City Pages on Minn Post's Puff Piece on Michele Bachmann

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The worst of MinnPost's Michele Bachmann puff piece
By Kevin Hoffman in Media beefs
Wed., Dec. 9 2009 @ 8:52AM

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​ What is going on at MinnPost? It is becoming the Fox News of Minnesota--a place where you get a free pass if you hate gays, liberals, and the ACLU.

First the nonprofit published a two-part softball Q&A with Katherine Kersten, the Star Tribune's conservative scold who already had a bigger platform than her thoughts deserve.

Now the home of "a thoughtful approach to news" has given Michele Bachmann a free forum to spout her spectacular nonsense.

When City Pages interviewed Bachmann, she would only consent to an emailed Q&A--the same deal she gave to the New York Times. We used that as a counterpoint to an extensive feature on the secret of Bachmann's political success, which earned Matt Snyders a guest spot on MSNBC.

Apparently, Bachmann bent the rules for her friends at MinnPost, sitting down for a wonderful conversation at the University Club in St. Paul, where she spoon-fed such self-descriptions as "lovable little fuzz ball" for Michael J. Bonafield to launder through MinnPost.

David Brauer from Minn Post responds:

So MinnPost is getting ripped for running another non-adversarial Q-and-A between conservative columnist Michael J. Bonafield and a conservative firebrand. Two weeks ago, it was Strib columnist Katherine Kersten; today, it’s Michele Bachmann.

With the caveats that a) I work here and b) I’m one of MinnPost’s many liberals, this is an impossible topic for a media critic to resist. (Especially when an editor needs to justify the story to readers.) So here goes:

The Bonafield pieces have problems that transcend ideology.

First — and this is a MinnPost problem that transcends him — there just wasn’t much new in either Q-and-A. (Did you know Bachmann grew up in a house full of Democrats?) MinnPost won’t justify its existence by providing subjects’ “mostly unfiltered” views (as co-managing editor Roger Buoen wrote this morning) but by providing actual news and fresh insight.

Second, stenography. Look, I’m a big fan of Mark Ritchie, but I’d sooner scoop out my eyeballs than unquestioningly extol the DFL Secretary of State’s virtues. You can be a simpatico journalist, praising what you like, and still probe. Bonafield — and our editors — gave Bachmann some ludicrous passes. Her quote — “I'm a lovable little fuzz ball! I have no idea what [liberals] would have to fear” — is objectively laughable, given Bachmann’s conscious and effective firebrand strategy. Unasked follow-up: “Do you really believe that?”

....

I’m not asking Bonafield (who I don’t know and have never met) to change his ideology or conduct the same interview I would. But I do think MinnPost editors need to encourage him (and any writer) to go beyond the bromides. I know conservatives (here and in D.C.) who regard Kersten and Bachmann as mixed blessings — in part because their rhetoric can outpace logic, consistency or facts. Both interviews would have been more interesting had our conservative writer delved into those intramural concerns with sophistication.

....

I think it's fine to hear a smart case for Kersten or Bachmann. One of our regular conservative readers, responding to liberal complaints that Black should have interviewed Kersten, commented, “Don’t do it until you get some conservatives interviewing all the liberals that are featured in MinnPost. Fair is fair.”

That's a great idea. Our editors should encourage Bonafield, an experienced journalist, to grill more liberals. That’s good for us, and the body politic.

But it’s also important to note that Black has tried — many times — to talk to Bachmann when he’s reporting on the congresswoman, only to be stiffed. (Other critical media, like City Pages, only get email interviews of problematic authorship.) From an organizational and journalistic point of view, it sucks that we let Bachmann so freely choose her MinnPost interlocutors.

As with any valid criticism, though, critics can overshoot the mark. In the “fair is fair” category, City Pages’ Kevin Hoffman has grilled our softness as crisply as I’ve grilled his sensationalism. On this subject, I’ve found myself nodding my head at a lot of what he’s written, but his gibe that MinnPost is becoming “the Fox News of Minnesota” is entertainingly ludicrous. At worst, Bonafield is the Colmes to our Hannity. We need fewer patsies of any stripe around here.

Nick Coleman comments:

On December 9, 2009, Author Editor Nick Coleman says:
To paraphrase Frost, MinnPost is too broadminded to take its own side in a quarrel. The earnest people of MinnPost constantly confess themselves to be of a "liberal" bent while giving precious little evidence. This wearing of "the hairshirt" has grown wearisome and proves, sadly, that they have internalized the criticisms that have been flung at them by the right-wing. By now, we could stage a pretty good Show Trial with Joel Kramer and David Brauer, et al, taking their places in the dock to admit that they are guilty of lefty thought crimes and deserve merciless punishment. This is a tempting idea. Unfortunately, the rightist critics of any kind of journalism to the left of Limbaugh can never be satisfied, especially when their targets are agreeing with their basic premise: Yes, we are libeals, but we are trying to do better and, besides, we have hired righties who are not afraid of their shadows. The result, predictably, is puff pieces from the only openly opinionated columnist on MinnPost: Mike Bonafield, who has no balancing voices to contend with. The bottom line is that the purpose of MinnPost is uncertain. And its reason for existence, too.