But is the established dead tree daily here on this end of the Buffalo Ridge all that impartial? Well, the publisher of said Marshall Independent, Russ Labat, just appeared before the Marshall City Council to deliver a packet of letters from about thirty Marshall businesses complaining about property tax increases. And the tax increases the publisher was complaining about? About two percent, piddly given that costs of energy, health care, and a lot of other stuff cities have to purchase has gone up a lot more than two percent. Given that Russ Labat's paper doesn't have a whole lot of visible real estate in Marshall, he's clearly crossed the line from publisher to advocate. And given that it's only the republicans that insist on "no new taxes", probably a partisan advocate at that.
Now I'm not accusing the Marshall Independent's reporters of bias- I've met some of them and they're pretty scrupiously unbiased professionals. But it's higher up the food chain that the decisions get made on what stories get front paged and which get buried. While there's been more than adaquite coverage of every routine business opening or expansion in Marshall, there was scant coverage of the possible lesbian orientation of the two bullied teens that took their own lives last year.
So maybe it's time for Russ Labat to be upfront like us bloggers, and admit that his paper is partisan and lose the veneer of fake "impartiality". Russ, I dare you to do it...