GOing, GOing, GOne

 It seems like this day has been coming for a long time. 

We learned on Dec. 1 that the Pohlad family's radio stations are being sold, and their formats are expected to die with the completion of the sale next month. 

Nobody is shocked. 

I was surprised to learn that the Pohlad brain trust has been shopping their two FM frequencies since giving up the dream of retaining the broadcast rights to their baseball team's games. (They own the Minnesota Twins, I'm sure you know.)

It seems like the Pohlad radio empire will be remembered as an extravagant failure. 

Let's see how accurately I can remember the history. Full disclosure, I refreshed my memory six hours ago with a perusal of the 96.3 Wikipedia page.  

The Pohlads got into the biz more than a decade ago, buying the local hip hop station B96. They didn't immediately dump the format, but eventually softened the playlist. On the old Red and Nater discussion forum, the programming genius that announced the switch was the butt of jokes for his claim that the new 96.3 Now wasn't going to play Disney pop in sanitizing the play list, yet the new era launched with the Miley Cyrus "Party in the U.S.A." song. 

The sanitized playlist didn't win over billions of listeners, so the Pohlads flipped it to K-TWIN, making it some sort of alternative station. I never listened religiously, but I'd flip to it occasionally, and remember hearing an old song I hadn't heard on the radio in many years. 

I don't remember what the difference was, but when it became GO 96.3, it seemed the main idea was to abandon older alternative. They use to like to claim the station was where modern music was going, or something like that. 

I think the "modern music is going" angle was dropped along the way, but I never got a sense the station ever fascinated the masses, no matter how they tweaked the playlist. 

The Pohlads eventually added 95.3 to their holdings, and turned some sort of Jesus frequency into a hip hop station, perhaps a lot like the B96 station they killed off years earlier. 

And at some point the Pohlads bought the gimmicky Bring Me the News. Buying a former weekend TV anchor's online news aggregator was an odd move, I thought, and I'm hard pressed to cite any value that acquisition brought to the Pohlad media empire. The whole thing seemed to die on the vine, although we have a bastard child of Bring Me the News available via the internet, which throws a few peanuts to Sven Sungaard, somehow. Weird world we live in, isn't it?

The Pohlads famously tried to broadcast Twins games on 96.3 for a couple of years. I don't get why that was a failure. Perhaps it wasn't, as far as baseball broadcasting goes. I can't imagine it helped build listenership for that modern music they were dedicated to. But it was an odd pairing, for sure, and the Pohlads abandoned their dream of owning their broadcast rights and started pimping them to WCCO-AM. 

I never sensed the Pohlads made a dent in Twin Cities radio ratings. It wasn't for a lack of trying. They promoted their stations in traditional ways, as you'd expect, had concerts at Target Field, driven by the alternative station, and made a point of connecting their stations to the local music scenes they served. 

I read a few online comments  after the death announcement. They're what you expect. The small audience 96.3 attracted is mourning the loss of that station as if it was the greatest, most important station in the history of Twin Cities radio. I get that. 

I can't say how important the GO stations were to local music, but their demise seems to be a loss to the local music scenes they served, if you believe what you read. I have no reason to doubt that. 

For all the effort the Pohlads put into building a modern/alternative music station for eight years, 96.3 never seemed to be more than a blip on the radar when it came to ratings. They seemed to do better, not surprisingly, with their 95.3 hip hop. Ironic since they killed what seemed to be a reasonably successful B96 years earlier. 

As I said, the death of the Pohlad media empire ain't a shock, or a surprise. Critics of the Pohlads, when it comes to their baseball team for the past 25 years, have been underwhelmed by the financial moves the team has made. I suspect the Pohlads are making money in Major League Baseball, because it seems like they're afraid to spend it and go the extra mile to bring a championship to Minnesota. Yes, the Pohlad regime, under the old man, won two World Series. MLB is a very different animal today than it was in 1987 and 1991, and the Pohlads have underwhelmed as owners, even with that spiffy new stadium they said was essential in order for the team to compete in the 2000s. 

The fact that the Pohlads have underwhelmed as owners of a radio/media conglomerate, and are bailing out of a hemorrhaging industry during a pandemic that is only exacerbating terrestrial radio's decline, should be a shock to nobody. 

Liz Collin, Eric Malmberg and Sven Sundgaard walk into a bar

 Lots to pontificate upon. I'm sure I'll forget something/somebody. 

OH THAT COVID!

A lot of what we've seen happen this year is a result of our exciting COVID economy. Not all of it, of course. People don't hate Liz Collin because of COVID. But there's no doubt COVID has hurt broadcasting and print media.

But how much? 

It's not as if 93X was running commercial free from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. each weekday. It's not as if Paul Allen went commercial free for the final hour of his chat fest. There were still commercials. 

Other than a slight increase in self-promotion, it seemed that there were plenty of commercials when Frank and Amelia read us the news. I can only assume that broadcasters had to cut deals and sell ads on the cheap to keep the revenue flowing.

So, it was the drop in revenue that ended the broadcasting careers of Dana Wessel and Ben Holsen, the former morning show dudes at Go 96.3? Maybe.

But it's not as if the geniuses programming 96.3 have ever gotten it right. I have no idea what kind of ratings that Wessel and Holsen pulled during morning drive, but I'd wager the return on the investment wasn't that great to begin with, and the COVID economy was the excuse Go 96.3 needed to cut expenses on a station that can't win, much like the Twins during the postseason. (Yes, by the time you read this, the Twins will likely have gotten that monkey off their backs.) 

I don't listen to Go 96.3, and I'm not going to start. I have no idea if those guys were the least bit entertaining. But from what I've seen of Wessel online, he seems to be a down-to-earth guy who isn't pompous and pretentious. But I know nothing, other than the dude seems to like Donkey Kong. 

YOUR CAREER IS DEAD, ERIC

The most recent tidbit to captivate the local broadcasting audience is that a dude who worked at public radio darling The Current is out of a job because he is creepy. 

It's the story of Eric Malmberg, and it is fascinating. Dude works for many years on local rock radio, establishing a rather unspectacular career. He was never on a morning show that I know of. He was never an afternoon drive guy. As far as I can tell, "Dead Eric" has a long career of being a throw away guy on local radio. So he gets hired by The Current to spin that hip, eccentric local and independent music that nobody can sell commercially (I jest, slightly) overnight and/or on weekends. This after nearly two decades of commercial radio success, or so I read. 

Who is this guy's sugar daddy? And how did The Current look at a dude who worked forever at KQ and 93X and decide that's what their on-air lineup is lacking? 

Somebody claimed via Twitter once upon a time that Dead Eric is the nephew of longtime talker Al Malmberg. Not sure if that's true, but I've seen references somewhere to Dead Eric being the son of somebody in the biz, or something along that line. 

Dead Eric has also made a buck or two, allegedly, performing music in a bar band. And most notably, he was a staff member of some degree for an organization I know nothing about, Youth Frontiers. He's cited as an employee in this blog post. 

So what does it all mean? Who knows, but here's what I have learned. 

Dead Eric is out of a job because he may have been inappropriate toward women he worked with during his past radio gigs. We still don't know exactly what he was or wasn't doing that was troublesome to at least 8 women, but it doesn't matter. When you're selling your persona as you babble into a hot mic, you'd better be squeaky clean, or have a tolerant employer. 

The Current wanted to be very tolerant when a reporter on the news side of the MPR corporation, who happened to be working on a story about Dead Eric's creepy past, quit in disgust because the story wasn't being aired. But the vitriol from the reporter's supporters forced MPR to give Malmberg a Timberland boot right out the door a day later. 

Being characterized as creepy by a respected journalist usually spells the end of your career, in at least your current market. 

I'm not going to defend the guy, but I am left wondering who is right and wrong. 

The journalist, whose name I didn't know, is highly decorated. It's unlikely she was chasing after Dead Eric on a whim, and I doubt she has a personal vendetta against him. Somebody came to her with information she thought was more damning than "he's a bit creepy around women."

Where there's smoke, there's often fire. 

It's a big move when a journalist quits over an employer's refusal to run with a story. Tells me the story is damning, even if the guy has never been charged with a crime. People guilty of crimes may be subjected to scrutiny of their actions, public or otherwise, before they're ever charged with their first felony. And if there's evidence that something serious has happened, but no criminal charges were ever filed, that doesn't excuse the behavior. 

I think the story is more than worthy of investigation by a reporter if there's evidence at least one person has been harmed in some way. How much harm does it take to make it a story? Does it need to be a criminal level of harm? Tough call. 

And you automatically get an extra ounce of scrutiny if you're a public figure.

The fact it's a 40-something dude with a bad haircut at The Current, when the reporter's paycheck comes from MPR, makes it all the more complex, and fascinating. 

I don't think the wall between the MPR news crew and the rest of the company was a factor, but then again.... it's a station that has taken a PR beating in recent years for its recent firing of a classical music DJ, its dismissal of asshole Brian Oake and its affiliation with the great Garrison Keillor. Don't automatically assume the corporate fathers and mothers aren't actively looking to avoid another demerit on their permanent record. 

The Current had no choice but to kill Dead Eric's career, at least in the local market. I don't expect to ever know the creepy details of the allegations, but I do wonder, what if Dead Eric isn't guilty of a crime, and simply is too dumb to understand personal boundaries and creepiness? We assume he's a fully functioning adult, despite his outdated teenage haircut, but what if he's not? What if MPR rejected the story because there's not enough damning evidence that he's more than slightly creepy? (I don't buy the argument that because the victims were anonymous, the story couldn't clear MPR's lofty standards.)

I doubt, highly, that Dead Eric is squeaky clean, based upon what little we know. But I do wonder what happened to the idea of innocent until proven guilty. His career in this market, and likely most everywhere else in the free world, is dead, and none of us have even had a chance to hear the evidence in the case against him. But as we're well aware, in the court of public opinion, you don't need a lot of facts to render a verdict. 

I'm shocked, of course, that so many people were upset and threatening to cancel their ongoing financial commitment to all things MPR. I thought that MPR's base of support was down to a few dozen people following the Brian Oake outrage. 

How soon does Malmberg launch his podcast? Maybe he can a part of the Brian Oake Network

WE'LL MISS YOU, ALI

I haven't been watching much early morning TV since the pandemic began. But I was disappointed to find out we were losing Ali Lucia. Not for any good reason, of course, but nonetheless I was disappointed. 

I learned just enough to know that she's leaving for Chicago because of her husband's career. I wouldn't be surprised if that's the end of her TV career. She has a young child, after all. 

As I've said before, there's a reason why so many known names leave the glamour of TV and radio for jobs as the face of a company or government agency. 

I'd bet the husband's fancy new gig in the Windy City makes up for Ali's paychecks at WCCO. 

This Twitter thread was quite impressive and candid. It's from former WCCO reporter Mary McGuire, who is yet another hometown girl made good. She left TV in January, evidently. It's not clear to me what she's doing now, but all indications were that she wasn't continuing her career in front of the camera. 

There are far worse jobs than TV news reporter, but you'll never convince me it's a great job, unless you don't need the paycheck, or you're as indispensable as Jeff Passolt was. 

As for Ali, it's funny that she left about a month after WCCO dumped Kim Johnson, for seemingly no meaningful reason. Would they have cut Kim if Ali had left first?  

Neither Kim nor Ali left a legacy in Twin Cities broadcasting, but I'd take either of them in a heartbeat over Jason DeRusha. (He's a food genius! And has one hell of a forehead.)

LIZ COLLIN IS DESPICABLE

I have enjoyed watching the hatred lobbed at WCCO over their employment of Liz Collin. And, of course, I wrote extensively about the outrage a while ago. 

There's a lot I could write about the morons who took their protest of Liz and her handsome hubby to their home in Hugo. I don't support it, and Mr. Liz Collin is an easy target that deserves criticism. But at the end of the day, I find both Liz and her employer to be despicable. 

Her husband, Trump lover Bob Kroll, is well known locally for being the union mouthpiece of Minneapolis cops. That's enough to make you a public figure, arguably, but when you're the subject of media reporting, (being a racist homophobe, allegedly,) and getting up on stage at a Trump propaganda festival with a T-shirt proclaiming cops love Trump, you most definitely are a public figure in this town. 

It really doesn't matter who you are married to when it comes to your job as the union honcho, but when you're married to a local TV babe, people are going to wonder how your relationship affects what your wife's TV station does or doesn't do regarding its reporting of your union leadership and issues involving your police department. There should be no effect, but some people will always assume there is. 

I don't know how long Liz and Bobby have been lost in each other's eyes, but Bobby sure didn't want anyone to know he landed himself a trophy wife. Irony at its finest. The marriage couldn't have been a secret, but they certainly wanted it to be, as Bobby threatened to boycott Star Tribune reporters if they referenced the fact that he is married to his trophy. It was a story about him and his actions, and a story he granted an interview for, that raised his dander. The story notes his threat to boycott the Strib if they mention he's married, out of concern that it would hurt her career. 

He's right. It does. But that doesn't mean he gets to hide the fact from viewers of WCCO or any other media outlet. And he has carried out his threat, because he's as petty and misguided as those who showed up at his home to protest the fact both he and his trophy are still employed. 

So why does that make Liz despicable? 

Liz doesn't control her husband. She doesn't dictate what he does and doesn't do. But she's a part of the local media. And she has to know that her marriage won't remain a secret forever, no matter how embarrassed she is by it. More important, she has to know that her marriage, and her employment, will be scrutinized whenever the public finds out. And the longer it's kept hush-hush, the worse it looks. 

I have no idea what goes on behind their closed doors in Hugo, but given the fact that Liz can't convince her buffoon of a husband that it's grossly unprofessional to blacklist a media organization for daring to ask about his cozy relationship with a member of a prominent local news outlet, that makes her despicable. She is a party to her husband's malfeasance. Highly despicable.

By the way, WCCO-TV isn't off the hook. The geniuses running the station had to know all about this, of course, and basically admit as much. Since the death of George Floyd, the station has made its anchors read a disclaimer occasionally, noting Liz is married to the buffoon and hasn't reported on police matters in more than two years. 

WCCO only started doing this after the public starting claiming that she shouldn't be employed because she is married to a racist. So the disclaimer is only important now, and not months earlier, when the Star Tribune spilled the beans in a story I believe ran in their once bulky Sunday edition? 

The disclaimer should have been made by WCCO before the Strib ever outed the buffoon as being married to a TV babe. That makes WCCO-TV despicable, too. 

Liz is accused of being racist by association with Bob, but the only thing she's really guilty of is questionable taste in men. So WCCO has meekly stuck with her. She was nowhere to be found for at least a month after Floyd's death, and the couple of times I've seen her report since she quietly returned, she was never on camera. No live shots from the field, and no weekend anchoring that I've seen, although I haven't seen a weekender in a while. My theory is that at this point, WCCO is running out her contract and is going to let her quietly disappear. If not, why are they willing to weather the storm for her when they were willing to kick Kim Johnson to the curb during her vacation for seemingly no meaningful reason? 

It's not apples to apples, but MPR canned Malmberg within a day of the angry masses rioting in cyberspace. Part of MPR's statement dismissing Malmberg read, "Our hosts have to be able to attract an audience that wants to listen to them and trusts them and over the last 36 hours those conditions have changed for Malmberg."

Couldn't the same be said for weekend anchor Liz Collin? 

IS SHE NUTS?

There was a funny moment in that aforementioned Twitter thread by Mary McGuire. 

As people discussed how little they earned when they started their career, or how little they were earning after many years of experience, there was some discussion about risk, or reward, and/or the safety net people (white people, I think) have when they choose to pursue a career in journalism. 

It seemed out of place, and it came from a long lost member of the Twin Cities media, Mary Alice Rosko. Known for her goofy way of gallivanting about the metro for Fox 9 bright and early, she gave it all up to explore Minnesota, and occasionally write about it on a blog, or something. 

M.A., as she liked to be called, is older than you would likely guess, and must have a sugar mama out there. That, or she inherited a fortune. There's no way her career paid such dividends that she is free to roam as she wishes, without a financial care in the world. She was at Fox 9 in some capacity for nearly two decades, and I'm guessing it wasn't her first gig on TV. But there's no way she was highly valued at Fox 9. 

Her financial means aren't really important. What we do know is that she gave up the glamour of TV to wander aimlessly, and in finding herself on the lonesome highway, she's losing touch with the world around her. 

Rosko deleted the tweet, as best I can tell, but it was made about Aug. 1, when every discussion and issue had to be about race. And I feel like M.A. interjected race into the discussion by making some claim about white people having a safety net of some kind and being able to afford to take a risk in pursuing a media career. I guess that means non-whites in broadcasting couldn't possibly have such a safety net. 

I wish I had a screen shot of the tweet, because it was out of place, and wacky, to say the least. Current Fox 9 weather gal Jennifer McDermed took exception to M.A.'s claim, which suggested all white people had some sort of privilege that mitigated any risks they took in pursuing their career. McDermed disagreed with M.A.'s wackiness, and tweeted "I wouldn’t say ALL. Many took a gamble when jumping into this field."

And then McDermed responded in follow up at some point, noting M.A. had blocked her. 

For that? M.A. was triggered by that? 

I'm not sure when or why M.A. became so unhinged, but perhaps it's best for Fox 9 and all its viewers that she wasn't still part of the morning program this past summer. 

As for McDermed, I use to like her. But when I made a suggestion, a simple silly suggestion, that she might have been cut loose by Fox 9 over the holidays last year because the station was renting a meteorologist for a few newscasts, she replied about being on vacation. I would have been happy to hear that, but her condescending response to some anonymous account proved that she's still a kid, despite the fact she should be tweeting like a working professional at this point in her life. 

"Nope, I’m back tomorrow! You see.... I also get vacation days at work. It’s nice. I get to spend time with my family. #vacationearned #dontvacationshame"

I don't know how "vacation shaming" had anything to do with my comment, whatever vacation shaming is. 

In her defense, I was sarcastic about her absence, making fun of the "self-important promos for how vital the weather 'team' is" in my comment. 

Yeah, I could have been less sarcastic, but I'm not employed by a local TV station. It's a bad look when you are, and that's how you respond. But hey, all kids make mistakes in the early years of their career.

And at the end of the day, stations don't care about how you conduct yourself via social media.  

OR DO THEY? 

That brings us to the story of "Nature Boy" Sven Sundgaard. 

I'm a bit stunned that KARE-TV went so far as to announce that he was kicked to the curb in May due to "continued violations of KARE11’s news ethics and other policies."

Tantalizing, isn't it? KARE didn't say much, but they said a lot more than a lot of stations say when they give a prominent face a one-way ticket on the express bus to Unemploymentville. 

We don't know what KARE'S statement actually means, but we know Sven couldn't stop himself, or his boyfriend, from pleasuring his many fans with online discussions about news, politics and anything else that tickled their fancy. Or so I have read. (In a shocking revelation, I know nothing about Sven's life as a social media butterfly.)

Outrage ensued when Sven was dismissed, allegedly, much like the outrage over that asshole Brian Oake. 

I was not outraged. As the kids liked to say a few years ago, "Stay in your lane, bro!" 

You're the second-string meteorologist on a top 15 market's roster. If you want be Lavender's poster child for the gay community, go for it. But don't assume that your station wants you to be the moral compass for liberal/conservative/progressive America, unless you're prepared to live off the crumbs Bring Me the News is willing to throw your way. 

It's funny, once upon a time KARE wanted its "personalities" to shine via station blogs. (Perhaps there's still a space on the KARE website for such nonsense. I can't kare enough to look.) They had a lame ditty and commercial telling you to race to the KARE blogs, featuring "Lady Di," the dork at play and the long-gone "curmudgeon" Allen Costantini. 

KARE loves when viewers engage with their ridiculous Breaking the News crapfest through social media channels. 

And KARE has no problem promoting the personal life of Rena Sarigianopoulos. 

But when you start shooting your mouth off and telling people how you think, sashay out the door, girlfriend! 

The irony, of course, is that KARE soon found itself without its third-stringer, the dude with the creepy beard. And it lost Pat Evans shortly thereafter, a guy who would at least read a forecast occasionally, but managed to find a way to do almost anything else during a forgettable 25-year tenure at the station. 

I'm not sure how Sven will satisfy his lust for a captive audience, but I am confident Bring Me the News won't be his final act in this market. He does nothing for me, but he seemed to excite a lot of female viewers in this town. 

I don't feel the least bit sorry for gay icon Sven Sundgaard. As the kids liked to say, "Know your role, bro!" 

KARE is a disaster these days. Terrible, terrible station. In the long run, Sven might be better off for KARE jerking him off. 

The air. 

Jerking him off the air.

PAPER, OR PLASTIC?

In what seems like a lifetime ago, Jeff Dubay was bounced from 1500 AM simply because they weren't making money. 

I would have bet $100 three years ago that the station would abandon any pretense of being a sports station by now. Instead they scaled back the ESPN marketing, called the station SKOR North, capitalized SKOR for no reason and overhauled the weekday schedule. They dumped the old geezers and created all sorts of new niche programs during the afternoon in an attempt to breathe new life into the station. 

Worked out well, didn't it? 

As best I can tell, there's not much going on until mid-afternoon, when the last two shepherds of ESPN 1500 take to the airwaves and chat away. It beats unemployment, I suppose, but damn, things are grim at Hubbard's AM signal. 

The brain trust at Hubbard axed just about everyone not named Judd or Phil. And that included Ramie Makhlouf. 

What I never understood was why 1500 deemed it necessary to add a third banana to their most prominent on-air duo. A guy who talks sports, tells knock-knock jokes on the side and doesn't root for the local teams was an important addition to an established duo at your station? Seemed like a bizarre move. 

As for Makhlouf, he left Milwaukee for a gig on the vastly inferior (so say the ratings) sports station in Minneapolis, as I recall. And less than 18 months later he began a long career sabbatical that is still going on as of late September. 

Bad career moves for $1,000, Alex. 

Best advice I can give Makhlouf: Don't call Jeff Dubay for career advice. 

Phil Mackey, by the way, blamed the massive salary dump on the COVID. Like the aforementioned Wessel, COVID took the blame for the end of this broadcasting career, too. In Makhlouf's case, he and his "teammates" got the ax less than two months into the pandemic. That tells me that 1500 had one foot in the grave before the pandemic began. 

The house of Hubbard also cut a couple of producers at the chick talk station it runs on the FM dial. One of them was a guy billing himself as "Donny Love." 

If that's the name you're selling on chick talk radio, you deserve your fate. 

Who knows what the future of broadcasting holds for those who have lost jobs this year, whatever the excuse for cutting the positions. But the industry wasn't exactly robust to begin with, and I'm guessing that when the COVID is all over, we won't see a lot of these jobs added back to the payroll. Companies will continue to get by with what they have left. After all, it's working right now, isn't it?

And there's always some young, optimistic, foolish youngster who thinks they'll persevere in an industry that can easily, and happily, live without Eric Malmberg on its payroll. 

You're a valuable asset to the company, until somebody comes along who can do your job reasonably well, and for less money. 

I have a feeling there are a lot of broadcasting professionals whose careers are ending thanks to the COVID. 

For what it's worth, (probably nothing,) there was a guy who worked at KFAN for 11 years, disappeared, probably due to a bad economy circa 2008, and re-emerged a little over a year later at 1500. That tenure lasted five years or so. I seem to recall he was axed at 1500, as well, through no fault of his own.

Does the name Cory Roufs ring a bell? 

He continued to work in radio, evidently, for a while after 1500, thanks to the world of satellite broadcasting. And what is he doing today after nearly two decades of radio experience? He's the front end manager for Kowalski's Markets, whatever that means. This after working for a year for a bus company. 

My point is not to job shame the guy. He may have been planning a career change for the last five years of his sports radio career. He may have run out of local options and was not in a position to move to another major market. I have no idea, but anyone willing to work for a living, in a country where so many would rather look for a handout or meal ticket anywhere they can get one, deserves tons of respect.

I have a feeling a lot of broadcasting professionals will be hoping or praying a bus company or grocery store is willing to put food on their table in the months and years to come. 

FUN FACTS

Time to wrap this up. I put a few hours into this, over several nights. I started it weeks ago, but didn't have the fire in the belly. Eric Malmberg changed that. Thanks dude!

I'm glad I put thoughts into words, but I remain committed to not doing so on a regular basis. Although all bets are off when Chris Hawkey's "damn festival" returns next summer. I was really looking forward to reading about how the morons who ran the inaugural #TCSummerJam screwed over a new set of suckers in 2020.

As for the fun facts, here's one: Jana Shorthair has thin skin. Don't joke, not in the slightest, about her killing network air time by interviewing Santa Claus during Breaking the News. She'll block you in less time than it takes to comb her hair. (What's less than zero seconds?)

Here's one more: Jeff Dubay has started a new podcast. Yes, again. For about the 50th time, it seems. I don't listen, but I say good luck to Jeff. May he find peace and satisfaction in his golden years.

Don't forget, Brian Oake is an asshole, and Keith Levanthal needs a job, again. 

Buy Jason DeRusha a glass of wine, and Liz Collin a clue

I don't have a lot to say about DeRusha. He noshes and he has a lot of forehead. And if he graces you with his presence at your fundraising event, buy the guy a glass of wine, dammit. He doubled down on that in 2019, if I recall correctly.

I'm fascinated, and bored, with the Liz Collin outrage. WCCO has all the reasons in the world to say it's time to go, and if they don't kick her to the curb, it will fan the Twitter flames when they finally trot her out in front of a camera. That will die down, but Twitter reminders that she's married to a member of the Village People, who most people are less than fond of, will never go away. Maybe they'll die down to one or two instances per month, if Bob Kroll keeps his mouth shut, or goes away.

I will have one more dispatch from the bunker this summer, some time after the holiday weekend. The blog is not back. I just don't have time to eat so much low-hanging fruit.

Why is Kim Johnson more offensive than Liz Collin at WCCO-TV?

It's well known by anybody who pays attention to the Twin Cities talking heads that WCCO-TV's second-stringer Liz Collin is a problem for the station right now.

Comments via Twitter show how there's little love for the weekend anchorette who is married to a guy widely regarded as a white supremacist. Don't kid yourself, most people don't really care one way or another. They have no interest in any form of news reporting. We all know it's biased, so it's impossible to learn anything from it. And what is there to learn?

We form our own opinions, regardless of facts, then refer to that opinion as "our truth." It's not "the truth," it's "our truth." And it's better than anything those nasty media jackals will tell you, without question.

So we know that WCCO morning anchorette Kim Johnson was kicked to the curb because the station wants to go in a "different direction," or something lame like that. Kim doesn't dazzle the masses the way Jamie Yuccas did, inexplicably. (I don't get that one, at all.) But Kim wasn't nearly as offensive as Liz Collin, as far as I know. Maybe she is despicable, what do I know? Not much, as I have said over and over.

But Kim had to go, leaving the morning duties to the rest of the pre-dawn team, I presume. (I haven't watched in a while. I can only assume they haven't added payroll in the absence of Kim.)

Liz, however, remains immortalized on WCCO's website, a crown jewel in the station's tiara, unquestionably.

So how big of a problem is Liz for WCCO? Not big enough. Yet.

If you're reading this you probably know that Liz, in her late 30s, has daddy issues, and is on her second marriage. She married sexy Minneapolis cop Bob Kroll, who might be 55 years old at this point, and is most definitely despised by many average Joes and Janes in the Twin Cities. He's  not afraid to talk the talk, when it suits his agenda, and somehow he is beloved enough by Minneapolis cops that he has been elected president of the PD's union.

Like any good Minneapolis cop, he has run afoul of standards and practices more than a few times. And he is generally regarded as a racist for his willingness to refer to non-white people and organizations as terrorists. I think he also gets dinged for not being too kind to the gay community, although I'm not sure what the basis of that is. We do know he loves Donald Trump, and happily took the stage during a Trump rally in Minneapolis to bask in the orange glow of our mentally challenged president. I'm not sure if Kroll went so far as to suckle at Trump's teat. I didn't attend that redneck rodeo.

What makes Liz so fascinating is that milfy anchorette with a dye job to die for isn't that proud of marrying a guy 15+ years her senior. Conversely, Kroll should be quite proud of his trophy, and show it off any chance he gets. Everything about his character suggests he'd be the type to gloat that he has married a news babe. And yet he doesn't want anyone to know that Liz is his little lady.

There were leaks that Liz and Bob were more than friendly with each other, but I hadn't heard anything about it until a Star Tribune interview last year, where Bob famously threatened to never speak to the newspaper again if it mentioned that he was married to a blonde TV babe who happens to read the news on the weekend.

Why would Bob be so ashamed of Liz? Well, he's not, of course. Every little boy grows up dreaming of marrying a TV babe 15+ years his junior when he hits his 50s, and Bob is one of the few boys who realized that dream. But Bob, having positioned himself as a mouthpiece for the Minneapolis PD -- with racist tendencies, it seems -- is smart enough to know that it's considered a conflict of interest if his wife reports on local news for a major market TV station and is married to a prominent member of the big city police department. Bob didn't want his trophy to be tarnished, so he and Liz seemed to downplay their nuptials publicly.

I, of course, don't care who is married, divorced or flamboyantly gay when it comes to our sacred TV people, but we tend to find out, one way or another, because they want us to know they're just like us.

So why is Liz suddenly a pain in the ass for WCCO? It could be for several reasons. Here are a bunch of possible reasons. Some are good bets. Others are more speculative.

We know that Liz use to report on police issues, but doesn't do so any more. We also know she has been married to the White Knight for a while. There's no way anybody at WCCO, from the top brass down to the interns, didn't know she was married to sexy Bob Kroll. And yet, only recently, after the death of George Floyd at the hands of former Minneapolis cops, has WCCO referenced the fact that Lizzy is married to her hunka hunka burning love by reading a disclaimer that she hasn't reported on Minneapolis PD matters in more than 2.5 years.

I have seen no evidence that WCCO made that disclaimer prior to Floyd's Memorial Day death. So why now? Why wasn't that important to note in January, or last year after the Strib outed Kroll as her life partner? That's an E4, and I'm not talking about an error on the second baseman.

WCCO loses a lot of credibility either way, but it's a really bad look when you disregarded Liz's happy homemaking with Bobby for so long, and now suddenly fess up to it. People would still criticize the station for having her on staff had they disclaimed Liz after the first date to the drive-in movie, but to remain silent for so long, only to feel obligated to fess up now, raises questions about the ethics and credibility of the station since the first moment Liz caught a twinkle in Bob's eye.

Liz went silent on Twitter after Memorial Day. Last I looked, she took a Twitter sabbatical prior to the holiday weekend. As best as I know, she conveniently hasn't turned up on WCCO's newscasts since Floyd's death. Coincidence? I don't think so.

WCCO is clearly troubled by the fact that Liz loves cuddly Bob. Otherwise they would have trotted her out like nothing happened on Memorial Day at 38th Street and Chicago Avenue.

Beyond the hesitancy of the station's honchos, you have to wonder how Liz will be able to do her job at the station.

It's no secret that being the face of the newscast is the gig most TV people covet. You're not out there in the trenches, doing live shots outside an empty city hall at 10 p.m., and you don't have to ask the unwashed masses for their mindless opinions. You sit in the comfy chair and read. And people think you're really important. And if you fool enough people, you get paid big money to read. You're trustworhty!

Liz seemed to be doing a little of both: Reading the news when called upon to do so, and filing a report when they needed her to. At this point, do you really want to send Liz out in the community to file a story? And if so, about what?

As I noted before, most people don't care about the news, so they won't know who Liz is or why the Twitter masses want her served with walking papers by WCCO, yesterday. But asking Liz to cover a story about the black community is asking for trouble if anyone associated with the story knows who she is. Send Liz to interview participants at a Black Lives Matter rally and prove me wrong. Please!

And even if it's not a story about the black community, do you really want to run the risk of sending Liz out to cover a food truck festival where she might run into angry viewers of any color who think she's as racist as her husband is believed to be?

It's unlikely, but what does WCCO do if they send any other reporter to cover a story, and somebody snubs the reporter because WCCO employs Liz? You can't rule it out. The anger over Floyd's death runs far, far deeper than any other death involving a Minnesota police department in recent years.

Does WCCO want to weather the storm of negative comments that comes every time Bob spouts his hatred toward a self-appointed terrorist group? The anger over George Floyd isn't going away any time soon, and WCCO, and its employees, will be reminded of it every time Bob speaks, so long as Liz is on the payroll. That's a tough row to hoe.

And how does Liz's marriage affect morale around WCCO these days? The station's Twitter account and, presumably, Facebook account are getting hammered for her continued employment. Social justice warriors are tweeting responses to other reporters about the fact that the station continues to employ Liz. Liz may be the least racist person in the world, but that doesn't matter if you're Frank or Amelia, and you tweet a link to a story about unemployment, only to get a response telling you that Liz is a racist by association.

I won't suggest there's a correlation between Liz's news judgment and her taste in men. But you're welcome to connect those dots.

I have no problem believing, like one diehard Twins fan on Twitter who must be Liz's father, (based upon how breathlessly he defends her,) that Liz doesn't have to be racist just because her husband is believed to be by most of the free world. Let's assume she's not. It does beg the question: What about his seemingly racist tendencies does she find so appealing?

I digress.

Here we are, mid June, and harmless Kim Johnson is searching for a PR job with an organization that would love to have her well known face as its spokesperson. And Liz is hiding with Bob, waiting for people to forget she's married so that she is safe to do her job at WCCO.

If Kim is out, and Liz is still on the payroll, you really have to question WCCO's news judgment, don't you?

I still can't get over the fact that Liz married ol' Bob. I already explained why Bob was seemingly more than happy to exchange rings with a TV babe. But I can't say I know definitively. I guess I should be open-minded enough to consider other scenarios.

What might one of those scenarios be? Glad you asked.

We know that the hunky man's man belongs to a motorcycle club and rages Republican.

Does that mean he likes wearing leather, and claims that he despises the thought of Adam and Steve, the evil counterparts to the bible's Adam and Eve?

Come to think of it, I noticed that Liz had a 5 o'clock shadow the last time I saw her on TV.

It would explain Bob's lack of pride in his marriage to Liz, wouldn't it?

I had a premonition Kim Johnson was fired by WCCO

I'm not making this up, I swear.

I haven't been watching as much morning news, lately, thanks to the fact I am not working these days. It's temporary, and I'm not too worried about it. 

Turns out I could have morning coffee with Kim Johnson these days. 

I have no idea why, but this past weekend I wondered about Kim. As I watched local news coverage of the "peaceful" protests, and saw a cavalcade of WCCO reporters chipping in to the coverage, I wondered about Kim. I have no idea why, but I realized I haven't seen her lately, and I wondered, for no reason, if she was still working at WCCO.

Why did I have a premonition about Kim, and not Ali Lucia, Alix Kendall or Chris Egert? I don't know. (I saw Alix not too long ago, but I haven't turned the TV on much in the morning, do Ali and Chris still have a job?)

Then I read this morning that the morning anchorette, who never seemed to work a night or weekend, who never seemed to be called upon to do anything extra, was out of a job. 

Turns out she's one of us, I learned today. I never knew that. I did know, for no particular reason, that she's married and spends a lot of time frolicking around Lake Minnetonka. The story I stumbled upon somewhere suggested that she lives on the lake. 

I don't know what's more puzzling, why she had the job as a morning anchorette, seemingly for years, or why WCCO was compelled to kick her to the curb.

I have to wonder if she was shitcanned simply because WCCO is desperate to trim salary from the books. I gotta believe ad revenue is way down at this point in the pandemic. They've gotta be cutting deals on local commercial time, don't they? 

Great theory, but I can't imagine she was a financial burden. I have a few other theories that are even more of a stretch than that.

I suspect the end result of her unceremonious dismissal, whatever the motivation, is that we won't see a new hire. Instead her seat in the early morning will be filled by somebody on staff. I can imagine several ways this might work. 

Whatever the end result, I'll miss her, for no good reason. There's a reason, but it's not a good one. 

Now if WCCO really wanted to unload dead weight, it would have dumped Liz Collin. 

Tawnja Zahradka begs a lot of questions as she runs for Congress

It seems almost silly to offer any sort of commentary on the political fortunes of a made-for-TV spokesmodel when it's such an ugly time to live in Minnesota.

I won't offer commentary on the future of police/community relations, who is at fault for where we are today or why things that have happened in the last 24+ hours are confusing. It's not as black and white as many people want to see it. I'll leave it at that.

That aside, I did a little further examining of Tawnja Zahradka's campaign after posting my initial thoughts of the cable access sexpot. All that did was muddy the waters of Forest Lake.

As I noted in my previous post, Tawnja touts that she is a victim of sexual harassment. I have no reason to doubt the claim. And I don't.

As I scoured her campaign website, and eventually her campaign's Facebook page, I was a bit surprised. She has made plenty of videos, it's what she does best, after all, and she makes it clear more than once in videos that she's a victim of sexual harassment and discrimination. At least once she claims that she lost everything she spent two decades building as a result, and lost her career as a spokesperson because of it. She also claims that this loss inspired her to pick herself up and dust herself off, to start anew.

And that new start is winning elected office. At the federal level. After two decades of pimping German restaurants and any other business that paid her to do so.

As I noted previously, I've found nothing about this failed lawsuit, a lawsuit that failed because of, she claims, "sexual harassment laws that are designed to protect the harassers-which they did."

I can only assume that this harassment occurred when she was an "executive producer" of MCN6. Tawnja has a ton of her videos posted on YouTube, and in 2015 she posted an MCN6 interview where she is touted as the cable access station's executive producer. The most recent videos are form three years ago, and the last several videos don't seem to feature Tawnja, but they're segments much like Tawnja peddled for two decades, and they appear to be segments produced for the benefit of the vast MCN6 viewership.

It appears that, if she started a legal battle in late 2017, as she claims, that she must be referring to her work at MCN6 as the source of harassment, as all indications are that's where she was working three to five years ago.

So what's the point?

I'd say, first, that if she was a victim of sexual harassment, it's none of our business. Maybe it becomes our business if she sues a cable access TV station. Maybe it's our business only if she wins the lawsuit and the quasi-public entity is held accountable.

But it's definitely our business if she's going to tout her being a victim, time and again, and claim that the system is protecting the guilty, and that she was a victim, of both harassers and the law. If fighting for women like her is an important issue of her campaign, and a major reason for her campaign -- as she claims -- then you've got to give us more, Tawnja.

You can't just say you were a victim, the system is rigged against victims and then ask us to support the change you seek without giving us some explanation as to how the system failed you. I haven't found that, at least not yet, and I doubt that explanation exists.

If you claim that you're going to improve public safety, you had better offer a plan, or at least ideas of how to begin to improve it. If you're going to promise lower taxes, it rings hollow if you never explain how. If you're going to claim you are fighting for victims of sexual harassment, and hold up yourself as an example, why are we supposed to simply accept that the laws are stacked against victim's like you? I'm not a lawyer, I have no idea how harassment laws work. Prove it to us, Tawnja, and give us details that show you know what you're talking about.

There's something else that bothers me. Tawnja claims she lost her two-decade career due to this harassment. First off, shilling for local businesses on cable access TV for two decades is hardly a career. If you made money doing 30 minutes of commercials on cable access TV, that's damn impressive. But it's not much of a career.

Second, if your skill set is so great, why haven't you parlayed that two decades of pitching local restaurants on cable access TV into a commercial voice over career? Or video production for local businesses that want to run commercials on their websites and social media channels?

It's unfortunate that Tawnja's long association with MCN6 seemingly ended due to harassment, but without details as to why that chapter of her life is such an important part of her campaign, her candidacy seems rather manufactured, much like that smile she has flashed for more than two decades.

Tawnja Zahradka was sexually harassed, and wants your vote

I retired from blogging a long time ago.

I'm still retired.

I can't afford the time. Life is short, and criticizing what passes for broadcasting in this day and age is too easy, and akin to shooting fish in the barrel.

I never intended to set the world on fire with this blog. I never tried, either. Yes, I set up a Twitter account, mostly to observe what others are saying and doing. Sure, I tweet now and then, to the few people who follow, knowing most of them won't see the tweets.

But this blog generated plenty of interest through simple Google searches of the media darlings that we all love.

I'd do things different if I was to do them again, but I'm not starting down that road.

Except that once a year, I get an itch.

And I have that itch. And Tawnja Zahradka gave it to me.

Who is Tawnja? I wrote about her once upon a time.

I'm sure she's a decent human being, and I'm sure she works hard at being pretty.

I find her fascinating.

Why? First off, I am amazed/amused by the people who turn up on local cable access TV, working so hard to create something notable. I couldn't do better, I guarantee that. But that doesn't stop me from cringing at the sight of their local programs. I was very disappointed to see that Carla Beaurline has returned to Twin Cities public access TV, after trying to sell her crap as a Facebook program. Nothing has changed, Carla is still as minor league as ever, and seems to be shilling for the same lame businesses that she has always shilled for. It's awful. Pure and simple.

I have long been mildly fascinated with Tawnja Zahradka. From what I could tell, she wanted to work in front of a camera, and seems to have the looks and the skill set to do it.

Her online bios suggest she has been in movies and other important stuff, although I don't recall her actually doing anything meaningful other than being an extra. Perhaps I'm wrong. Too tired to care.

Model, actress, spokesperson...She'd do any of it it made her a local celebrity, or better.

I noticed that her local TV show, which she seemed to produce for decades, disappeared at some point after she marked 20 years of shilling. She showed up on the Twin Cities public access channel, MCN6, as a co-host of some local girl chat program for a while, which seemed to exist as a way to shill for local businesses....what she does best. I swear she was credited as some sort of honcho at MCN6. But at some point she disappeared, and I was left wondering what happened to her.

Then I saw a list of the DFL's endorsed candidates for U.S. Congress. I fell out of my chair.

Tawnja Zahradka, who seemed to be going by her husband's name, Tawnja Peterson, a few years ago, is the DFL's answer to Tom Emmer, a Republican who has made a living off of the voters, and replaced none other than plastic, fantastic Michele Bachmann in Congress.

Stunned doesn't come close to describing this revelation earlier today.

I see no evidence that Tawnja, Zahradka or Peterson, has ever held a public office. But that doesn't matter in this country. Not any more. If you want to hold a federal office, go for it!

I still can't get over it.

So I examined Tawnja's website and Twitter account. And damn, can of worms be opened.

Her online bio starts with the usual shit that means nothing. Her father was in the military. Thank him for that, but that doesn't say one thing about you or your qualifications. Even if Tawnja had went to boot camp once upon a time, it wouldn't mean much when it comes to her ability to navigate the complexity of Washington, D.C.

Her personal bio notes that she supports a few causes, is a stepparent and is married to a drummer that once toured with Badfinger. What difference does that make? (He wasn't important enough to note in Badfinger's Wikipedia article, although I learned that Badfinger is a really old band that has been bastardized with varying incarnations.)

She also notes that she was a Mrs. Minnesota once upon a time. She doesn't mention it was 1995, and she doesn't mention that the Mrs. Minnesota title is a big joke. Married women who want to either capture the glory of their youth, or chase glory they never attained, compete in a meaningless pageant for a state title and the right to chase a meaningless national title. It's manufactured and it's embarrassing. Nobody outside of the participants, and their families, cares. I don't have 20 minutes to detail why.

This is the most interesting excerpt from her bio: "Tawnja spent over two decades on television in the Minneapolis market only to have her career ended due to sexual harassment in the workplace. After a two year legal battle beginning in late 2017 to restore her television career, justice was denied to her due to sexual harassment laws that are designed to protect the harassers-which they did."

So her disappearance from TV was a result of sexual harassment? And she is no longer on TV because she couldn't win a legal battle to prove it? That's one hell of a bombshell, and I'd pay a lot of money to read that story. I tried finding anything that speaks to this case, but a simple Google search turned up nothing.

So she disappeared from local TV through some fantastic sequence of events, and now she reemerges in my life as a candidate for a federal office, having done nothing noteworthy that I can see. Yet she's loved by the DFL. How the hell did a woman who spent two decades or more trying to be a pretty face on camera end up deciding she wants to get down and dirty in Washington, D.C.?

I have a theory, and it's absurd, but I'll save it for after the election, win or lose.

One final thought: She has a Twitter account for her campaign, an account she doesn't seem to use much. She hasn't touched it in three months, that I can tell. But this nugget from early February is outstanding, even if I have no idea what she is referring to, specifically. "This is why Tom Emmer is a disgrace. I can’t wait to debate this sad excuse for a congressman."

Look out D.C., this kitten has claws!

Learn all about Tawnja's campaign at https://www.tawnjaforcongress.com/