The City Pages Cover Story

I blogged too soon about C.J.'s cover story. If you pick up this week's City Pages, you'll see that yours truly made the cover. Don't congratulate me, though. It's pretty much the exact same boring slam attempt you'll find from all the hacks who've been harping on me since my trial.

If you've read this internet blog or any other paper in the last two months, go ahead and skip the summary by the City Pages, except for this line from Harte:

"I'm frankly astounded at how many journalists are jumping to conclusions on the basis of allegations of a competitor who is obviously out to gain competitive advantage."

No kidding! Even the City Pages smear shows readers how Singleton loves nothing more than trying to act tough at the trial, which is why he's wasted so much money trying to sue me. Well, that and cutting newspaper jobs, which is why they call him "Lean Dean".

But that's not the best part. The best part is that this hack job comes from the corporate owned City Pages, where out of town ownership didn't even have the decency to buy out their reporters like we did. Nope. They just sent some goofy college kid that their smarmy reporters couldn't stand to run the paper and everyone quit. That's real classy.

Hey kettle, maybe if my ads sales team starting running phone sex and hot gay massage ads, we'd make even more money and have as much credibility as you. Of all the people trying to make a scandal of my trial, you're the last ones who should be pointing fingers, even if it is after everyone one else beat you to it.

C.J. Is A Cover Girl

The new issue of Minnesota Monthly has a profile on C.J., a reporter at the Star Tribune. It's a great article. It really shows you how hard C.J. works to get her stories. Her work pays off, too. She's the most popular columnist we have, even more popular than Kersten.

After I found out about C.J. being on the cover of the magazine, I sent her a note to congratulate her. I would have sent the same note to any of the reporters who were featured on the cover of a magazine, but let's face it we don't have that many reporters who are that well respected. Maybe Sid, but that's it. Of all the reporters that we wanted to buy out, the management team was really hoping that she would stay on and keep covering the celebrities and local news. And she did, which is great.

"We, the journalists of the Star Tribune, call on Par Ridder to resign as publisher. We believe the unethical actions to which he admitted in court have damaged the Star Tribune's credibility and integrity and undermined our ability to hold public figures accountable for their actions. For the good of the Star Tribune and the community it serves, we believe he should step down."

It looks like I'm getting a letter tomorrow that asks me to step down. Yesterday the reporter's Guild voted 110 to 2 to ask me to resign. To be honest, it stings a little.

I don't think reporters know how tough it is to run a paper these days. News is just bad business. Try to put out a good product, no one will read it. People would rather read C.J. and the AP headlines than anything a reporter would spend expensive time on. And when you give people what they want to read, they still don't read it. How many more baseball writers could we frigging have and we still aren't getting 15%+ returns? And the reporters want me to quit because I was bringing over some forms to help out the business.

But whatever, like Avista has said, they run the show, not the labor line.