KARE 11 Slams South Minneapolis AGAIN
Here’s a map of where it happened:
According to Google Maps, it takes 16 minutes to drive from the South Minneapolis where the murder took place to the other end of South Minneapolis.
Does anyone from KARE 11 actually live in Minneapolis? Spend time in Minneapolis? Do they realize how absurd it is to use a geographic term that covers 100,000+ city residents who live in some of the quietest and most challenging neighborhoods in the city?
Admittedly, they did get to mentioning the specific location in the video and online versions faster than the last time they did this, but they’re still irresponsibly branding a HUGE area of Minnesota’s largest city with a dangerously inaccurate storyline.
As Rich mentioned here and Ranty commented on MNSpeak, overly broad generalizations like this are not unique to areas South of downtown. North Minneapolis neighborhoods suffer from the same broad brush of laziness.
October 1st, 2008 at 7:45 am
Does anyone have a suggestion for improvement? I’m talking about a suggested headline, that viewers/readers who don’t live in Minneapolis would understand. Saying “Minneapolis” is overly broad. “Near downtown” seems to unfairly tarnish downtown. What’s the fix here?
October 1st, 2008 at 8:09 am
Tarnish downtown? If it’s a geographical reference meant to imply the location of a neighborhood to those who wouldn’t understand if you just said “Phillips”, I don’t think a description of a mile south of downtown is implying anything about downtown itself– at least not anything you’re not otherwise ascribing to entire areas of South Mpls that are farther away than that. You could use the neighborhood name in the title, and describe where it is early on in the story.
October 1st, 2008 at 8:36 am
Why not name the actual neighborhood where the assault took place? “This happened in the Minneapolis Phillips neighborhood.”
October 1st, 2008 at 8:37 am
How about just saying “near Children’s Hospital” or using some other landmark?
October 1st, 2008 at 9:18 am
Looks like Ventura Village to me. (If it was on the North side of 24th, anyway.)
October 1st, 2008 at 9:38 am
I agree – a neighborhood description might be the best…it’s about the most specific details that can be provided without going so detailed that only those intimately familiar with Minneapolis would know where you’re talking about.
This issue is prevalent in describing “downtown”, too. I happen to live in the Mill District…have lived her for 4 years and never have heard of any significant crimes in this area. That said, crimes do happen near Block E, which to outsiders, implies that all of Downtown is dangerous…which just isn’t the case.
In the end, this is always going to be an issue, so I’m not sure there’s a perfect solution. The reality is that neighborhoods can go from safe to unsafe in a matter of a few blocks, and news stories lose their panache with too much detail.
I’d question…is this a bad thing? What’s the impact…lower house prices? I, for one, am OK with the fact that people in suburbs think “south minneapolis” is dangerous…it keeps them out and keeps house prices more reasonable for those that actually know the reality.
October 1st, 2008 at 9:46 am
I’m not sure what is better, using broad or more specific locations. Using the specific neighborhood might be better for everyone else living in the broad area, but what does that do for neighborhood where it took place.
For years, all we heard was about crime in Philips and how bad of an area it was. But it wasn’t really true, and now there are parts of Philips that have had some major changes to it.
I don’t think it’s as simple as we might want it to be.
October 1st, 2008 at 10:46 pm
If I were with Children’s Hospital, I’d be ticked if the media described crime as happening near there, or south of there. It’s a tough situation. Most people don’t know where Philips is, or Longfellow, or the Mill District. I think what KARE did is the best solution. We break Minneapolis into: North, Northeast, Uptown, Downtown, South Minneapolis. Then quickly go to a more specific map/location description.
October 1st, 2008 at 11:14 pm
If you combined Anoka, Blaine, Champlain, & Maple Grove, you’d probably be the ballpark to the same population as South Minneapolis.
A student in one of the high schools in ABCMG is facing expulsion for bringing a box cutter to school. We could tell you which school, but let’s just say it happened in a Northwestern suburb because it’s easier for people to understand.
A bicyclist was killed in ABCMG. More after the break.
Will three planned 345-kilovolt powerlines run through your ACBMG backyard? Stay tuned to find out.
October 2nd, 2008 at 12:35 pm
there’s a great map with almost all of the st. paul and minneapolis neighborhoods listed, put out by Big Stick Productions out of Boston. Maybe the television folks need that (the neighborhood newsies helped put it together)
and me, I’d argue for the specific
October 2nd, 2008 at 2:12 pm
My two cents = specific.
Really, it is about time management, if the headline says ‘Disease ravages Great Lakes’…I go damn, where, because I’m worried about all my friends and family in the whole great lakes region. Then if I read for 20 minutes and finally find out it is some parasite in walleyes in Lake Ontario…I’m pissed and I want that 20 minutes of my life back.
Same with ‘Crime in So Mpls’, if it is in Nokomis, say so in the headline, if I care about knowing where in Nokomis, I’ll read on AND expect to see in the first paragraph or two a specific address or at least closer description of where the crime occurred.
It allows me to manage my time and RSS feeds more effectively, which increases my reader satisfaction and provider experience.
Seems reasonable to me and logical from the provider point of view, unless of course, I am misunderstanding the role of these media news providers and things like satisfactory experience doesn’t really matter to the provider.
October 3rd, 2008 at 7:58 am
Ed, your argument about combining various cities doesn’t make sense. People have a general sense as to where each city is. South Minneapolis is a commonly-used point of reference. ABCMG means nothing. And frankly, I often hear “in a northern suburb” on first reference, and then a more specific map next. I don’t have a problem with that.
I guess I’m asking for a specific answer in this case as to what people think would be better. What would you call 24th Street & Elliot? Understanding the fact that most viewers are not Minneapolis residents and don’t know the specific neighborhood names.
I get the emotional aspect of this that it feels like a dig on your neighborhood, and an overly broad description. But I frankly don’t see a better solution. If you use a specific neighborhood, people are going to be mad that it doesn’t describe their part of the neighborhood. A cross street won’t fit in a headline, generally. And if you said that out loud on TV, few people would know what you’re talking about.
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Jason, I think people in the Northwest suburbs has a general sense for where each city is because the terms are often used. Wouldn’t the same apply to Minneapolis neighborhoods if they received similar exposure?
There was a time when nowhere had heard of Kandahar or Mosul but both are now known because the media chose to be specific rather than saying “in Afghanistan” or “in Northern Iraq.”
Since most of the news the local media covers falls within a handful of neighborhoods, it doesn’t seem like it would be that much of a burden for viewers to learn a few new terms. In the case of 24th & Elliot, that’s Ventura Village, as Ranty pointed out above.
October 3rd, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Ventura Village….sounds like a nice store…do they have orthopeadic shoes in my size?
March 20th, 2009 at 4:17 am
Jason- who cares if people will be mad their part of the neighborhood is not mentioned. I wouldn’t want to be publicized anyway. If it happens near you, bad, if others get jealous for not being mentioned in their particular section of a neighborhood, worse, why? they then become more gang targets.
As far as the general reference point, I grew up in Eden Prairie and moved to Plymouth, which is a suburb of minneapolis, everyone knows, though says Minneapolis as an address, so the same when I lived in Crystal. I now live in Buffalo, which is technically not part of the 7 or even newly expanded 9 county “metropolitan, or just metro area”, yet out where I am now is called “west metro”, or “west suburban”, though you see the difference in the wording makes the world of difference. Crystal is Crystal, not minneapolis, at least not minneapolis PROPER, though in crystal was “west broadway”, as you know, which leads through crystal, golden valley, minneapolis, not sure where else. I know they name the cross streets on the news for an accurate reference point, though, like I said, if a murder occured in columbia heights, would it be mentioned as columbia heights or n.e. minneapolis?
I know they are too broad, they are accurate to the point of exact location as in say 24th and park (for example), but lack in the reporting of separating city PROPER, from immediately outlying suburb to describe the area.
I live in Buffalo, which is the wright county seat, and yet, i don’t go to rockford and say there was a murder in south east buffalo, because that would then become an untrue statement. I know buffalo is nothing like minneapolis, it’s suburban-rural, but, it is the county seat and the largest main area, like minneapolis, though somehow n.e. minneapolis is not minneapolis, but rather columbia heights, or whatever.
I hope i caught what you were trying to say.