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Editor’s note: It’s New York Times Day here at The Flyover. Us landlocked yokels got covered by the Gray Lady four times over the past few days, so here are all those stories, gift-linked for your convenience... although the gift-link button is acting finicky.
Axed Pelley Says New 60 Minutes Bosses Put "Thumb on Scale" of Operation Metro Surge Story
Scott Pelley’s first interview after being ousted from 60 Minutes is remarkable for many reasons. Speaking with Lulu Garcia-Navarro of the New York Times, the 37-year veteran of CBS News repeatedly likens the gutting of the respected TV news program by Bari Weiss and David Ellison’s to having your spouse murdered.
It just so happens that the most explosive bit of the convo—Pelley alleging that the Weiss regime attempted to alter his Operation Metro Surge reporting to appease the White House—happens to be a local angle.
Here’s Pelley, speaking in his golden broadcast newsman voice…
We get the piece approved by everyone. And about four hours after our deadline, Bari Weiss sends an email to my boss, Tanya Simon. Two of the things in the email include, can we make the protesters look more violent? Now, I’m paraphrasing. I don’t have the quote, but that’s what was communicated to me. And the other thing, Renee Good’s car. You need to describe her as driving toward the officer.
Remarkably, this bit comes after Pelley explained how his crew had gone to great lengths to drive home the aggressiveness of protesters—mainstream both-sidesing wasn’t enough for a slithering, power-flattering ideologue like Weiss, it seems.
But throughout the podcast interview an emotional Pelley doesn’t dwell on matters of ideology, like the one the far-right billionaire Ellison family is surgically imposing on its latest conquest, CBS parent company Paramount. The veteran correspondent was more concerned about the professional rigor that has helped earn him 51 Emmys.
“And the bigger problem, Lulu, frankly, is not any kind of political influence,” Pelley says. “The problem was the incompetence. You don’t break a deadline. That episode came within 19 minutes of not making it to air.”
More Like Post Modern New York Times
By now you've heard that Modern Times, the punky, neon-green south Minneapolis breakfast and lunch institution, has a new name (Post Modern Times) and a new model (free and donation-based food). The shift, which owner Dylan Alverson made during this winter's ICE occupation, has been covered by numerous new sources both local and national, including Racket. (Hey, we knew them when.)
Now, Alverson's experimental hospitality model has made it to the pages of the New York Times, where the headline crows, "This Restaurant Stopped Charging for Food. And Profits Are Up."
"What started as a workaround to paying sales tax has evolved into a business that verges on performance art: a restaurant that might offer a solution to a broken industry-wide business model as well as a critique of that model," writes the NYT's Brett Anderson. We get to hear from folks like Antonio Malone, who's become a regular at Post Modern Times since learning about the donation-based model this spring.
And Malone is just one of the locals who've been sustained by the free food at PMT. Writes Anderson...
One customer, Juvie Harper, said he visited Post Modern Times for the first time in April, expecting the premade, packaged food he has found at food banks. He was amazed, he said, “to see that it’s actually freshly made, and you got the options of different drinks, and then pastries.”
He’d just eaten a bacon cheeseburger with eggs on the side. He had spread the word about the restaurant to James Ray Everett Sr., whom he’d met outside the nearby Social Security office just that morning.
Mr. Everett, a truck driver in his 70s, appeared surprised to be receiving tableside service when he ordered eggs, bacon and toast. Diners are not presented with bills at the end of meals, just an opportunity to donate, if they can. Mr. Everett could not. The server thanked him for coming.
“This is a blessed place,” he said.
How Is MN Doing?
"A quiz question," writes New York Times opinion columnist Nicholas Kristof. "Which state does best at ensuring the well-being of its citizens, giving them health, education and hope?"
It's Florida! Ha ha, no, no, we are of course writing this because the answer is your very own Minnesota, which topped the rankings in a new State of the Nation study released Saturday. Conducted by State of the Nation Project (and backed by bipartisan experts), the study assesses states on 31 different measures—child mortality, volunteerism, air quality, long-term employment rate—to determine how each state is "doing."
Kristof, for his part, does uh, not seem to get the state at all—we're described right up top as "calm, pragmatic, not-very-ideological Minnesota.” Yes, this is the same state that, as an NYT journalist writes in the story right above this one, experienced "a moment of forceful, widely publicized local resistance to Operation Metro Surge" just months ago.
Anyway! The study concludes that "Minnesota ranks higher, on average, on the topics of Citizenship and Democracy (2), Social Capital (4), and Education (4), but lower on Economy (15), Environment (32), and Civil Liberties (32)." You can view all of Minnesota's results via a handy summary table right here.
WE LOVE YOU, KAT
That’s more or less the thrust of the latest from Jon Krawczynski at the NYT-owned Athletic.
Like KG before him, Karl-Anthony Towns suffered the indignities of Timberwolves basketball for what must’ve felt like an eternity before moving on to greener, more East Coastal pastures. In his first season as a Boston Celtic, Garnett won the NBA Finals. Towns, now in his second season with the New York Knicks, currently finds his team up 2-0 in the Finals, meaning history could repeat-ish itself for another beloved ex-Wolf big man.
And, as Krawczynski reports, hard-luck Minnesota fans are yet again feeling nothing but immaculate vibes for our jettisoned hardwood heroes. From the fans…
“KAT did all the little things that made it seem like he really loved being here,” Chloe Abuzeni says. “He also never said anything bad, never complained, publicly talked about how much he loved it. It felt cool a player as good as him loved it here so much.”
“It feels fulfilling and validating. Everyone here always believed in KAT, truly believed in him,” says Yury Suponitsky, who abandoned his fandom after Garnett left in 2007 but came back when the team acquired KAT in 2015.
“I’m very proud,” Briana Nichols says. “I feel like a proud mother, so no matter what team he’s on I just want to see him do his best… he’s shining.”
Krawczynski provides ample context for all that love. Just like KG, Towns was drafted to Minnesota as a teenager, and in his time here he experienced deaths (his mother Jackie Cruz-Towns, his coach Flip Saunders) while committing himself to charitable efforts and speaking up for social justice causes.
He was a great Timberwolf. He’ll be a great NBA champion
