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To the Slaughter
Rybak Officially Departs Star Tribune
Deborah Caulfield Rybak, the Star Tribune's media reporter officially resigned Tuesday after months of deliberations. Rybak took on the media beat in 2004, after coming to the paper in 2001. Earlier in her career she spent 10 years at the Los Angeles Times.
When the Strib announced its most recent round of buy-outs this past May, Rybak was on family leave in California. To be euphemistic in the extreme, "confusion" ensued as to whether the paper was offering her job back, putting it up for grabs or eliminating it.
Nominated by the Strib for a Pulitzer for her work with Dave Phelps on how the state's tobacco money was being spent, Rybak has a pretty good idea of who is zooming who. She felt frustrated by the previous Strib administration and, in the end, couldn't see her situation improving with the steadily thinning Strib of today.
"In the end," she said Wednesday, "I decided to reassign myself out of management's reach."
It is no secret she has been approached by incipient on-line news sites and other local periodicals.
"I'm like a prisoner who has just been released from the Gulag," she said. "I want to be a spectator for a while before I jump back in with another work crew."
Having been admonished to always stay above the self-pitying fray, I will leave it to others to note the de-flavorizing and red-lining of local media coverage at Par Ridder-run newspapers.
11 Reader Comments
An unrelated question about journalists leaving local publications: Is there any truth to the rumor that G.R. Anderson is leaving City Pages? Apparently that's what he's been telling his students in the U of M class he teaches. And if he leaves, will Paul Demko go as well?
LAMBERT: G.R. is a talented guy who could probably find more fulfillment elsewhere.
When the Strib had a chance to let Rybak leave gracefully, they dicked around with her position, then declined her buyout request, right?
Now that Michael Vick is done with it, I suggest the Strib take over the name Bad Newz Kennel. Seems to fit.
LAMBERT: I saw an e-mail chain between Rybak and the paper and "dicked" seems about right.
Deborah can be a prickly pear, in that good, no-bullshit, old-fashioned newspaper reporter kind of way.
That kind of behavior is not rewarded at the modern newspaper. Being a good reporter and writer still is valued, but it's valued more if you sit quietly in your cubicle and don't make waves.
LAMBERT: Obedience to authority counts for more than skeptical curiosity.
"I'm like a prisoner who has just been released from the Gulag," she said.
Um, okay.
Its too bad. She was one of the few reporters there who actually was "Fair and Balanced".
LAMBERT: Yeah, if only the place had more O'Reillys and Cavutos.
I'm getting lost here. Prisoner? Gulag? Man, that media beat is a bitch! And remind me again why we are obsessing about who's in or out at the Strib. It sounds like we should give Ms. Caulfield Rybak a round of applause and a warm blanket. Surely, she'll press charges. Meanwhile, I don't think I'll sleep a wink until I know which fledgling online recycler of aging local journalists signs her up for one of those coveted $100-a-story contracts.
But if things are so bad down at 425 Portland, why all the hand-wringing about its undoing? And who is to blame for Caulfield Rybak's torment....the "dicking" as you have it...Avista or her colleagues now carrying water for Avista? Call me old fashioned, but I don't think you can have it both ways. Is the Strib a corrupt, venal insitution beyond redemption...or a noble element of the Fourth Estate we should be pulling for? Maybe we could get Dick Cheney to pronounce the Strib officially in its "last throes."
//Is the Strib a corrupt, venal insitution beyond redemption...or a noble element of the Fourth Estate we should be pulling for?
I don't know anything about frogman, but I do know this is how conservatives think: in black and white. I can't speak for others on this board or Brian, but my feelings towards the Strib are really ambivalent. Some things are really terrible, i.e. the loss of all the old hands, Katherine Kersten, religion reporting, and the reader's rep. There are still good reporters there, doing good and important work. They aren't saints for doing that - they get paid a fair wage, and there is worse work to do. Still, keeping an attitude that journalism is one of the noble liberal arts and a necessary function in a democracy must take some effort by reporters staying on at the Trib. As Ben Bagdikian once said: "Trying to be a first-rate reporter on the average American newspaper is like trying to play Bach's St Matthew Passion on a ukulele."
Good ridance, beeyotch. Most of her writing (that I recall) always seemed to have a specific agenda and did very little reporting. Like a freshman sorority pledge at a bawdy frat party, she swallowed what was presented and moved to the next house.
No, really, I will call you. Just show me you want me. Right now.
LAMBERT: And what you really think is ... ?
Pud inadvertently accomplishes some hilarious self parody here. Let's see, it's RYBAK'S writing that's tainted with a specific agenda, says the Pud Head with the email address "raydeeo," as in, I work in the bidness Rybak covered and maybe she failed to buss my butt in the process. AND the libelous charge that Rybak's pieces exhibited minimal reporting supported by, not "very little reporting," but absolutely not so much as a scintilla of reporting. Listen Pud, if you're going to wholesale libel someone's professional reputation when they're down, break a sweat and cite an example or two of her work. This ain't radio, Pud.
LAMBERT: An example of Wild West internets, Jimmy. There's no law in these frontier towns.
Brain:
In you Sept. 5th entry you wrote: "....'CCO's reputation as the first-stop for breaking news...." I suggest you take a look back at your Nielsen's. On the night of the 35W bridge collapse, KSTP's ratings at 6:30PM were double all other affliates combined. As the night went on, KSTP lost viewers as many of them returned to their normal habits. But, the highest ratings KSTP has earned in more than decade shows that when there's big breaking news, people turn to KSTP. During other big stories, like recent tornado coverage, and the collapse of a building under construction in Maple Grove, the ratings repeatedly show that KSTP is the first stop for breaking news, even if the station doesn't always win in regular ratings periods. The station is the only station that throws all of its resources at big stories. KSTP has the most live trucks, which helps to bring those breaking stories to viewers. There's a common misconception about the ratings out there--I see you accept it without question. I urger your readers to take your comments about local television news with a grain of salt.
R.
KSTP Employee
LAMBERT: While I was out of town when the bridge went down, the clear consensus of people whose opinion I respect on these things was that KSTP did the best job with the breaking story AND staying with it. I believe I've said that. But when the 10 o'clock news show rolls around, the audience historically slides back to WCCO (amid a major news event). I was making a difference between "breaking" and the audience habituation re: 10 p.m. shows. Maybe I should have been more clear.
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