Game Informer continues to grow while other magazines shrink.

​The market for print magazines in shriveling, according to a report released Tuesday by the Audit Bureau of Circulations. During the fourth quarter last year, single-copy sales of consumer magazines declined by nearly 10 percent compared with the year before.

But one Minneapolis-based magazine continues to buck the trend and grow. Compared to 2010, Game Informer's paid circulation increased an astonishing 48 percent. To put that in context, of the 10 largest magazines in the world, Game Informer was the only one to grow by more than even one percent last year.

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Howard Stern goes after Michele Bachmann and other homophobes.

​Howard Stern lit into Michele Bachmann on his Sirius satellite radio show in the wake of the Rolling Stone article on the spate of teen suicides in the Anoka-Hennepin school district.

"The amazing thing to me--I'm watching these debates, the Republican debates--this Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum, they are the two worst people on the planet," Stern told his listeners. "They get up wherever they can and they still feel comfortable getting up in front of an audience in 2012 and fucking saying shit about gays."

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Franken and Klobuchar has received considerable financial support from the media industry.

​It's a cliche, but true -- when trying to figure out the whys and wherefores of politics, you should follow the money. And in the case of Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken's support for the now-stalled PIPA legislation, the money trail appears to lead back to big media.

Campaign finance records indicate that big media companies have been huge supporters of both of our senators -- and big media, of course, stands to gain from PIPA through more stringent copyright regulations meant to wipe pirated content off the internet.

Could our senators' support for PIPA have been bought and paid for?

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One ad featured a "revelation" given to Warren Jeffs, who is currently in prison for child sexual assault.

​In a baffling move, the Star Tribune today ran two ads on behalf of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a Mormon denomination whose members still practice polygamy.

A prominent ad on page A6 of the Strib's print edition features a "Revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ Given to President Warren S. Jeffs." Jeffs is currently serving life plus 20 years in a Texas prison for two felony counts of child sexual assault.

Last summer, the Strib refused to run an ad on behalf of a Presbyterian group that opposed the acceptance of non-celibate gays and lesbians into the ministry. So why in Jehovah's name did  the paper's advertising bosses now decide running a polygamist sect's ad is acceptable?

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Did the Star Tribune miscredit the Mall Brawl video?

​The Star Tribune is being criticized on a popular media blog for improperly crediting a YouTube video as well as importing it into their custom media player in order to serve advertisements on it.

Jim Romenesko reports he received the tip from "a Twin Cities journalist who asked not to be named," and has reached out to the Star Tribune's Stan Schmidt for comment.

"The Minneapolis Star Tribune did something that is one of my biggest pet peeves in the journalism world," the anonymous tipster writes. "The Star-Tribune posted it to their site, but instead of embedding the video via YouTube, they imported it into their own player."
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Schugel in real life and in CG (wearing a dunce cap).

​WCCO reporter James Schugel is having one hell of a week.

First, he breaks a story about a butcher shop in Chinatown selling dog meat that turns out to be super false. Then, the mistake goes viral. Next the Asian American Journalists Association demands an apology and the Minnesota Society of Professional Journalism calls it an embarrassment to journalists.

Now it's reached the apex of internet mortification: Schugel's story has been lampooned by NMA TV, the Taiwan-based media company that famously animated Tiger Wood's date with a golf club in CG.

Oh, and NMA TV's version of events is hilarious.

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WCCO's James Schugel: Enterprising reporter, struggles understanding foreigners.

​WCCO's I-Team broke an investigative story on Monday, reporting that a Chinatown meat market in New York City was buying dogs from Minnesota and selling them as food in the Big Apple.

It was the kind of story reporters dream about -- an investigation that could bring down a business, stop a terrible practice, and get everyone involved sent to jail.

There's only one problem. It wasn't exactly true. Actually, it wasn't true at all. And, worse, it was based on the reporter's inability to understand an employee's accent.

Oops.

Now, WCCO has completely scrubbed the story. What story? That dog thing? Oh, yeah. Uhm, early April Fool's?
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David Carr remembers when RT Rybak was an alt weekly publisher.

​David Carr reaches back to his days as a Minneapolis alternative weekly editor in today's issue of the New York Times, calling on Mayor RT Rybak for an assist.

Carr's column revives the age-old rivalry between the Twin Cities Reader and City Pages. Back then, Rybak was the publisher of the Reader, and he made a bold decision to eschew sex ads, which had long been a staple of alternative weeklies.
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Richard Carter McComb: the man whose suicide inspired the Star Tribune's yuk yuks

​The nephew of a man whose suicide was mocked by the Star Tribune is speaking up about the questionable judgment of the local daily.

"Thank you for pointing out the horrible decision the Star Tribune made by making light of Carter's situation," writes Mike Healy, the nephew of Carter McComb. "Editorializing in that situation was crude and disgusting."

As City Pages pointed out on Wednesday, the Minneapolis daily chose to lede its article about McComb's suicide with a trite cliche about death and taxes. Hours later, the article was removed from the Internet and has since been replaced with a more conventionally written death notice.
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Richard Carter McComb: the man whose suicide inspired the Star Tribune's yuk yuks

​An early candidate for worst lede of the year award goes to this Star Tribune story about the suicide of Lifelink CEO Richard Carter McComb.

We're not sure which is worse: The cringe-worthy use of the world's oldest cliche, or the fact that the goofy wordplay is the beginning of a story about a man who shot himself in the head.
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