Fireside Chatroom

Marjorie Congdon Hagen, the heiress to the Congdon family fortune, was arrested in Arizona and charged with theft, forgery, computer tampering and fraud. Hagen, 74, first ran into trouble with the law when her adoptive mother, Elisabeth Congdon of the Congdon mining family in Duluth, was killed in 1977. Details on her arrest were not available in any of the stories I found on this incident, but the difference between Star Tribune coverage and Associated Press coverage was significant-enough to merit writing about.

The Associated Press story was datelined in Tucson, Arizona, and was probably written by a person with only a passing knowledge of the events of the Congdon murder, if any at all before writing the story. The Star Tribune story, in addition to the more lively writing, benefited from the fact that it was able to work the Congdon-family history into the story in a way that made it more relevant to the local community. This person's identity and past is clearly the most important aspect of the story, and the Star Tribune did a good job of making this apparent. One of the possible places to find information on this story if you were a reporter would be the book Glensheen's Daughter, which details Marjorie Congdon Hagan's life and could provide the kind of details that made the Star Trib story so much better than the AP one. While the Star Tribune writer was able to use the fact that anyone reading the Star Tribune would probably know a bit about the Congdon murders, a resource like this book could have probably helped the AP writer out.

Posted by Michael Marchio at 10:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

The Minnesota legislature passed an omnibus transportation bill over the weekend to raise the state gas by 10 cents, moving it up to 30 cents per gallon from 20 cents, and after two years would increase the tax at the rate of inflation. The vote went largely on party lines, with DFLers voting for the tax and Republicans against in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Governor Tim Pawlenty has stated that he will veto any gas tax increase, and while the bill passed by large majorities in both chambers, it did not reach the supermajority necessary to override a veto.

Nearly every media outlet in the Twin Cities has reported on this bill, but the best stories I could find were the MPR pieces on it. The Senate passed the bill on Friday, and the House passed it on Saturday, so most newspapers issued a story both days detailing the differences between the two bills. The MPR story after the house bill passed did the best job boiling down the issue for the public, saying "The key question is whether the committee can craft a proposal that will either be acceptable to the governor or have enough support to override his veto," about the conference committee that will hear the bill. Many times, people don't understand that each chamber's bill may be different, sometimes only slightly, and sometimes dramatically. A conference committee must then resolve the differences, and this story did the best job of explaining that to the public. The Star Tribune and two Pioneer Press stories on the House and the Senate passing it, were both good but not as clear as the MPR one.

Here is the text of the bill.

Posted by Michael Marchio at 8:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Three people were shot and killed in their home early on Friday morning. Police have no suspects, but believe that the incident was not random, and that the victims may have known their assailants. There has been quite a bit of coverage on this story, and between the MPR, Star Tribune, and Pioneer Press story, I would say the Star Tribune did the best job of reporting here. The MPR story had all the facts of the case, but few quotes and not much by the way of any emotional color, but their story came out the day of the killings and their web site hasn't published an updated story. The Pioneer Press and Star Trib both quoted the Police Chief at length, and neighbors and friends, but the Star Trib's coverage was better because the Pioneer Press relied on too many of the "she always made you smile" kinds of quotations that neither help people understand the story, or shed any light on the people involved. Both were printed in the Sunday editions of the paper, and were longer than typical news stories, but the Star made better use of this space.
According to all the stories, police have no suspects, but somewhat puzzlingly have no information on their web site about this case. After an incident that can worry people like this one has, a tip line or information for neighbors might be expected somewhere.

Posted by Michael Marchio at 8:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Governor Tim Pawlenty made an unannounced visit to Iraq on Thursday to express solidarity with the troops, and examine the situation. In an interview during the trip, Pawlenty said that he now supports President Bush's troop surge plan, which he had previously been skeptical about. This is Pawlenty''s third trip to Iraq since he began his first term as Governor in 2003.
I would say on this story the Star Tribune was far and away better than the AP story that ran in the Rochester Post-Bulletin. While both stories contained the same facts, the Star Trib story did a much better job of capturing the scene than the AP. It would be interesting to find out whether Conrad DiFiebre was with Gov. Pawlenty on the trip, or whether he relied on other information to draw the scene. While the overly elaborate prose doesn't always work in news stories, and can in fact ruin them, I would say overall this story does a fine job of explaining what the Governor's trip was like and the reasons for his visit.

Posted by Michael Marchio at 1:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Star Tribune reported on Wednesday that a proposed parking ramp for coaches, players and rich ticket holders may be the key to finishing the deal with Land Partners, the owners of the site. Hennepin County and Land Partners have reportedly been millions of dollars apart on the sale price, but Sam Grabarski, Downtown Council President, says that the increased compensation from the ramp could end up being enough for the two parties to agree.

The main problem with this story is that the headline deals with this possible fix, but has very few details to explain how the parking ramp for these select people would work. While certainly a newsworthy item, a bit more digging could have done some good here.

Posted by Michael Marchio at 12:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This week, the Minneapolis Library Board voted 7-1 in favor of merging with the Hennepin County Library system. While the Hennepin County system routinely receives exceptional marks for its services, the Minneapolis system has been mired in budgetary trouble for the last few years. The added revenue from the country will allow Minneapolis to open three libraries closed this year because of budget constraints. One problem I found with the coverage of this story is that the reporter failed to interview the chair of the committee investigating and negotiating the possible merger, Minnetonka city manager John Gunyou. I know this because I reported on this story for an editorial in the Daily. All this action took place under his direction, and it seems kind of sloppy not to quote him in the story.

Posted by Michael Marchio at 6:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)