Free press in Cook County?

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
-First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
called the Bill of Rights, adopted in 1789

"Go now, and tell it on the mountains and in the cities. From your Web sites and laptops,tell it. From the street corners and the coffee house, tell it. On campus and at the mall, tell it. Tell it at the synagogue, sanctuary, and mosque. Tell it. Tell it where you can, when you can, and while you can. Tell America what we need to know--and we just might rekindle the patriot's dream."
-Bill Moyers, keynote address
National Conference on Media Reform
Minneapolis, June, 2008

Cook County is blessedly free of corporate-dominated media. Oh ya sure, the News Herald is owned by a media group but it's not Fox, not Murdoch, not even a very big player in the control-of-information game that was invented by the neocons who now control all three branches of the U.S. government--at which the founders would turn over and rise up from their grave to peaceably assemble and protest.
Lucky, yes, but well-served for the 21st century? True says no. Mind you, True is only a humble, ragtag collective. But She formed in response to a gap between the grapevine and the published Word a couple years back when Grand Marais was being invaded by Big Developers. That issue was happily resolved, to the benefit of most if not all.
New issues emerge, however, in our 21st century where technology daily changes the nature of the "press" even as most information is not now printed but rather published in cyberspace. And our backward local "press" have not joined the free and open Internet where anybody, anywhere can google something like "Poplar River impairment" and get all the published news articles from the local angle. Well, once we could get it from the News Herald but now it has gone private and you have to sign away your life story and pay money just to see an article. As for the Star, they are SO 20th century, you just have to save a copy of every paper.
And even here in our cozy little county our media have more serious limitations than Internet access. Let's name them:
The Star, the News Herald and WTIP are beholden to advertisers. Once the News Herald did editorials about issues in Cook County but now, nobody does.
WTIP is the emerging leader in comprehensive and substantive news coverage. They do a great job, covering issues and meetings that neither paper seems to manage to attend or explore.
But nobody gives us a big picture, nobody tries to put it all together (even inadequately, which would be a start), nobody fills in the gaps between the gossip mill and the deep truth.
Outsiders, even summer residents, can read and listen to every word but they still can't figure out what is really going on. That's partly because covering meetings, the basic stuff of the three branches of media, doesn't tell the stories but only describes the meetings.
OK, let's get specific, with a couple of examples.
1) The new major issue in Cook County is the big plans for development of Lutsen Mountain into an Aspen-like monstrosity. While this huge proposed travesty of the Cook County development ordinance looms large as an even greater threat than turning Grand Marais into a huge marina with Disney condos, there is scarcely a peep about it in the news.
2) Directly related to the Mountain Megalomania is the impairment of the Poplar River and the big misinformation being disseminated freely in both papers by--you guessed it--the OWNERS of Lutsen Mountain, who call themselves the "Poplar River Mangement Board." The irony here is that although these guys could well afford to BUY a page in both papers, they got it for free, in direct conflict with the policies that opinions and letters be strictly limited in word count. True will be exploring the Poplar River issues, trying to sift Truth from Sediment, in future posts.
But the point is, nobody else is looking at the big picture here, or taking any kind of a stand. Certainly not the county board which dances around and dodges with silly stuff about the legality of a special tax district that would force other Poplar River landowners to pay for the damage wreaked by the Lutsen Mountain owners, or the Lutsen Town Board that agrees to anything they want.
And here is the great failing of the media: what the Founders feared most when they wrote the First Amendment: that people can't make informed decisions without all the information. Both papers have printed full-page ads purporting to be "facts" by Lutsen Mountain owner Tom Rider. NOBODY has bothered to do any fact-checking.
Editorials have two purposes: one, to engage a public discussion and two, to bring a truthful perspective to the slipshod, piecemeal and disconnected stories that make up the daily news. We badly need them here, even without Rupert Murdoch's blockade of any facts at all.

Plenty of good news

The amazing WTIP continues with its world-class coverage of the Ham Lake fire and aftermath. Things True learned about today:
The 6,000 donated white pines planted last weekend in a volunteer effort of about 170 folks, half perhaps from the Cities.
How Jim Oberstar and Amy Klobuchar were up the Trail listening to our concerns.

And the good news reported to boreal today, from the Gunflint Trail Association (also reported today on WTIP) about Oberstar's work on our behalf:

Congressman Oberstar has heard our call! After meeting with representatives of the Cook County Sheriff's department the USFS, Gunflint Trail businesses, & residents, here is his report to us:1. He has met with the head of FEMA who has agreed to expedite the production and installation of the phone cable.2. The sprinkler program with FEMA will be repeated. FEMA will pay 75% with a 25% participant match for new system installations, existing system upgrades, or repairs to damaged systems.3. The Director of FEMA (feeling a 800 Mhz system would not be appropriate for this area) will be contacting the Sheriffs office and the Gunflint Trail Volunteer Fire Department to get an appropriate communication system for the Gunflint Trail.4. The Director of FEMA and Congressman Oberstar have both looked at theapplication by the Gunflint Trail Volunteer Fire Department for the pumper truck. FEMA will contact the GTVFD directly to help write an application that will be approved.5. Congressman Oberstar has also been in touch with the Small Business Administration to see what they could do to help businesses. Two regional SBA representatives will visit Grand Marais to assist people impacted by the fire to get loans directly from the SBA. They have asked the Governor to fax the necessary letter to the SBA where it will be immediately approved. Once approved the SBA people can start issuing loans.6. Finally, FEMA has really nice trailers available for temporary use while rebuilding. The trailers are currently in another state. The Congressman needs to know how many trailers people will need to use while they rebuild. Congressman Oberstar says they are "nice trailers".Watch the http://www.gunflint911.org website to sign up to receive information regarding FEMA assistance for Wildfire Sprinkler Systems. A sign-up form should be available at that site within the next day or so. Our heartfelt thanks to Congressman Oberstar, for his prompt attention and response to our needs.
Lee Kerfoot & Shari Baker
Gunflint Trail Assoication

Ham Lake Updates: WTIP is the best

Today, WTIP's coverage of the Ham Lake fire is the best of all the website waters trolled daily by True. Here's the web link:

WTIP North Shore Radio - 90.7 FM

Firefighters hope burnout will create firebreak

Today: A new controlled burn was put in place in an effort to preserve housing around Magnetic Lake from wind shifts. Keep up-to-date with this link as well as http://www.WTIP.org.news/ and the USFS links previously posted.

News Express » Archive » Firefighters conduct burnout to help block returning blaze

WTIP North Shore Radio - 90.7 FM » Park board drops wetland identification and mapping proposal

Ah, so. The Grand Marais Park Board narrowly defeats a gentle and sustainable plan to explore, simply explore, identifying wetlands in the harbor. Who remembers that Grand Marais means "big swamp"?
Anyway, lots of folks would like to look further into this issue. And where's the harm in that? The city attorney has assured us that this won't bind the city to anything.
It makes True wonder, why? Is there some subtext here?

Check the story link:

WTIP North Shore Radio - 90.7 FM » Park board drops wetland identification and mapping proposal

Et tu Brutus?

PLEASE SUPPORT WTIP!

True North gets a lot of email; some complaints; some compliments; and so far requests from three local organizations who object to having a link from True North to their web pages, even though it is made abundantly clear that the links are a simple service to readers and do not imply any endorsement either way. WTIP is the latest to request that their name not appear on this august page. We are honored that they thought they had an affilitation with us. Sorry, it ain't so.

No problem. WTIP's name shall not be sullied. We are here to serve the whole community; the strong and the weak. One would have expected a greater degree of resistance to pressure from WTIP, but they have to be cognizant of the ever present need for contributions and cannot rock the collection plate.

The issue, in part, lies with those who feel that some venues for the exchange of ideas are better, more important, and more worthy than others, and that those that allow the expression of uncensored thought and ideas that would not otherwise be heard are somehow distasteful. But mainly it comes down to responding to the outside pressure of those who do not like non mainstream thought being freely available to the community. As one of our regular contributors is wont to repeat, just follow the money.

We love WTIP. It is extremely important to the vitality and identity of Grand Marais. It is an unbelievable asset to the whole community and much appreciated even by those of low character who produce this blog and the several thousand uncultured who have read at least part of it since its inception. WTIP is literally a shining beacon on the hill, at least a beacon of service, culture and information. We are but a small candle lost in WTIP's bright light.

There are questions WTIP's board should be asking itself. They include: What about courage? Wherein does courage lie? What is the the "nature" of the WTIP organization? What is the role of public radio in a community such as Grand Marais?

We had kind of hoped that demonstrating a bit of independence and backbone would have been somewhere in the answers.

To show that we have no hard feelings we will continue to urge our readers to support WTIP every chance we get.

Beware the Ides of March indeed!

As ever, and in support of WTIP,

True


March 15, 2007


Owners of True North:

We request the removal of the "WTIP - Real Public Radio" link from the blog
site truenorthgm.blogspot.com, effective immediately. Due to the nature of
our organization we do not wish to be affiliated with this blog.

We appreciate your prompt attention to this matter.


WTIP Board of Directors

Dehlia C. Seim, President
Hyla Napadensky, Treasurer
Jonathan Hedstrom



Request sent by email to:
truenorthgm@gmail.com