Critical Mess- The Star Tribune vs The City Pages

This blog entry will focus articles about the arrests that occurred at Critical Mass on Friday, September 3rd. It will use primarily the Star Tribune article of September 1st by Joy Powell and the City Pages article of September 12th by Matt Snyders. It also might reference the story by Randy Furst and David Chanen of the 4th.

In this blog I'd like to concentrate more on sources and "fairness" than on actual mechanics.

In Joy Powell's breaking-news story there is only one source quoted, Minneapolis Police Lt. Marie Przynski. She provides not only the quotes but is able to frame the events in terms that are sympathetic to the police actions, "Soon, the two officers were surrounded by about 30 people, and they issued the call "officer needs help."" The story also paints demonstrators as violent, "When officers tried to arrest a rider they felt had been trying to provoke them, a scuffle broke out." What exactly is Powell insinuating when she reports that police "felt" that a rider was "trying to provoke them?" What does that entail? So, she is more or less saying that the rider was trying to get arrested or sprayed with mace, so for that reason the rider needed to be arrested? Is this a hint to dig a little more and find out exactly what the situation was?

Powell reports that many riders were part of the anti-Republican Convention protest group and then goes on to describe the police presence of 48 officers from 6 different departments and a helicopter, without exploring possible connections between these circumstances. She closes with a quotation of the age-old assertion that there were outside agitators involved.

I find it difficult to believe that Powell had no opportunity to speak to any of the 200 participants, the lawyers representing them, or the anti-RNC group. There were even videos posted on Youtube that would have shown a different side of the situation. She based her story on one source, one who had an interest in presenting a certain view of events, and her story was unbalanced in that direction.

It can be contrasted to the analysis story in City Pages by Matt Snyders. He directly quotes at least 10 people while providing background with information from others. He lets the statements by the MPD stand, but contrasts them with other observers, witnesses, and arrestees. All in all it's a more balanced piece that, without taking sides, uses the information provided by the divergent views against one another to try and get a clearer picture of what really happened.