Vita.mn is the Star Tribune’s free entertainment tabloid aimed at people in their 20s who are hard to attract to the traditional newspaper.
Much of the content is arts and entertainment coverage from the newspaper repackaged for a younger audience. Some freelancers provide Vita.mn-only content. The cover sports the slogan “Connect. Converse. Carouse.”
In the carousing category would be the eye-popping, graphically sexual relationships column “Alexis on the sexes” by freelancer Alexis McKinnis.
Despite that racy content, until nine days ago I hadn’t had complaints about the column or anything else in Vita.mn. You have to read some mighty fine print in Vita.mn to connect the venerable Star Tribune and this upstart publication.
But that peaceful disconnect ended June 7 when McKinnis wrote the cover story for Vita.mn, resulting in a promotional link to her story on the home page of StarTribune.com. McKinnis’ column, lurking in the back pages of Vita.mn, can be found by searching the website. But her writing isn’t usually out on the home page for readers who aren’t actively seeking it to find by chance.
Titled “Sex al fresco,” the story claimed to be based on an “unscientific poll” allegedly revealing that Minnesotans shake off winter by having sex outdoors. Lots of sex. All over the place. In public parks. Outside federal buildings downtown. On the University of Minnesota campus.
Please pause with me here for a little reality check. We are talking about Minnesota, right? I’ve lived here for nearly 30 years and I’ve never been in a state where people are less likely to indulge in public displays of affection. They blush if you catch them holding hands in public, let alone anything else. And they never look more content and comfortable than on that first crisp fall day when they can finally cover up with heavy sweaters again.
Before we re-enter McKinnis’ alternative world, I have two final thoughts on the likelihood that lots of Minnesotans rip off their clothes and roll around outdoors doing what birds and bees do: ticks and mosquitoes.
Despite those inevitable Minnesota distractions, McKinnis anonymously quotes “poll” respondents who describe their outdoor activities in lascivious detail.
The reaction was swift and incredulous from readers surprised to find this on the home page. “Um … is there a good reason why this article is linked on the front page of your website?” e-mailed Paul Calvin of St. Paul. “Racy doesn’t even begin to describe its content. I hope this was a mistake and not an attempt to save the paper by publishing erotic fiction.”
Tim Droogsma, who in the 1980s was press secretary to then-U.S. Sen. Rudy Boschwitz, and also to former Gov. Arne Carlson, reacted similarly: “I don’t think I’m too prudish (which, I realize, is what prudes always say), but do we really want this sentence: ‘She hopped on my lap, facing forward. I pulled up her skirt in the back, slid her panties out of the way, and unzipped’?”
I’ll leave the rest of this alleged Lyndale Park Rose Garden tryst to your imagination. But Alexis didn’t.
“As of 3:30 p.m., the link to the story is positioned right next to a Minnesota Wild story, and right above a Joe Mauer story, both of which I can easily imagine lots of young hockey and baseball fans wanting to read,” noted Droogsma, now a communications manager for a division of General Electric in St. Paul. “Does ‘family newspaper’ mean anything anymore?”
I e-mailed Terry Sauer, StarTribune.com’s managing editor, about the readers’ concerns. Vita.mn’s editors also suggested changing the link to a different story on the home page, which Sauer did.
“We want to promote our web content from our flagship home page, and intend to keep exploring ways to get our readers there. I think we found a solution when we switched midafternoon to featuring a different story within the same package,” Sauer said later.
Nancy Barnes, editor of the newspaper, was blunter: “It was a mistake to link to it. I think it sent the wrong message about the Star Tribune brand.”
Problems with “Sex al fresco” extend beyond the home page link. Having sex in public places is illegal, which McKinnis nods to at the end of the story and dismisses with “not one of the guilty parties above was apprehended by police or even acknowledged by passersby.”
I asked McKinnis how she conducted the poll that led her to the conclusion that “In Minnesota, sex is just another activity best enjoyed outdoors, and we think nothing of it.”
McKinnis said she posted a question on the Vita.mn website and on her blog. She couldn’t estimate how many people responded. She also “talked to people in person, just friends and friends of friends.” How many did she interview? McKinnis said 10 or 15 people.
This is not a poll, even an unscientific one. It’s not enough foundation for sweeping conclusions about the sex habits of Minnesotans.
“I’m not reporting the news, Kate. I write an entertainment column,” responded McKinnis. “I’m an entertainment writer, not a journalist.” The trouble is, there was nothing to distinguish her story from other stories in Vita.mn by entertainment writers who do consider themselves journalists.
Did she consider, given the anonymity and the topic, that the anecdotes might be fabricated? “I can’t really imagine anyone would make that stuff up,” she said.
Did she really believe large numbers of Minnesotans are engaging in sex outdoors? “Yeah, I think so,” McKinnis responded, saying it’s common in her neighborhood, which she declined to identify. “I grew up in the country too,” she added. “It’s just something we always did growing up.” McKinnis, 29, grew up in North Branch.
Vita.mn started as an experiment led by a department outside of the newsroom that creates new products. Barnes said while ultimate responsibility for Vita.mn’s content has been a little vague in the past, for now she’s taking responsibility since most of it is produced by the newsroom staff.
“We really haven’t watched over this as well as we should have,” Barnes said. The section began under the previous editor, and Barnes wasn’t a party to earlier discussions about journalistic standards and whether they apply to Vita.mn. She’s planning to do that now and to talk about how different kinds of content should be labeled.
“I can’t defend this as journalism. It’s not. It doesn’t come close to meeting our journalistic standards,” Barnes said of the “Sex al fresco” story. But she added it seemed “intended as entertainment, not true journalism. The standards for this are not the same as for the Star Tribune.”
Paul Klauda, the interim Features editor who oversees publication of Vita.mn, says “Sex al fresco” should have been labeled as “Alexis the sex advice columnist’s take on things.”We’re having to adjust our mainstream editing brains and apply them to this kind of publication,” Klauda explained.
A final thought: Does it really take a steady stream of crude sexual double-entendre to get young readers to pick up Vita.mn? I’m as skeptical about that as I am about the idea that many Minnesotans are, even now, frolicking carnally in the city’s parks.
