Volume 2: Issue 6

Inside this issue:

I. News Council Upholds Complaints Against KBJR-TV, KSTP-TV

II. “Journalism that Matters” comes to the Twin Cities

III. Featured Article: “The Minnesota News Council: The Story Behind the Creation” by Dr. Louise Williams Hermanson

IV. “From the Development Office”

V. News Council Welcomes Two Summer Assistants

June 19, 2008, St. Paul: The Minnesota News Council upheld two complaints against KBJR-TV (Duluth, Minn.) and upheld one complaint against KSTP-TV. More »

Two complaints by the Minneapolis City Council about a KSTP-TV news story that said the city wrongfully demolished a house in the East Phillips neighborhood were upheld by lopsided votes at a Minnesota News Council public hearing.

More »

A complaint from three Maplewood city council members that a KSTP-TV news story in July inaccurately reported that the council had stalled progress on an area redevelopment plan was narrowly upheld today by the Minnesota News Council. The vote was 6 to 4.

More »

Participants for the DNR included Rod Sando, Commissioner; Ron Nargang, Deputy Commissioner; Marcy Dowse, communications manager, and Scott Pengelly, information officer. KSTP declined to participate in the hearing, but forwarded to the Council a copy of its response to the DNR.

More »

The health department alleges that KSTP presented an inaccurate and unfair picture of activities at a department retreat at Ruttger’s Bay Lake Lodge, near Brainerd, in the fall of 1993. The TV report implied that workers were playing, at taxpayer’s expense, when they should have been working and that the retreat could have been held elsewhere for less expense. Additionally, they say a hidden camera was used under circumstances where such use violated ethical journalistic practices.

More »

On its 10 p. m. news broadcast, KSTP-TV features from time to time “On Your Behalf,” a segment wherein the station investigates consumer complaints of listeners and attempts to resolve them. On July 15, 16, and 17, 1985, “On Your Behalf” presented the plight of a young St. Cloud couple, Jodie and Mike Peschl, who had purchased a home which proved to be uninhabitable. The program was critical of the part played by, among others, Century 2l-Granite City Real Estate, the real estate agency that sold the home to the Peschls. Granite City claims the portrayal of its role on the television program was unfair, superficial, and lacked balance.

More »

The Minnesota Department of Public Welfare (DPW) complained that four news reports were inaccurate, incomplete, misleading and sensationalized accounts of a proposed DPW rule designed to control the uses of aversive and deprivation therapies in DPW-licensed facilities.

More »