Part 1: News Coverage of the 2009 Minneapolis Elections

By Donald W.R. Allen,II – editor in chief of IBNN, soon to present USA BLACK RADICAL.COM

This is a four part series that covers what happened in the news as IBNN saw it: favoritism to the DFL incumbents in the 2009 election cycle in Minneapolis. IBNN will cover what happened in the mainstream media and the Black Press, providing interviews with registered voters who read the Star Tribune and watched television stations WCCO 4 and KARE 11, and thus had no idea that 2009 was a municipal election year.

While on Election Day, the Minneapolis Urban League’s president R. Scott Gray hung out at Broadway Pizza with the CM Don Samuels group, the community suffered again with the lack of information about the 2009 Minneapolis Elections.

We hold the above-mentioned news agencies responsible.

Truth to the People – Power to the People, if not now…when?

Minneapolis’ Star Tribune paper is responsible, in part, for the lack of information received by the general public concerning the 2009 election cycle. The Star Tribune is the largest newspaper in Minnesota. Its broadsheet covers the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area.

In the recent election season, as well as the 2008 congressional campaign, political insiders from all parties watched in awe as the Star Tribune employed very selective parameters, giving the lion’s share of coverage only to DFL incumbents.

The 2009 Minneapolis mayor’s race had a field of 11 candidates, ranging from community activist Al Flowers to Minneapolis businessman Papa John Kolstad. Candidates like Richard Fransen, who reportedly spent over $14,000 on his campaign, went virtually unnoticed by the “Strib.”

Al Flowers’ minor legal troubles, which were dismissed for lack of evidence, were covered by the Star Tribune in a play-by-play reminiscent of a Minnesota Vikings football game.

Much like the Strib’s coverage of the minority-ethnic community, murder, death, and drug related crimes seem to be the priority for Minneapolis/St. Paul daily paper.

The Strib’s coverage of the 2009 Election cycle confirms the adage, “It’s not what you know – it’s who you know.”

Some things the Star Tribune did were a “gimmie.” Such as their endorsement of former employee and incumbent R.T. Rybak was one.

The popularity created by the Strib for the “fresh-faced, Minneapolis metro-sexual White-boy” let R.T. take full advantage of his miss-steps in city government by promoting and covering Rybak like the “Brett Favre of city politics” skewed the 2009 mayor’s race R.T.’s favor.

Rather than the Star Tribune or their partner station WCCO-4 covering the news objectively, the reality left much to be concerned about. Apparently, “news that’s fair and balanced” is only a FOX News slogan in Minneapolis.

With 238 stories mentioning the keywords, R.T. Rybak, compared to 6 stories for Papa John Kolstad and Bob Carney; 39 for Al Flowers; and 3 for William McGaughey, it’s clear that the Strib’s interest was having R.T. Rybak stay in office.

Many Minneapolis residents wondered if an election was really going on in 2009.

The Black Press in Minneapolis had issues as well.

Mixed messages were the flavor of the week in north Minneapolis’ Insight News.

The paper publicly endorsed Kenya McKnight for Ward 5 city council.

But in the last weeks of the campaign season, Insight News ran publicity shots of Congressman Keith Ellison shaking hands with incumbent Don Samuels, thus playing journalistic hoola-hoop in the weeks running up to the election. Mixed messages from the north Minneapolis paper confused the readers and political strategists, who wondered who they actually supported.

Other problems were evident at the Ward 5 debate sponsored by McFarlane Media and Insight News held at the new University of Minnesota/UROC building in north Minneapolis. Don Samuels declined the invite, and less than 20 people showed up for the event. IBNN attributes this to lack of coalition building and lack of a clear marketing strategy.

While Kenya McKnight received 336 first round votes (15.5%) Natalie Johnson Lee has received 649 (30.05%). At this writing there is no clear winner in the Ward 5 Minneapolis city council race. Incumbent Don Samuels has only 46.99% of the vote, and the new Rank Choice Voting system is the “ringer.”

When all is said and done, the mainstream media and Black Press misrepresented or confused the field of possible choices in 2009.

The mission of the press is to inform and empower the voters.

We find that they failed in their mission.

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