[Speed Gibson,
Sunday December 17, 2006 at 8:15am]
I'll be back?
I had no idea that our decision to end 35 years of subscription to the Minneapolis Star Tribune would have so shaken Editor Anders Gyllenhaul, who resigned this week. The Nihilist in Golf Pants has some more likely reasons, like the fact that the Minneapolis Star Tribune hasn't won a Pulitzer the past 15 years. Instead, talk show hosts and bloggers have mentioned it as a leading candidate for the worst (major) paper in America.
Gyllenhall is moving to The Miami Herald, which has won 7 Pulitzers in the same timeframe. He'll put a stop to that!
The long term employees of the Strib should be happy. Their counterparts in Miami should be concerned. In less than five years, Gyllenhaul's low standards have accelerated the decline of this paper to where even I won't buy it.
I don't and won't expect the new editor to change the paper's politics or favoritism. But I don't think it's too much to ask for an improvement in the quality of the writing itself. Enough with this "dark and stormy night" slop. Enough with burying key facts in paragraph 22. Treat me like an adult, which at a minimum means fire Nick Coleman and Kate Parry. More fact checking, less spiking please. You report, we decide.
To that end, I'm holding the door open for the new editor. If the quality observably starts going up again, I'll be back as a subscriber.
Gyllenhall is moving to The Miami Herald, which has won 7 Pulitzers in the same timeframe. He'll put a stop to that!
The long term employees of the Strib should be happy. Their counterparts in Miami should be concerned. In less than five years, Gyllenhaul's low standards have accelerated the decline of this paper to where even I won't buy it.
I don't and won't expect the new editor to change the paper's politics or favoritism. But I don't think it's too much to ask for an improvement in the quality of the writing itself. Enough with this "dark and stormy night" slop. Enough with burying key facts in paragraph 22. Treat me like an adult, which at a minimum means fire Nick Coleman and Kate Parry. More fact checking, less spiking please. You report, we decide.
To that end, I'm holding the door open for the new editor. If the quality observably starts going up again, I'll be back as a subscriber.