-Berkeley J-school student James Karl Buck knows the power of Twitter: jailed in Egypt after photographing a protest, he was freed in one day after his one-word tweet alerted friends who contacted the U.S. embassy and an Egyptian lawyer. Hillary Clinton, it seems, doesn’t get it so well: she is followed by 3,051 people (well shy of Barack Obama’s Twitter-leading 24,000), but follows no one herself, a move that BusinessWeek calls not only “bad PR” but a possible lost opportunity in data collection.

Reporting military suicides: Editor & Publisher’s Greg Mitchell has long been tracking the alarming spike in non-combat military deaths in Iraq, noting that local papers consistently break news that many deaths the Pentagon reports as “non-combat-related” are really suicides. Today he points out work by the Pioneer Press’ John Brewer who reported that 22-year-old St. Paul resident Jacob J. Fairbanks died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound six months into his second tour in Iraq.

CJ, again: What rhymes with “scoops”?

Paul Schmelzer — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 14:49:06 +0000

Oops. Strib gossip columnist C.J. finally wrote up part of my email exchange with her over the not-very-consequential — dare I say “minor” — issue of who broke the news that fired meteorologist Paul Douglas’ bio had been deleted from WCCO.com. But there’s a boner in her “Bona fide scoop.”

She wrote, “At 1:22 p.m., my Douglas scoop went into the StarTribune.com system. It went live at 1:25 p.m., baby!” As MinMon commenter Aaron Landry pointed out, MPR’s Bob Collins beat her by a full 10 minutes. In his 1:12 pm post he wrote, “Details are few and so are names. But Paul Douglas’ name no longer appears on the station’s Web site.”

The confusion might be that the post no longer says as much. Reached by email this morning, Collins confirmed that he had the disappeared-bio bit in his initial post, but revised it out as he got official confirmation from WCCO. Baby.

CJ: Her middle name is ‘Scoop’

Paul Schmelzer — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 21:54:45 +0000

In retrospect, maybe I should’ve left this alone, but when I saw that the Star Tribune’s gossip columnist C.J. was claiming a scoop on the news that WCCO meteorologist Paul Douglas’ bio was gone from the station’s website, I dropped her what I intended as a polite, collegial email, inquiring about it. A relative latecomer to the Douglas story, I was doubtful my story, which was published before I read C.J.’s, broke the news, but I figured I’d ask. To suggest I wasn’t interested in claiming the glory, I offhandedly wrote that “either way” — whether I was there first or she beat me to it, as it appears she did — it was a minor scoop; meaning, nothing worth fighting over. (Seymour Hirsch and Abu Ghraib: major. The Downing Street Memo: major. What happened to the weatherman’s bio at WCCO.com: not so much, right?)

She didn’t like that one bit and fired off a series of emails, followed up by a call Wednesday afternoon. She wanted to know if I was a “real person,” she said, because she’s including our exchange in her next column. She went on to quiz me on her track record: “I broke the story that Paul Magers is leaving town. Is that ‘minor’? How about Prince’s divorce?” As she’ll be referencing our conversation in the Strib, I figured I’d run it verbatim here first — gaining the Almighty Scoop!

What does it prove? Not much, other than, perhaps, being one of America’s last remaining daily-news gossip writers seems to be mighty peculiar territory.

Read the emails after the jump

from Paul Schmelzer
to CJ
4/7/2008 3:19 PM
Hey C.J.
With all due respect, I’m wondering if maybe you didn’t break news about Paul Douglas’ bio being scrubbed from the ‘CCO site. Maybe Strib timestamps don’t work properly (or maybe the timestamp changes when you make updates?), but I mentioned it at 2:45 on Friday (yours says 4:47). At any rate, it’s a minor scoop either way, and congrats on your recent coverage of the shakeup there.
http://minnesotamoni…
cheers,
Paul

from CJ
to Paul Schmelzer
Tue, Apr 8, 2008 at 11:14 AM
I broke it.
Don’t believe me. Ask my editor Kathleen Clonts 673.7301.
One colleague congratulated me on the scoop as I was walking down the hallway, about 15 minutes before CBS confirmed it for the story Justin posted.
The time stamps do change with updates. I have no idea why that story is carrying a 4:47 p.m. time stamp, since the last time I changed it was around 2 p.m. I broke it around 1:30 p.m.
You, do realize the last sentence of your e-mail is charmingly passive-aggressive.
With all the blogs and monitors out there, I’ll take a minor scoop. Were it truly “minor” you would not bother to minimize it. Based on the reactions of readers, it was not exactly minor. Excuse my typos. I don’t know how work the e-mail spell checker. ~ C.J.

from Paul Schmelzer
to CJ
date Tue, Apr 8, 2008 at 11:27 AM
CJ,
Sheesh. You misread me. I have no ill will and intended no passive aggression with my last line. Email is such a bad medium for conveying, well, anything.

from CJ
to Paul Schmelzer
Tue, Apr 8, 2008 at 11:43 AM
Let”s analyze…
At any rate…. a phrase setting up the minimization of something a minor scoop either way…… minor–definition lacking importance and congrats on your recent coverage of the shakeup there… the shakeup was important but your “scoop” was still minor in importance.
You are write about the limitations of e-mail when it comes to conveying intent.
One of my shortcomings is not that I am passive-aggressive it is that I CAN BE aggressive-aggresive.

from Paul Schmelzer
to CJ
Tue, Apr 8, 2008 at 12:08 PM
Nice analysis, but wrong. Take me at my word, that’s all I can say.

from CJ
to Paul Schmelzer
Tue, Apr 8, 2008 at 12:12 PM
I don’t take these things personally. I don’t know you. You don’t hurt my feelings. I shall take you at your word regarding my minor scoop. Now, the interview with the grandmother about Larry Fitzgerald Jr’s fatherhood, that’s a minor scoop, too, right?

from CJ
to Paul Schmelzer
Tue, Apr 8, 2008 at 1:36 PM
Two things, I should have said in my first reply:
1) My detractors around here would NEVER let ME get away with unfairly claiming a scoop.
2) I would never intentionally do such a thing.

Douglas’ farewell email: Regrets ‘not saying goodbye to viewers’

Paul Schmelzer — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 20:05:06 +0000

WCCO chief meteorologist Paul Douglas, just let go from the CBS TV station, apparently with little warning, sent this email to friends and coworkers:

I wanted to drop you a quick note, before you read about it or hear about it elsewhere. This week I was terminated from WCCO-TV, after 14 wonderful years at CBS. Times are tough, many people are losing their jobs, and I am not exempt from this troubling trend. The simple truth: like many other CBS employees I was a target at a time when there are systemic, long-term challenges. No attempt was made to negotiate a lower salary; it was pretty cut and dry. It’s just business, dollars and cents – I get it. My only real regret: not saying goodbye to viewers and radio listeners, who I am indebted to for a glorious 22 year career in this market. I leave with fond memories, having worked with the best anchors, reports, producers, directors in the industry, people who I count as irreplaceable friends as well as colleagues.
Yes, I’ve been blessed to be able to rub shoulders with professionals I genuinely care about. Know this: Laurie and I are committed to staying in Minnesota long-term. We have new things cooking, new challenges, new goals. The future is bright, the outlook promising. Hey, trust me. I’m a weatherman. Thanks to Garmin’s purchase of Digital Cyclone last year I won’t be living in a van down by the river anytime soon (although I must say I’d be fine with that if I had DirecTV, a small Doppler radar, and a fistful of gadgets, by the way). I’ve found that things in life, however jarring and unnerving, usually happen for a reason. I guess I was meant to turn the page and move on to the next chapter. Sometimes we all need a kick in the tail, to get us on the course we’re meant to take.
So I’m fine. Laurie is fine. We’re a bit dazed, but anyone picking up a newspaper or watching local news wouldn’t be shocked at this aggressive cost-cutting measure. I realize it’s not personal. On the family front things are good. Our family is ok. Our youngest son, Brett, just got an appointment at the U.S. Naval Academy. Walt is loving Penn State, has 2 jobs lined up this summer.
We will remain involved in the charities and community organizations and causes we really care about. We are dedicated to Minnesota. Our Chicago experience proved to us that bigger is not necessarily better. Minnesota is an extraordinary place, and we are here for life. No question about that. I hope we can keep in touch, share laughs, share our lives – the only change is that I won’t have to schlep downtown twice a day.
It’s been a great 11 year run at ‘CCO, and I’ll miss working with many of you on a daily basis. The only predictable thing is change – a new door has opened up and I have to follow my heart (and business trends) and focus where the eyeballs are headed – the internet.
After some meetings in D.C. we are now on to New York, back in town next Wednesday. But I wanted you to hear this directly from me, unfiltered.
No spin.
We’ll be in touch.
Doug

Paul Douglas let go as WCCO trims staff

Paul Schmelzer — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 19:45:25 +0000

Popular meteorologist Paul Douglas is no longer with WCCO as its parent network CBS is downsizing at stations nationwide, according to Minnesota Public Radio’s Bob Collins. Early this week, WCCO weekend anchor John Reger was let go along with “a handful of other staff members,” according to a report by WCCO’s Jason DeRusha on Wednesday. Collins puts the number at eight, and says station management said buyouts will be offered to a few staffers.

The same wave of cost-cutting that’s hit the Pioneer Press and the Star Tribune is now hitting TV, DeRusha said. CBS has called for the elimination of around 100 local TV jobs nationwide, while NBC is in the midst of cutting 700 positions and ABC is nixing 30, he added.

Douglas’ bio on WCCO’s website already reads, “Page not found,” but a conversation with Don Shelby on his quarter-century career is still available.

Don’t fret about where Douglas’s next paycheck will come from, though. He’s rich. In 1997 he sold an early entrepreneurial venture called EarthWatch (a 3-D weather graphics modeling tool that had been used to produce the special effects in Twister and Jurassic Park) for $3 million, and last year he and a partner realized somewhere north of $22 million when they sold Digital Cyclone, a service that sends customized weather forecasts to cellphones and other personal electronic devices.