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.
Steve Robson wrote last week about his days as an intern in in the central Queensland city of Rockhampton.
He tried to take his own life and he unburdened himself last week from his shame of not using his experience to help others.
In so doing, he learned a startling truth. Read more →
Some guy tried to assassinate people this week. A woman played Cinderella to make a kid happy. Both remind us as individuals that we can be better.
Logically, what do we have to lose? Read more →
Here are the stories, topics, and guests you’ll hear today on MPR News. Read more →
Barry Levenson, a Massachusetts native, developed a love affair with mustard, and then a Wisconsin mustard museum, thanks to Bill Buckner’s inability to pick up a baseball in the 1986 World Series. Yes, it’s complicated. Read more →
Western Wisconsin’s Hudson Star-Observer says it will no longer publish hate letters, “letters that threaten or that incite crimes including violence against anyone and for any reason. Period.” Read more →
Since the last big election, few news stories have concentrated on who’s needed to elect people to office these days: people who don’t bother voting — the people who believe their lives are so disconnected from public policy, that the effort isn’t worth their time.
Read more →
The fact that almost every reasonable person who listens to an ad in support of an Arkansas Republican congressman’s re-election thinks it’s fake offers at least a glimpse of hope that there are still people who realize the problem with it.
It’s not fake. Read more →
We suspect by now someone has started a GoFundMe page to raise money as a reward for a guy who makes a living at a pizza shop pizza. Good. Dalton Shaffer deserves every dime. Read more →
Here are the stories, topics, and guests you’ll hear today on MPR News. Read more →
Some stories define us more than others. The stories we embrace as uniquely America are obvious. Less so are the ones we’d rather not consider as readily. And then there are the ones that are a little bit of both. Read more →
Here are the stories, topics, and guests you’ll hear today on MPR News. Read more →
During World War II, when the Nazis invaded Norway, Heinrich Himmler encouraged soldiers to get Norwegian women pregnant. He thought the Norwegians were perfect for creating the Aryan master race. Read more →
In almost 45 years in the radio business, the answer to the most famous person I ever met has always been the first famous person I ever met. Read more →
There’s a growing trend — particularly among smaller newspapers — that’s doing nothing to improve the political climate. The newspapers are charging to have a letter to the editor printed in the local paper and posted online. Read more →
We’ve never met Lee Sjolander, the police chief of Kenyon, Minn., and that’s something we’ve got to do something about one of these days. Nonetheless, we’ve made him the official police chief of NewsCut, and not just because of his ability to write and communicate with people, but his honesty in discussing his struggles over the years, almost as if he’s like the rest of us.
Read more →
Bob Collins