National media swoops into Minneapolis to cover our latest tragedy

National TV audiences are getting accustomed to seeing Minneapolis in a less-than-flattering light.

The ICE shooting of Renee Nicole Good is the latest tragedy to draw high-profile journalists from network and cable outlets, all jockeying to capture dramatic footage for viewers who have, in the last seven months, witnessed the Twin Cities endure shootings of state legislators and of children at Annunciation Church.

“I hope people don’t believe that Minnesota is synonymous with tragedy,” said CNN anchor and St. Paul native Laura Coates, who got on a flight Jan. 7 from D.C. a little over an hour after deciding she had to be here. “But the news certainly keeps us coming back.”

The advantage of mass coverage is that big media companies with their big budgets and famous personalities often churn out good TV — and good journalism. Greater numbers of journalists can lead to greater accountability. And a network name might get time with a high-level source that a veteran local reporter couldn’t even get on the phone.

“I’m not sure it’s as shiny as it once was, but the lure of national and international audiences catches the eye of any number of politicians and decision makers who like the idea of their word being spread wider,” said former KARE-TV news director Tom Lindner.

Perhaps the most high-profile visitor to the Twin Cities for the story on Good’s killing was new CBS anchor Tony Dokoupil, who moved up a planned trip to Minneapolis by five days so he could broadcast the evening news Jan. 8 from the WCCO-TV rooftop.

The broadcast dedicated its first 17 minutes to the story, with reports from the site of the shooting, Whipple Federal Building and George Floyd Square.

“There is no replacement for putting your own two feet on the ground and being where it happens,” he said about a half hour after signing off. “I can’t tell you how misleading the news sometimes is when there’s one camera at one location at one moment and you think that’s how things are everywhere. Then when you land, you get a totally different vibe.”

A mass media arrival can lead to redundancy. In the neighborhood where the shooting took place, some journalists were waiting to talk to the same sources. Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey was on CNN numerous times.

But Leigh Waldman, a correspondent who came in from New York, believes there is power in numbers.

“There’s a lot more accountability when more eyes are on a situation,” said Waldman, who works for CNN Newsource, an affiliate service that provides stories for local stations. “We’re all working to seek the truth. Some stories need an extra push.”

“The presence of something like CNN offers an unmatched magnifying glass,” said Coates, who was in such a rush to get to the Twin Cities that she had to order winter gear from the plane to pick up at the REI in Bloomington. “The more attention, the more likely people in power will show transparency and make sure they’ve dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s. They know how many people are watching.”

Laura Ingraham, who hosted Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” from Minneapolis on Jan. 8, spent a good chunk of the day trading insults with anti-ICE protestors on Portland Avenue and outside the federal building.

“Even when they’re not trying to be invasive, they’re invasive,” said Kelly McBride, senior vice president at the Poynter Institute, a Florida-based journalism school and research center. “It gives off the image of journalists as vultures.”

McBride, who is also NPR’s public editor, said viewers would be better served if media folks from New York and LA would take more road trips that didn’t revolve around filing breaking news.

“To authentically represent America on the news, you’ve got to allow the time to actually listen and get deep stories that explore people’s experiences,” she said. “That’s opposed to shallow stories that just exploit.”

Fox News correspondent Alexis McAdams, in town to cover both fraud allegations and the shooting, said she tries to use her downtime to chat with people, like the waiters at Manny’s Steakhouse, so that she gets a better understanding of the area. She’s hoping to stick around a while.

The desire to offer more reflective, slice-of-life stories was one of the reasons Dokoupil started his stint as CBS’s main anchor with the “Live From America” tour, which was scheduled to stop in Minneapolis next week. There were plans to broadcast from the Mall of America and do a story on local diners. But they decided early Jan. 7 that they needed to pivot.

“I wish we had been here on the regular schedule, so I could visit parks, talk to people at bars and do stories that were more reflective of the community,” said Dokoupil, who was in such a rush to get to the Twin Cities that he accidentally left behind a suit in Dallas. “When people see Minnesota only on the news, they may think it’s only a city of demonstrations and tragedy. We do want to show all the hard-working, happy people. Everyone we met outside of the news stories, at coffeeshops and pizza places, were absolutely wonderful.”

CNN’s Omar Jimenez, who returned to Minneapolis this week for the first time since he was filing Floyd-related stories, tries to be on the lookout for features that could be tackled in the future.