The strib was way ahead of the pack reporting on the DSM

[question everything]

I was amazed that the San Diego Union Tribune only today had a story - from the Washington Post http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=1849803&mesg_id=1849803

In contrast, I thought the strib Readers' Rep., Kate Parry had an interesting report in today paper. And, Jim Bootz, if you are a DUer - great job:

startribune.com

Readers' Representative: Downing Street memo's route to paper

Published June 12, 2005

The U.S. media, as a whole, have been in slow motion reacting to the Downing Street memo, a highly classified report the London Times published May 1.

Word of the memo did not appear in the Star Tribune until May 13 -- and that was way ahead of most American media.

Is there something wrong with the story? Is the memo fabricated? Are readers uninterested? The answers are no, no and no.

The back story reveals a lot about how news travels traditional routes and cyberspace at different velocities, about how the Internet is being used to influence media and about how those on the left and right have learned to puff up their feathers or grow small -- to foment coverage or strangle it.

(snip)

The British and U.S. governments were mum on the memo, as if hoping the story would just wither away if not fed with comment. Curiously, that silence extended to most of the U.S. media -- including the Star Tribune. For days, it appeared the story had no legs. Unless you went online.

(snip)

So, what was going on here at the Star Tribune?

A week after the London Times printed the story, reader Jim Bootz, 48, a system administrator in Minneapolis, sent me an e-mail: "Please consider printing the story on the leaked memo. ... I forwarded it to nation/world editor Dennis McGrath and asked if he knew anything about the topic. McGrath knew about the memo -- but not from the traditional news wires. In this country, wire services had provided only a brief mention of it May 2 deep in a New York Times advancer on the British election. McGrath knew about it because he had started getting the e-mails, too. He and his wire editors began watching for a wire story. A week later, they were still watching.

"We were frustrated the wires weren't providing stories on this," McGrath said. Finally, he gave up waiting for the wires and assigned reporter Sharon Schmickle to write about it -- despite the geographic disadvantage of reporting from Minneapolis on a story breaking in London.

(snip)

Even after the story ran, the Downing Street memo campaign continued, morphing into demands for a page-one story. In a decision separate from the newsroom, the editorial page published an editorial referring to the memo on Memorial Day. When readers called wanting to know more about it, the editorial page staff published the whole memo on the June 3 op-ed page -- as near as I can tell for the first time in a U.S. newspaper.

(snip)

http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/5451062.html

[rodeodance]

1. he gives lots credit to people who demanded a story!! Go Mpls!!

.....I love a good campaign in which informed, engaged citizens come together eagerly to debate issues. But there's something about these e-mail campaigns fomented by political websites (and Downing Street is just the most recent -- they erupt across the spectrum of politics and issues) that smacks more of Astroturf than grassroots. Ombudsmen around the country chat regularly about the latest campaigns; the technique isn't fooling anyone. It's also important to remember, however, that some of the Downing Street reaction, such as the e-mail from Bootz, was genuine and spontaneous -- although Bootz says he later went online to urge others to contact the media.

Retrofit the news industry

The effort it has taken locally to get a string of politically potent stories to Star Tribune readers before they're old news online reveals a rusty news industry infrastructure that still hasn't absorbed the Internet into its newsgathering habits. The wire services, and the national newspapers that feed them, need to log in and begin approaching the Internet with the passion of a foreign correspondent dispatched to his first assignment in an exotic locale.

Regional newspaper editors can have a big impact by demanding quicker response from wire services to stories erupting online and by following McGrath's lead in assigning local reporters to the story if that's what it takes to get it into the paper.

Our readers clearly will accept no less. Good for them.

[rodeodance]

2. rather like a 'birthing of a story"--a grand one at that!!

[katinmn]

3. Great article. Great post.

:thumbsup:

Thanks.

Nominated.

[PATRICK]

4. Weaning off the wire

You would think that serious journalists would not simply breastfeed off simplified wire services with so much available online in direct sources, local sources, expertise at the very least for their own personal and professional curiosity!

Sigh. So one bravely decides to go for it without waiting for approval from AP. Man what do they do all day, play fantasy football online?

We deluged them about the squelched coverage of the November election.
I hope this is a turning point in separating the last real journalists front the controlled feeding tube they trust so gullibly. Those most free to express themselves and think critically are the most most behind the eight ball with the horrid state of American news as a whole, top to bottom. The others know their place. Decent journalists think they are doing their job buying into the failure and betrayals up the line.