Star Tribune's CJ vs. Jana Shortal

When I first caught wind of the Star Tribune's "gossip columnist" and her latest trivializing piece of lowbrow "writing", I thought it was par for the course. Then I re-read her blog entry on Jana Shortal's choice of wardrobe as Shortal reported the latest on the Jacob Wetterling case. That's when I got truly mad.

While Shortal marches to the beat of her own drum with her fashion choices, that fact does not effect how she reports stories for KARE-TV. She has been a Twin Cities television fixture for a dozen years and has done her job well in that time as evidenced by her longevity in the market. When Shortal reported Tuesday evening's update on the Wetterling case, she was dressed in what I deem to be a professional manner.

The Star Tribune blogger, likely looking for something to fill some space after a slow holiday weekend on the "gossip" scene in the Twin Cities obviously thought differently. Penning a take – a degrading one at that – on a true journalist's fashion choices has no place in what is supposedly a legitimate, large market newspaper.

Wednesday, after the brief publication of the blog piece on the Star Tribune's website, the shit truly hit the fan as social media blew up with the general take being that the blog entry was uncalled for and has no place in a legitimate newspaper – some (myself included) even going as far as calling for the blogger's resignation or her firing.

That, to me, is where things get sticky. A newspaper column is an opinion piece but rarely ventures into the attack category. To criticize a television journalist's fashion choices within the pages of a once-respected print media outlet is tacky. It screams of desperation. It shows a true lack of working one's sources to find a legitimate story. Maybe the blogger from the Star Tribune has a degree outside of journalism. Maybe she doesn't have a college degree at all. Either is fine but writing such a degrading and trivial piece of observational television watching is truly bottom of the barrel blogging.

Minnesota deserves better blogging than that which the Star Tribune pays that particular blogger for. The apology issued by the Star Tribune's editors is a cute little attempt at back-pedaling but the simple fact that an editor approved the blog entry in the first place shows a lapse in judgement or a lack of checks and balances.

I tweeted earlier that the Star Tribune blogger in question should be demoted or fired. Firing someone for an incident like this one may be extreme but I have seen reporters at my previous jobs fired for sending an inappropriate email to the wrong person. Hopefully this leaves a lasting impression on the blogger but given her track record, I doubt that she is even capable of apologizing.