Strib priorities
Seven weeks after declaring he could and would buy the Minnesota Vikings for $625 million, Reggie Fowler hasn't shown his money to the NFL, nor has he shown sufficient paperwork for approval by the league's owners.The Strib can afford to put send someone to Atlanta and devote four entire days to researching this story. Do they give people four days and that much support to do investigative reporting into how Pawlenty is screwing over our schools? Or into how the U administration is using cheap, dishonest union busting tactics as the U's grad students organize a union? Or into corporate abuses by local companies like Best Buy? Or, nationally, did they give someone four days and a travel budget to dig into George Bush's pre-war claims about WMDs? Or his lies about Social Security? I doubt it. If they did, they sure haven't given their findings much ink.
The NFL confirmed this week for the first time that the Vikings' deal hinges on the Arizona businessman's sale of one of his companies, a flight simulator and training firm called SATCO.
...During four days of pursuit by a Star Tribune reporter in and around their suburban Atlanta offices, no UBG leader would discuss his company's track record or holdings.
Most national stories in the Strib are AP stories and coverage of local politics and business tend to follow the timid "he said, she said" formula that simply regurgitates the official statements of the elite players on any given issue without exploring what the actual facts are or giving voice to those who don't have lawyers and press releases. It's too expensive, we hear from media analysts, to fund investigative journalism in today's media climate and it's far too risky to publish stories that expose the powers that be. Unless we're talking about sports, of course. All the resources in the world for that.
