Re: [Mpls] Strib's RT Rybak profile

[Brobson34]

In the course of researching my August City Pages profile on RT Rybak, I asked Bob King, the head of the Downtown Council at the time Rybak made the jump from the Strib to the Council, what the circumstances of his job change were, and, specifically, whether Rybak asked for a job or it was offered to him. King said he couldn't remember, and said it in such a guileless and wracking-his-brain type of way that I believed him. King did add that he got the impression that Rybak's interest in the fate and future of downtown Mpls. was such that he "wanted to be more than just a journalist," but did not elaborate on what gave him that impression. I then called the Strib and was told by Tim McGuire that the paper would not comment on any aspect of Rybak's tenure with the paper. So I got Rybak's response--corroborated in his posting on the subject for this list--looked through the Strib archives to see what they had to say about it previously, and decided to publish what David Brauer quoted from my piece earlier today.

I have a couple of questions. First, is the Strib's refusal to ascribe a source to their acount of Rybak's departure a sly way around their journalistic two-step of refusing to comment on the subject to a rival publication but allowing their own reporters more information on the subject? Second, on a broader level, I was struck by how different the Strib's Rybak background profile was in tone and content compared to the mostly positive profiles they have traditionally run on other candidates right before an election. I would applaud this more aggressive and probing tact if I thought it meant a permanent change in their coverage. But I'm willing to bet, without yet reading it, that their piece on Sayles Belton will be much more tepid and not create nearly as negative impression as they created with the Rybak story.

Readers of City Pages might say that my paper was guilty of the same thing: That the Rybak profile was much more skeptical and probing that similar cover stories that the paper ran on Lisa McDonald, Mark Stenglein, and, most recently Sharon Sayles Belton. I would agree with that analysis and can only explain CP's coverage in relation to my role in it.

The McDonald and Stenglein pieces were written without any foreknowledge or input on my part--at the time I was a freelancer for the paper. I only recently went back on staff there in late October. I proposed a Rybak profile because McDonald and Stenglein had already been done, and because I had written a lengthy piece about Sayles Belton's relationship to the city's fire department a month before the previous mayoral election between Sayles Belton and Barbara Carlson. I knew a Sayles Belton profile was in the works when I went back to City Pages as a staffer, but my only role in the piece was encouraging writer Gerry Anderson that it was a good idea. The theme of his piece, which dealt mostly with the Mayor's change in electoral strategy, was generated by him and his editor, without input from me.

Were I to have written the McDonald, Stenglein or Sayles Belton stories, I'd like to think I would have taken a tougher tack, although I do think Anderson's Sayles Belton piece was not as "positive" as the paper's McDonald and Stenglein stories, and did make reference to some of mistakes the Mayor has been perceived to have made in the campaign, both in terms of strategy and policy.

My intent in writing the Rybak story was neither to promote nor torpedo his candidacy. After it was published, I was heartened to receive some negative feedback both from Rybak supporters who thought it was unduly harsh and from those who thought I had gone too easy on him. I also came away with great respect for three or four Rybak supporters who conceded some of the merits of the story despite what they felt were some negative slants. List manager David Brauer and list members Sara Strzok, Ken Bradley and Russell Peterson were among those who kept an open mind about what I was doing and gave me the benefit of their doubts (along with giving air to those doubts). For the record, I also had more than one person tell me that the piece convinced them to support Rybak.

Put simply, as a journalist, I was surprised at the level of negative impressions created by the Strib's Rybak profile compared to the profiles they have run on other political candidates in similar circumstances. As an individual piece of journalism, I have no problem with the Strib reporters taking a hard look at Rybak--especially since they uncovered some information I didn't get, such as Rybak's being fired from Channel 4000, and, presumably, his greater culpability in his conflict of interest vis a vis the Downtown Council. But given the paper's long history of support for Sayles Belton and some of the more controversial positions and policies she has taken--and that Rybak has criticized--I would think the paper's credibility requires a similarly tough look at Sayles Belton in the days ahead.

Britt Robson
Lyndale