[Mpls] MN Daily columnist continues to abuse position

[Justin E.]

As if his unfounded character assasination of Councilmember Zerby written in 
the editorial section of last weeks MN Daily was not enouh, columnist John 
Hoff continues to distort facts and lower the journalistic standards of our 
only other daily paper here in Minneapolis.  Several letters were submitted 
to the Daily editorial board last to set the record straight and as of today 
all remain unpublished. In fact,  in response to readers pointing out 
factual inaccuracies in last weeks column Mr. Hoff lambasted those neighbors 
for challenging his fiction piece and took the opportunity to rip on CM 
Zerby yet again.

What has this columnist to gain in his personal attacks of soon exiting 
Councilmember Zerby?  Who knows.  I only know that Mr. Hoff is apparently 
too shiftless to search his own paper's archives to see that there are no 
less than 19 articles written since September 2003 (month of the fire which 
killed three students) regarding the fire and addressing his concern that: 
"There should be some kind of plaque or marker near the spot, so we don’t 
forget that some paid the ultimate price for neglect of housing issues."  
The memorial "plaque" is about 200 ft north of my office door in Van Cleve 
Park for a fire that occurred 2 doors down from my office door and it took 
more effort to get that plaque than Mr. Hoff will ever know (or bother the 
time to research in his own paper). The neighbors haven't forgotton the fire 
and how Councilmember Zerby quickly responded to the neighbors concerns 
regarding lax City inspections of problem properties, and how he demanded  
more be done to avoid future tragedies.  The institutional memory of the 
editorial board appears to be now measured in nano-seconds.

I could care less about Hoff's motivations, but you would think someone with 
a criminal record and not exactly a "traditional" student (pushing 40) would 
not want to draw undue attention to himself and his hypocritical stances 
(absolutely no inspections, I mean more inspections, I mean Zerby just 
sucks).  After all, The MN Daily is supposed to be a semi-legitimate paper 
and not just a propaganda piece for narrow political viewpoints--what are my 
state tax dollars helping fund again?

Additionally, I have no problems with people having negative opinions about 
political leadership, but making things up soley to discredit and distort is 
another thing.  Then subsequently publishing these inaccuracies in a paper 
that you have editorial control over (viewed by tens of thousands of 
readers) is completely unacceptable.  If we don't have journalists that try 
to get the facts straight, then what do we have left in a democracy?--I 
guess the web.

The articles links are included below for reference.  The MN Daily (and 
their editors) are available online at www.mndaily.com


http://www.mndaily.com/articles/2005/12/01/66391 (published Thursday 12/1)

http://www.mndaily.com/articles/2005/12/08/66516 (published Thursday 12/8)

Justin Eibenholzl
Armatage


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