With regard to the posts about Doug Grow's or the Strib's motives in questioning the list's influence:
I have to say that I don't see any bad intent on their part here. Barb Johnson raised the stink, Doug picked up on a good time to ask a fair question, and thus he met a Monday deadline and could enjoy his weekend. While I think Barb was melodramatic, I don't think Doug was motivated by fear of the Internet, losing influence etc. He's just another journalist - like many of us - who loves man-bites-dog stories. Perhaps our little terrier drew some blood, and someone was going around yowling. As my good friend Scott Russell at the Southwest Journal says, "A journalist's job is to hold the coats" when a couple of parties are battling. I thought Doug did a good job holding both side's coats. The Strib, as others have noted, have been pretty good about picking up on good and fun list discussions - Linda Mack's Sunday Guthrie piece, just one day before Grow's column, gave good and specific praise to forum members. My biggest gripe about their coverage of us - and please read this, Strib editors! - is that they don't give people a little info-box on how to subscribe!! I do think that betrays one weakness of the Major Daily - they don't always think about helping readers empower themselves, which is a virtue of the Internet. But in my experience, 99 percent of things you think are journalistic conspiracies are really the result of cluelessness, incompetence, or sloth. We still need to keep hunting because of that 1 percent...but in the end, I just see an interesting column and a p.o.'d politician. The latter is hard to resist. David Brauer King Field - Ward 10 _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
