Long time Nick Coleman observer Jim Styczinski writes in with this exposé of Nick Coleman's brand of journalism:
While it's no substitute for Journalism School or covering the World Series, you ticks can still learn something by studying the elephant. Thus, as a public service to bloggers, I offer this Nick Coleman case study.
On August 25, Nick Coleman wrote a column criticizing the police for arresting some Macalester College coeds who were skinny dipping at Hidden Beach, part of a Minneapolis Park. Coleman suggested that this was not the ideal use of precious police manpower:
"Cracking down on naked people might seem a debatable use of precious police manpower in a city that has had to borrow helicopters from the state in order to try to convince drug dealers and gang bangers that the cops mean business."
And he hinted that the "Minneapolis Bod Squad,: as he referred to the arresting officers, was motivated more by titillation than public safety:
"Is the point of patrolling a public place to make sure people are safe and don't get hurt? Or is it to make naked women get out of the water?"
I must admit that at this point I more or less agreed with Nick. He made it seem that the Minneapolis Police had gotten bored patrolling Hennepin Avenue and decided to see what was happening over at Hidden Beach.
Then on September 3 came Nick Coleman's response to the feedback he received from the skinny dipping column. It seems that Minneapolis Police Chief Bill McManus wrote Nick an angry letter saying, among other things, that his cops would never waste time and resources "on trivial violations of the law." It turned out that the arrests were made by the Minneapolis Park Police.
What was the response of journalistic elephant Nick Coleman?
"I understand that it is the park police who generally keep our parks nude free. But MPD cops can respond to park problems, too. So I fudged it as to whether the skinny dippers were busted by city cops or park cops because: 1) I couldn't find out for sure; and 2) It didn't make much difference."
Let's consider number two first. I would argue that it does make a difference. If the busts had been made by cops taking a break from patrolling North Minneapolis, Coleman may have had a story. But the busts were made by the Park Police whose job it is to patrol the parks and bust people who break even the trivial laws. One of the reasons for having a Park Police is to relieve the rest of the police force from worrying about the enforcement of Park Board ordinances.
As for the first point, I'm not really qualified to respond to it, having never been to Journalism school and having never covered city hall. It just may be impossible to find out whether an arrest was made by the Park Police or the city police. At least until after you've already written the column about it.
Jim is right. Editors, corrections policies, community standards, somehow all conspired to fail Nick Coleman on this story. How does that happen? With all that professional journalistic oversight, he still published an outright falsehood. I must say, we bloggers could do this all on our own, even without editors, corrections policies, and community standards. (And without all that overhead, we pass the savings along to you!)
Nick's September 3 column also contained this classic bit of dodgy, simplistic rationalization, in response to the fact that the Park Police arrested many other skinny dippers (some, presumably bloated and quite heinous in appearance), on the night the naked Macalaster co-eds were caught up in the net of justice:
"True, but not my fault: The park police spokesman I talked to did not mention that there were other arrests that night, even though I asked for a description of what had occurred. If I had been given the information, I would have included it."
Wait a minute here, Nick Coleman claimed to have the "credentials of a real journalist." No one is exactly sure what that means, but are we to assume it has something to do with blindly publishing whatever a source says at face value? And not having the curiosity or insight to ask further questions that could reveal the true story? And then, when caught reporting half-truths and misleading information, blaming it on the source for not getting your reporting correct?
Since Nick Coleman also claims to be in the business of "scrutinizing the actions of those in power," I have to assume the above conditions only apply when the half-truths and misleading information validate the story he's written in advance of the interview. One can't let the facts get in the way when you're afflicting the comfortable (like those elitist slackards walking the beat on the Minneapolis Police Department). Especially when you're on deadline and you don't have any other ideas.
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