Bob Collins
A lot of people in my generation took the Kennedy assassination out on Lyndon Johnson, not because we thought he had anything to do with it, but because he wasn’t Jack Kennedy. Read more →
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.
Sometimes, a news story perfectly reveals the extent to which the terrorists “have won.”
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JFK: Maybe you can’t figure out history, why we should welcome winter, what you can do for your country, the toughest competition: girls, and the price of Bat Kid. Read more →
A long-simmering feud is boiling again between the news media and the Obama administration, which has emerged as a closed administration.
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Update 12:57 p.m. – Watch the Dreamliner attempt to take off. (KIRO) Update 1:18 p.m. – It had no problem taking off with room to spare. A few years ago, I took an MPR News website producer for a ride in an airplane to show him his colleague’s outstanding airmanship. This is our approach to Read more →
This week’s stabbing of a state senator in Virginia at the hands of his mentally-ill son, who then took his own life, has now sparked the usual follow-up: “How could this happen?” Read more →
The reporters who buried Oswald, does Saint Paul need streetcars again, the monster in Lake Pepin, the lies we repeat about Thanksgiving shopping, and the Fox 9 reporter’s face plant. Read more →
You probably won’t hear much about Gloria Steinem being awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom today by President Barack Obama. Former President Bill Clinton and current presidential pal Oprah Winfrey seem to be getting top billing in news coverage. Where did Steinem, an activist and writer for more than four decades, end up in today’s Read more →
Execs at the Pioneer Press newspaper insisted today that the decision to cut 170 jobs at its printing plant near Holman Field and contracting with the rival Star Tribune does not indicate a sale of the paper itself despite ongoing rumors that it’s only a matter of time before the Twin Cities become a one-newspaper Read more →
The Minnesota Supreme Court took some bite out of the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act when it ruled today that contracts between private firms doing business for a government entity can remain confidential in some cases. The Court overturned a Court of Appeals ruling that originally favored the Timberjay newspaper in its bid to get Read more →
Nothing keeps a community together like a cup of coffee in the right setting. In cities all over the Midwest, especially those where businesses have moved out and the people remaining aren’t far behind, the town cafe holds it together. Read more →
Funeral panhandling, what’s happening at the Minneapolis Federal Reserve, it’s over for stadium opponents so on to Atlanta, when sex offenders almost walk, and the ‘joy sessions.’ Read more →
This sign at a Walmart store in Canton, Ohio is either: (a) Proof that Walmart doesn’t pay its employees enough to make a decent living or: (b) Proof that Walmart cares about its employees. The Cleveland Plain Dealer says the idea for the food collection tubs, which are in an employees-only area, originated at the Read more →
If you’ve almost starved one child to death, are you fit enough as a parent to retain three others in your care if they aren’t starving or, apparently, abused? Today, the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled you are. Read more →
When is the last time you heard a male astronaut asked how he could leave his children home to spend time aboard the International Space Station?
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