Bob Collins
Thanksgiving provides an opportunity to consider immigration.
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MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
By Bob Collins
Bob Collins retired from Minnesota Public Radio in 2019 after 12 years of writing NewsCut and pointing out to complainants that posts weren’t news stories. A son of Massachusetts, he was a news editor 1992-1998, created the MPR News regional website in 1999, invented the popular Select A Candidate, started several blogs, and every day lamented that his Minnesota Fantasy Legislature project never caught on.
North Dakota’s oil boom is being helped leaders looking away from the environmental disaster that is unfolding in the state, the New York Times reported this weekend. Read more →
This weekend’s Saturday Night Live skit brought with it a nagging question: Should civics classes teach how a bill becomes a law, or how it really does — or doesn’t — become a law?
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It’s never too late to achieve a dream. Read more →
Here are 12 questions based on things that were in the news this week. Take your best shot! Read more →
KSTP’s boss said the station never accused the man posing with Betsy Hodges of being in a gang or flashing gang signs. Emails, though, show that’s exactly what KSTP reporter Jay Kolls was doing. Read more →
Last evening, the CBC posted a voicemail from an irate listener who has had it with weatherpeople promising ‘nice’ weather at this time of year.
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Well before the sexual assault allegations against Bill Cosby took root in public discussion after years of claims to which few paid attention, a group of Twin Cities comics had plenty of reason for putting together this weekend’s comedy benefit for the Minnesota Coalition Against Sexual Assault. Read more →
Add the Columbia Journalism Review to journalism sources having a hard time fathoming what KSTP was thinking in its ‘Pointergate’ story. Read more →
When the soon-to-be-former Minnesota Vikings running back was suspended by the NFL for the rest of the season, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said part of the reason was that Peterson didn’t appear to be contrite for beating his son. Now, he’s contrite. Read more →
The New York Times’ Public Editor — the Times’ version of an ombudsman — has joined in the criticism of her newspaper over the assertion that Minnesotans have a near love affair with grape salad at Thanksgiving. “After Lefse ended up chosen for North Dakota and Wild Rice for Wisconsin, The Times had to look Read more →
If all go according to plan, I’ve got six months left to work in the news business.
Why? Because a colleague let me know today that this job is open now.
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‘Rural values’ and ‘traditional values’ are fairly vague terms, which are often left to the rest of us — city slickers — to figure out what they define exactly. They often are intertwined with religion or faith. Whose religion and whose faith? Read more →
Meet Kelly McCarthy, who’s behind the funny tweets from Lino Lakes. Read more →
Former Shattuck St. Mary’s hockey player Jack Johnson is tapped out, and mom and dad are to blame, the Columbus Dispatch newspaper says today.
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