Journalistic Integrity is at Stake Here
By Will on Feb 26, 2010 in Bitching, Music
So, Chris Riemenschneider, the Strib’s music critic, had an item about Wilco’s Duluth concert in this week’s Vita.MN. In it, he quoted Jeff Tweedy as saying, “This teenager came up to us and said he was mayor. We think it’s legit.”
I couldn’t help but notice this is not quite the same quote that PDDers have repeated. In the post with the picture of our fresh-faced mayor alongsideWilco, for instance, the quote is “‘teenaged boy who claims he’s the mayor.” (And I believe that post was authored by none other than our fresh-faced mayor himself, no?)
That leads me to wonder which it was. The omission of “the” before “mayor” could have been a typo on Riemenschneider’s part, but I wondered about “teenager” v. “teenaged boy,” “said” v. “claims” and past v. present tense.
It’s no biggie, of course. I just remember that after the Sept. 4, 2007 concert, Riemenschneider reproduced Tweedy’s quote about the ore boat/fog/bridge differently than I recalled it myself. Is he just paying too close attention to the music to get quotes verbatim (which is arguably okay for a music critic)? Were the PBRs flowing too freely for anyone to take too close a notice of Tweedy’s comment? Was the concert so good no one really cares about this except me?
Discuss.
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Who cares?
I would advise everyone in the Zenith City to get off Wilco’s d*ck. My guess is that all of the comments made by Jeff Tweedy in Madison were meant tongue-in-cheek and alas, the joke is on us. For once Duluth, be cool.
Right back ‘atcha there, GG. Be cool. This ‘controversy’ is all tongue in cheek, too. Why not have a little fun with our quirky story in the quasi-national news limelight? Especially when the story has nothing to do with exercise balls or a guy getting arrested for trespassing on his own land. Those were two of the big non-news, news stories out of Duluth last year.
Christa was there and quoted Tweedy as saying: “A teenaged boy came up to us and said he was the mayor. He gave it to us. We think it is legit.”
She wrote it down as he said it and then texted it to me immediately afterward, so I trust that that is the actual quote.
Speaking of which…
I think this whole rivalry is hilarious in a good way. The media coverage makes Duluth sound like a hip and vibrant city — and having a “teenage” mayor helps.
@Will, re the slightly different quotes (and I am sure Christa is the one who got it right), that’s happened to me before, and unless it really changes the story, i don’t get too uptight about it, either way.
The trend of starting a blog post with “So, [declarative sentence]” is much more irritating than a journalist’s slightly altering the wording of a quote without changing the speaker’s original sentiment.
Sounds like we need to overturn some cars to show Madison that we too, are quite strong.
Chris Riemenschneider is nut!
Christa’s quote is accurate. My use of quotes was not to reference a quote but to reference a nickname. Sort of like James “Buster” Douglas. It was: Don “the teenaged boy who claims he’s the mayor” Ness
Is this whole thing ridiculous? Of course it is! It was designed to be – I reference “musician-sized lumberjacks” in the first line of the proclamation. That should be the first indication that this was just for fun.
I thought the part where Mayor Ness declared Wilco could participate in Homegrown as long as they don’t suck was spot on.
If anyone thinks that Duluth being talked about with Madison and now Chicago in the same breath as a band like Wilco doesn’t do anything to up our cache…who knows, maybe some new bands will take a trip up here due to this press.
Plus, it’s clearly a fun, jokey thing. How can anyone not get that?
GG. All press is good press and this is great press for Duluth. Why people are getting ruffled about this I will never understand.
Will is clearly a pedant.
Well put lojasmo.
Outrage! Pure, feigned outrage! Good God, how can we continue as a society with such injustice?!