Hello, readers.
Six months have passed since the Duluth Monitor began its journalistic adventure, and things are going well. City councilors no longer respond to our emails, the mayor refuses to comment on us to other reporters, and City Hall has instituted a “gatekeeper” policy whereby all media questions on any subject have to go through the public relations department first. In the old days, we just picked up the phone and called whoever we needed to call. Now, we have to email the communications and policy officer, who evaluates our question, routes it to whoever he believes can answer it, gets the answer, and relays it back to us—a highly inefficient and unsatisfying process.
Such is life. In spite of it all, we continue to break important stories and our readership continues to grow. We’ve added a new meeting to our beat: the Parking Commission, which has managed to avoid public scrutiny for years by meeting at the ghastly time of 7:30 a.m. on the first Friday of the month. At the second meeting we attended, we broke the story that the city is eliminating 46 parking spots on Second Street, in association with an expansion of St. Luke’s hospital.
It’s not all seriousness around here. We have time to enjoy a little fun as well. One thing we like to do, as we comb through thousands of internal city emails, is note interesting trivia about city employees. For example, did you know that Chief Administrative Officer Noah Schuchman is a connoisseur of antiques? He is! Were you aware that Communications Officer Phil Jents has a dog named Idgie, whom he takes for walks along 10th Avenue West? He does! At least, we think it’s a dog! Did you know that, on June 11, Mayor Emily Larson couldn’t turn on the TV in her office? A city technician determined that the “Cable box and TV were not on proper source channel.” It’s all in the public record.
Did you know that, on June 27, Mr. Schuchman was invited to a five-day “world class walleye fishing trip to Canada” by Bill Olson, business development director for Kraus-Anderson Construction Company? He was! “It is an opportunity to get to know each other better,” explained Olson, whose company regularly bids on city contracts. Schuchman declined the offer, but two minutes later, Olson emailed him an invitation to dinner at Bellisio’s, “just to hang out.” Schuchman accepted that offer. One month later, Kraus-Anderson won a $395,000 contract to build a new bear exhibit at the zoo. Am I saying there’s a connection? Of course not! I’m just wondering what kind of appetizers they ordered.
Looking ahead to the new year, we will continue our proven strategy of reporting on what goes on at public meetings. I am still the only reporter who attends most meetings. On Dec. 19, when a Star Tribune reporter showed up at the Spirit Mountain board meeting, I was stunned. It was the first time I had seen a reporter up there in recent memory. They published a pretty accurate article, too—which means that, at long last, the true situation at the ski hill is being mainstreamed. Apparently, the Minneapolis papers haven’t gotten the memo that critical reporting is off-limits at Spirit Mountain. At least, not yet.
On the investigative side of things, we are working on a couple of bigger stories, though it’s too early to provide specifics. The Monitor puts in an enormous amount of work to get the truth out. If we need to do months of research, we will. This is what distinguishes us from the competition.
On the business side of things, we have resolved our issues with AdSense, so readers are once again seeing Google-generated ads on the Monitor site. We realize they can be annoying, but at this point we’re just taking our pennies where we find them. Ideally, we would like to earn enough from subscribers to do away with AdSense, but we’re not there yet. The best Christmas present anyone could give us would be to subscribe to the Monitor. Your compliments are very much appreciated, but it takes hard cash to pay for data requests.
Supporters can subscribe via Patreon or by sending us checks directly. We have been surprised by the number of people who opt to send us checks directly. That method is more lucrative for us, because we avoid giving Patreon their cut, but probably less convenient for subscribers. Do what’s comfortable. As always, we promise that the more money we bring in, the more news our readers will get. Who could pass up a deal like that? Not you, we hope.
On the rumor side of things, the latest one we heard is that the mayor’s husband was considering suing us over a story we wrote about him being the architect of the Steve O’Neil Apartments. We don’t know if that rumor is true or not; we certainly haven’t noticed anybody serving us papers. A lot of people probably consider suing us, until they realize that they’re certain to lose. As for us, we just wish it would happen, so we could write about it.
Thank you again, and Merry Christmas!
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Illustration credit: Walter Ramos
Is the Duluth Monitor investigative reporting or general reporting or an opinion page? Maybe it’s all of these wrapped into one. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the work but in most of your pieces, it appears to be a lot of opinions. When reporting on the library we never see who else may have been involved outside of public records. Maybe there was a citizens group that worked toward the same position that you have but did not publish their work. Might we learn more about these stakeholders at some point through your investigative reporting?
Maybe you could start another page for more opinion separate from your investigation pieces yet built off of that work?
Another suggestion is to have an “about” page so we know more about the Duluth Monitor and those working with you and the vision or goals or need for your hard work.
I hope to see the Duluth Monitor grow in more ways than just posts. Keep up the work, we look forward to where the Duluth Monitor will take us.
Thanks for the comments. All I can say is you’ll just have to take the Monitor as you find it. Much of our nation’s best journalism consists of opinion informed by fact—read Harper’s Magazine or the Atlantic for examples. The Monitor exists to publish news that would not be published elsewhere. We accomplish this by attending public meetings and writing about what happens at them; and by filing requests for government data on various subjects. Our lucky readers are the beneficiaries of our work.
As for library stakeholders, I’m not sure who you mean. The administration did form a Citizens Steering Committee in 2015 to oversee the library consultants’ work, but the administration never revealed their true plans to the committee. The committee was duped as much as the rest of the public. Beyond that, there was no other group advocating for anything. You’ll need to be more specific with your vague allegations. I don’t think I missed anybody.
The Atlantic is by no means “our nation’s best journalism.”
Bite your tongue. Caitlin Flanagan rules!