Worst Strib article/quotes ever

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Replacement Gopher

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I'm really not one to complain too much about the reporting. It's terrible, yes. Pat's BUMS article seems to be published once a quarter. I'll bet my 401(k) that Keelon Brookins will be the featured athelte over any of the local boys who decided to sign with the U once the annual football recruiting article is published.

But the latest thing put out there by Mike Kaszuba ([email protected] / 651-222-1673) takes it to a new level. Included in his reporting on TCFs adult beverages is the following quote from Ilkka Monson, a nursing student from Minneapolis. "It seems to be a dying sport at the University of Minnesota -- maybe for the best."

In Mike's opinion, Ilkka is well-informed and thoughtful enough that she should be given an opportunity to share her view that a profitable line of business for the U (hey Mike, the football team makes money) and one in which the state just invested over a quarter of a billion dollars in should be put to pasture.

I see that Mike is a Government and Politics 'reporter'. I plan on sending him a lead on a dude who thinks "Democracy seems to be dying in America -- maybe for the best". Maybe Mike can do an expose on how maybe, according to this one dude, our country should move to a dictatorship.

Mike's selection of sources get's better.

He chooses Tiffany Glass, a doctoral student studying molecular biology, to gauge the student population's interest in tomorrow's game. Of course, Tiffany says, "I'm sure the game is tremendously important to some people. I just haven't run into them."

Really? Doctoral students of any kind aren't amped for the game, much less females in the molecular biology department? I'm sure Miss Glass is fairly representative of the entire student body - undergrads who are typically assocaited with sporting events included. In fact, while watching the Cincy-Pitt game last night, I am pretty sure I saw the entire UC molecular biology PhD program sitting in the front row with their faces painted.

I'm going to do Mike another favor and give him a second source on this dictatorship in America story. There is this dude in cell block C in Stilwater state prison who hasn't heard word one about the election among his peers. Additional proof that we don't need demoncracy Mike.

You would think that the Strib is trying to make money. To make money you need to sell papers. To sell papers you need to get people excited about your stories. Why the paper is going out of their way to find nursing students and molecular biology PhD students to tell us they think football is ho-hum is beyond me but I completely understand why that paper is losing money.

I'm actually going to send a letter to the editor. I'm going to tell them the biggest reason I buy the paper is to read about our local sports teams. His 'reporters' keep telling me it is not worth following the local sports teams (see Pat and Mike's recent articles). Should I listen to them, stop following the team, and therefore stop buying your paper? If I was a shareholder I'd want Mike and his bosses fired and would demand articles that build up interest in the teams and hopefully new fams will start buying our paper.


Check it for yourselves:
http://www.startribune.com/local/168864656.html
 

Replacement Gopher said:
To sell papers you need to get people excited about your stories.f
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They got you pretty excited with this story, and they got you to post a link and gain them dozens if not hundreds more readers of the article, making them more money.
 

Hopfully thousands check out Mike's reporting. From there, they can make their own judgements about the paper's decision to run with a quote from a nursing student suggesting we do away with a profitable program in which we just invested just shy of $300 million. Perhaps you agree with her, that the fotball should go away?
 

Great post. Enjoyed the democracy comparison. Thanks Replacement.

Unfortunately we will continue to see stuff like this until the team starts winning at a rate that fills the stadium on a regular basis and creates a buzz. People are fair weather for sporting teams around here. That is just the reality of most urban/metro areas. There is a lot to do, lots of options. Until "our" team stakes its claim, there will always be nursing students willing to dismiss them, and political reporters willing to find them. I won't click the link because I find stuff like that to be annoying. thanks for the warning!
 

The Star Tribune has had some pretty good articles on the Gophers. But this guy seems to have some axe to grind. The first article he wrote about the Gophers student ticket sales was misleading, but I could attribute that to ignorance. Then he writes a second article which is just as misleading. I have to imagine that there were plenty of letters to the Star Tribune informing him of his error. For some reason, he ignored them. And did we need a second article on the poor sales of student tickets?

But this article shows that he really has an axe to grind. Or maybe he's just piling on the student attendance because he's found one article to write and will keep writing it as long as the paper accepts it. Quoting random people doesn't demonstrate anything. I could find children who dislike Halloween candy, quoting them wouldn't demonstrate anything. A reporter can't hide behind "I'm not saying it, they are," because he's choosing which quotes to publish. He can make things appear however he wants. He can publish quotes from people disinterested in football, or he could publish quotes from those students who are planning on going to the game.
 


mattw1067 said:
They got you pretty excited with this story, and they got you to post a link and gain them dozens if not hundreds more readers of the article, making them more money.
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What I found puzzling is that this was a story about selling alcohol for the first time in the new stadium. It was an event held by the U to inform people about the procedures in place for selling alcohol, and how it can create new revenue. However, the article was completely focused on attendance (or lack thereof). And seemed to imply that the U thought selling alcohol would increase attendance. I don't recall the U ever stating this will attract more fans. It was about how fans who are there will have an opportunity to buy beer. If anything, it has been implied that the U had a tough time selling the suites because alcohol couldn't be served there. Who in their right mind would think that the opportunity to pay $7.25 for a beer would affect their decision to purchase a ticket to a game in general seating? The article is disjointed and didn't make much sense. The quotes from the students really stood out as not relevant at all to the topic.
 

MinnyGopherfan said:
What I found puzzling is that this was a story about selling alcohol for the first time in the new stadium. It was an event held by the U to inform people about the procedures in place for selling alcohol, and how it can create new revenue. However, the article was completely focused on attendance (or lack thereof). And seemed to imply that the U thought selling alcohol would increase attendance. I don't recall the U ever stating this will attract more fans. It was about how fans who are there will have an opportunity to buy beer. If anything, it has been implied that the U had a tough time selling the suites because alcohol couldn't be served there. Who in their right mind would think that the opportunity to pay $7.25 for a beer would affect their decision to purchase a ticket to a game in general seating? The article is disjointed and didn't make much sense. The quotes from the students really stood out as not relevant at all to the topic.
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It's been pretty clear that the U is allowing alcohol in the stadium because that was the only way the legislature would allow alcohol in the suites, and without alcohol in the suites, it's a much tougher sell. It isn't to increase attendance. The quotes from students aren't relevant to the topic, but all relevant to his agenda, he loves to harp on the student attendance.
 

That article made me puke in my mouth a little, you dont see crap like that in the college markets. The Twin Cities media needs to wake up and realize that these are their kids and they need their support.
 

What we are seeing here is the disintegration of local print media. The print media (which held out longer) is now just as bad as local television media. Local television (and I mean 'local' everywhere, not just in the Twin Cities) does this lazy stuff all the time and has for decades. How many times have you seen a local reporter asking some random dude on the street what they think about, say, the health care bill, war in Afghanistan, or the bank bail out? As if Eddie the Unemployed Accountant is going to give the viewers some terrific insight into complex issues of national and international importance while on his way to pick up a bagel at Brueggers.

It's lazy (but easy) 'journalism'. And since most journalism consumers are also lazy (they watch whatever is on the boob tube in front of them, and now read whatever is on the screen in front of them), we will continue to see this kind of junk. I never watch local news anymore because it is SO FLIPPING BAD. The same may soon be true of local print media.
 



GoldenHerbs said:
That article made me puke in my mouth a little, you dont see crap like that in the college markets. The Twin Cities media needs to wake up and realize that these are their kids and they need their support.
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Who do you think would be sleazy enough to crawl on top of Reusse?
 

tato2001 said:
What we are seeing here is the disintegration of local print media. The print media (which held out longer) is now just as bad as local television media. Local television (and I mean 'local' everywhere, not just in the Twin Cities) does this lazy stuff all the time and has for decades. How many times have you seen a local reporter asking some random dude on the street what they think about, say, the health care bill, war in Afghanistan, or the bank bail out? As if Eddie the Unemployed Accountant is going to give the viewers some terrific insight into complex issues of national and international importance while on his way to pick up a bagel at Brueggers.

It's lazy (but easy) 'journalism'. And since most journalism consumers are also lazy (they watch whatever is on the boob tube in front of them, and now read whatever is on the screen in front of them), we will continue to see this kind of junk. I never watch local news anymore because it is SO FLIPPING BAD. The same may soon be true of local print media.
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So what's your view on national media.
 


station19 said:
So what's your view on national media.
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Well, I haven't read a national story on the Gophers that quotes Ilkka Monson, Undergraduate Nursing Student, for her opinion of the state of college football. So there's that.
 



I didn't read the article (see other posts about providing unnecessary link-through revenue for strib). It is hilarious if his main barometer for student interest in the program are a female nursing student and a female PhD student.
 

On tap at Gophers football stadium: $7.25 beer at 8 tents


First, the good news: There will be three types of beer, plus red and white wines and eight alcohol tents.

Now, the not-so-good news: The beers will be $7.25 apiece, will be limited to two per trip and all sales will be cut off after halftime.

The University of Minnesota's two-year experiment of selling alcohol at the 50,800-seat TCF Bank Stadium begins Saturday when the football team plays its first home game, with a late morning kickoff against New Hampshire. After years of trying to have alcohol sales limited to the new stadium's premium-seating area, the school accepted a legislative compromise this summer to also sell beer and wine to all fans of legal age.

But it might not help reverse the trend of three straight years of declining attendance at the new stadium.

Just 3,100 student season tickets have been sold this year -- the school had a goal of 8,000 -- and the $288 million stadium is expected to have many empty seats on Saturday. School officials said they did not think the new policy, by itself, would draw more fans, and several students interviewed on Thursday afternoon agreed.

"The students don't seem to be too interested in going to see the Gophers play," said Ilkka Monson, a nursing student from Minneapolis who sat eating on campus near the stadium. "It seems to be a dying sport at the University of Minnesota -- maybe for the best."

In announcing how the alcohol sales would occur, the university said that 12 additional uniformed police officers -- increasing the total to 122 -- plus an unspecified number of contracted security would be on hand and that "any customer who appears to be 30 years old or younger" would be asked for identification.

The eight alcohol tents will be on the stadium's open west end, on the opposite end of the stadium from the student section, and will open an hour before the game.

Under the plan, beer and wine -- but not hard liquor -- will be sold separately in the stadium's suites.

"Quite honestly, it's going to be an experiment for us, this first game," Scott Ellison, the school's associate athletics director, said as he toured the stadium on Thursday, explaining how alcohol sales would take place. He said police would be particularly watching for "pass offs" -- fans buying beers and then handing them to under age companions.

Though the university will have the only Big Ten football stadium selling alcohol throughout the facility, school officials said it was patterning its plan after those recently enacted at both the University of West Virginia and Rice University.

School and legislative officials said the compromise, while going further than what the university wanted, was aimed at satisfying legislators who said all legal-age fans and not just premium seat holders should have access to beer and wine.

"My colleagues in the House made that point abundantly clear," said Rep. Joe Atkins, DFL-Inver Grove Heights, a school alumni and the lead House author of the alcohol sales plan. "We tried all sorts of different ways to resolve it. It was personally painful for me to have my university family and my legislative family not getting along."

Though the issue had been vigorously debated at the state Capitol, the new policy was greeted by some students with a yawn.

Tiffany Glass, a doctoral student studying molecular biology, said none of her friends are talking about the football team or the new alcohol policy. "I hear people talking about molecular biology," she said.

"It's all relative," she added. "I'm sure the game is tremendously important to some people. I just haven't run into them."

Ellison said school officials were estimating that 7,000 alcohol sales would be made Saturday, not counting sales in the premium seats. Earlier estimates had the school getting as much as $2 million per year from selling alcohol. Ellison said proceeds would go to the school's athletic budget.

"If they can improve their revenues with something like that, it seems pretty harmless," said John Phillips of Maple Grove, another student.

But Clyde Allen, a member of the school's Board of Regents, said the bigger issue remains winning football games. "I think the fans come, basically, to see the game and to see good football," he said. "I think that's a far more important issue than the alcohol issue."

Mike Kaszuba • 651-222-1673
 

I don't quite "get it" as far as the huge importance placed on having alcohol available at the game. I am not a teetotaler; I enjoy a good beer or wine. I am a college football fanatic and am so into the game itself that I have no desire to drink alcohol. Especially before 11 am games, which are the most common. Perhaps I would be less nervous if I had a beer before the game.
 

I'm sure she's a very bright young lady, but with a name like Tiffany Glass, she should be dancing for dollars or "acting" in adult films.
 


Maybe it would be helpful to interview students in the normal age bracket (18-22) and not some students in their 30's.
 

Replacement Gopher said:
Really? Doctoral students of any kind aren't amped for the game, much less females in the molecular biology department? I'm sure Miss Glass is fairly representative of the entire student body - undergrads who are typically assocaited with sporting events included. In fact, while watching the Cincy-Pitt game last night, I am pretty sure I saw the entire UC molecular biology PhD program sitting in the front row with their faces painted.
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Good stuff replacement!!
 

I went to some of the frat houses to get a feel for the ballet in town. From their responses, I can say that the ballet should be cancelled.
 

A rebuttal for Mr. Kaszuba

Greetings all. I've followed Gopherhole for a long time and am now making my first post. Wanted to share the email I sent to this guy last night. I had enough after reading his latest article.


Mr. Kaszuba, I've never replied to a newspaper reporter but feel compelled to do so after reading your latest article. I'm 40 years old, grew up on a farm in So. MN and have been reading the Star Trib for most of my life. My brother's and I used to race to the mailbox on Sunday mornings to see who could get to the sports section first. My Grandfather attended the U and because of that and being a MN homer, I've been a Gopher fan for as long as I can remember. My family has actually held Gopher football season tickets for over 25 years. I assume you know the direction this email is headed.

I've always bragged that the Star Trib is one of the best regional newspapers in the country. I visit a lot of other newspaper web sites to get the local coverage of our MN teams and to stay up to date on social issues in different communities where I know people or have clients. Doing this is how I've formed my positive opinion about my local newspaper...we're better than most that I come across. I might be in the minority but I think your stance on Gopher Football flies in the face of what has made the Star Trib successful while other papers have failed. Stating the facts is one thing...spinning multiple articles, with one-sided interviews, in a negative tone towards our home state university is another. I would love for you to stay in touch with the two most recent students you've quoted in your latest "Gopher bashing" article. Do they realize that a good portion of the academic opportunities they enjoy at the U could very well be funded by athletics and football specifically? I believe the Gopher football team has the potential to turn into a winner in the not so distant future. Will you then go interview them again, or another molecular biology student, after their lab and classrooms have been remodeled due to the football team's success and ask them what their opinion of Gopher football is?

The easy thing for me to say would be that you're a guy that has never had any athletic success and now that you have a public outlet, are taking out years of frustration on past friends, coaches, teams and schools. I doubt that's the truth. I really don't know your motivation nor do I care. I see in your Star Trib articles page that your title is Politics and Government reporter. Please stick to a subject you know something about and can offer a valid opinion on. Please stop taking jabs at the team at OUR public university that has the potential to provide the most return for not only the athletic program but the entire school in general.

My Grandpa was a simple guy. Worked hard, didn't ask for much, loved his family and the community he grew up in. I can only imagine what his reaction would be after reading your negative articles about the U. You wouldn't know he was upset, he'd simply throw the paper in the garbage and cancel his subscription. Please help me from doing the same.
 

Maybe it's just me, but there just hasn't been much buzz around the graduate molecular biology program around campus this year. I'm sure it's tremendously important to some people. I just haven't run into them.

You know, for not caring about football, she does talk tremendously similar to a certain paramount figure of recent Gopher football.
 

Yeah, how many tickets has the molecular biology program sold?
 

I think this line has a chance to become a new catch-phrase:

"I hear people talking about molecular biology."

I encourage everyone to start dropping the phrase into random conversations...........

Seriously, as far as the article is concerned, in today's media climate, people tend to perceive bias whenever they read or hear a story they don't agree with. Liberals perceive bias on Fox News; Conservatives perceive bias on MSNBC. Most of the people on this board are Gopher Fans, and our radar is sensitive for anything that appears to be negative toward the program. I don't know if this reporter has an agenda or not - my gut tells me that it's more likely a case of lazy reporting - the guy needed some quotes, and grabbed the 1st people he saw.
 

He does seem to have an inordinate interest in attendance. Two articles which create the appearance that the student ticket situation is worse than it really is, and then this article where he really has to stretch to make it about attendance.
 


I wrote to the editors. I would love to see an article whose headline calls out the cost of wine at The Guthrie. "Two Buck Chuck Ten Dollar Charles at The Guthrie".

It would then have quotes from random people, "People don't seem to be too interested in going to the Guthrie," said Ilkka Monson, a nurse from Minneapolis who sat eating near the theatre. "It seems to be a dying art in Minnesota -- maybe for the best."

And...

"I'm sure the theatre is tremendously important to some people. I just haven't run into them."

Why would the paper run these quotes about anything whether it is the Gophers, the Guthrie, the Uptown Art Festival, Hmong New Year, etc?

The one and only thing that gets this treatment - and it has happend three times this week alone (1: Fatrick's article, 2) Mike the Government Reporter's article, and today's article mocking the Gophers-New Hampshire 'Rivalry' (their quotes not mine - like each and every game is supposed to be a freaking rivalry) - is Gopher football.

Seriously, what gives?
 

Mocking the Gophers for playing a game that isn't a rivalry shows a basic lack of understanding of college football. It's a non-conference game, most team's rivalries are with teams in their own conference.
 

Great post Replacement. Not normally one to hate on the media, but when I read this one this morning, kept thinking about who was chosen to be quoted, etc. myself. Also Kaszuba seemed to be rehashing large chunks of a story that had already printed the day before.

Some day we're going to miss Sid more than we think. He's a homer, but at least he doesn't ignore the responsibilities associated with journalism. And the Strib editors have the highest responsibility to prevent this type of article bias. They should be ashamed.
 

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