What's up with the Star Tribune presenting old news reported elsewhere as scoops?
Bluestem had noticed this with Jennifer Bjorhus' "blockbuster" about the IRRRB's loans to a fundraising company's call center and its more recent sale of the call center equipment to another firm in our post Putting the Iron Range in irony; or, February 2006 IRRRB packet reveals Meyers transparency.
Gary Gross, at Let Freedom Ring and True North (sponsored by the Taxpayers League) had been posting about this matter for at least 10 months, based on coverage in the Mesabi Daily Range and the St. Cloud Times.
Indeed, Gross' April 22, 2014 Letter: IRRRB amounts to bank for DFL in the St. Cloud Times reads like a synopsis for her framing narrative. It also makes one wonder--along with other coverage in the St. Cloud Times of the Eveleth call center opening, collapse and rebirth--how Jim Knoblach or any other Republican suddenly can carry on as if the call center's business was unknown in 2006 or 2014.
But heck, the Strib didn't even tell readers that Knoblach represents St. Cloud--homes base for Meyers-- only that he chairs a powerful committee.
Perhaps the justifiable outrage over open, normal and casual corruption wouldn't do until after the election, since Representative Metsa's 2014 Republican opponent in Virginia was one of the Pawlenty appointees on the IRRRB who approved the loans in 2006.
Now Bjorhus has done it again with Minnesota state representative fined $10K for fudging hours on ethics course, posted on March 10, 2015 and widely tweeted. Unfortunately for the Strib, this story isn't news for people in Loonan's district, since the story was reported in the Shakopee Valley News in a February 4, 2015 story, Loonan pays price for insurance industry law infractions.
Editor Pat Minelli reports:
State Rep. Bob Loonan paid a $10,000 fine and was suspended from teaching continuing-education classes related to the insurance industry for three months after he decided to forego a hearing on allegations leveled by the state Department of Commerce.
The commerce department alleged that Loonan provided false information to the department related to credit hours on applications for continuing education courses he taught and that he “allowed the promotion of the services or practices and used materials of a particular entity,” in violation of state statutes.
“I learned my lesson,” said Loonan. The law infractions, which occurred last year, were “my fault,” he said.
Loonan has an American Family Insurance agency at 1221 Fourth Ave. E. in Shakopee, and also operates Loonan and Loonans Consulting, a business in which he is a continuing-education coordinator and instructor.
Libby Caulum, acting communications director for the commerce department, said she could not disclose specific allegations as they relate to Loonan. But as an example, she said that an instructor must get approval from the state for a specific number of instruction hours for continuing-education credit for those attending the class. If, for example, the instructor was approved to teach for credit a four-hour class and actually only taught for two hours, it would be a violation, she said.
Loonan said in his case, he was teaching 21 students in Mankato in February during a winter storm. Most of the 21 students were from the Twin Cities, so Loonan said he rushed through the four-hour class material in about two and a half hours, which was a violation.
The second infraction involved the promotion of a company, which is forbidden. Loonan said vendors had supplied the students in one of his classes with a notebook and a pen at each desk in the room, which is a violation of state statutes. “If they were at the registration table outside the room, that would have been OK,” Loonan said.
Loonan had a right to a hearing on the matter and could appeal if he were ruled in violation of state statutes, but he accepted the penalties in December, a month prior to taking office as a legislator. By accepting the penalty, Loonan agreed to abide by the department’s decision but he doesn’t necessarily acknowledge any wrongdoing.
It's customary practice to acknowledge when news has been broken elsewhere, even if those stories are a bit cold. Bjorhus and her editors are getting repackaging old news as new.
We're growing disappointed with the paper. On Sunday, we looked at some major journalistic flaws in the usually excellent Tony Kennedy's story about a supposed "standoff" on feedlots that has led to calls to defang or disband the Citizens Board of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.
Two dairies, both of which had been permitted by the MPCA Citizens Board in 2009, but put on hold by Riverview Dairy (or by associates it was working with before purchasing the project and its permit), were described as new projects that had "ignited battles."
In point of fact, one dairy had not prompted any battle, while the conflicts over the second dairy long predated the Citizens Board decision in August 2014. Check out our more complete analysis in Fehr factor? Strib story reports battle--that simply wasn't there--"ignited" over Willmar dairy .
Framing the narrative in that way may bolster the case the Ag Mafia makes to the media and lawmakers, but we expect the working press to see through this sort of cow hockey.
Both stories--Bjorhus's IRRRB tale and Kennedy's feedlot "standoff" tale--remind us why public records and databases like Nexis are the reporters' best friends, rather than flacks and lobbyists.
Photo: Faye Dunaway acts like she takes the news seriously, so why shouldn't we? Still from Network.
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