Media Monitor: December 13

Media protest gets little media coverage: Monday's "nationwide day of action to call attention to cutbacks at newspapers across the country" drew 125 protesters from the Pioneer Press and Star Tribune newsrooms. No big surprise here: few mainstream media outlets gave the demonstrations any coverage.

MN connection to the "War on Terror": Great Britain has stopped using the phrase "War on Terror," according to the Christian Science Monitor. On this shift in political thinking--away from the US.--the paper quotes a Minnesota Daily editorial that posits that the UK's deteriorating "special relationship" with the US forces a decision: to "be at the helm of the European Union or risk being cut adrift."

Speaking of which: In an interview on Townhall.com with conservative columnist Cal Thomas, Donald Rumsfeld admits one regret: "I don't think I would have called it the war on terror... it is not a 'war on terror.' Terror is a weapon of choice for extremists who are trying to destabilize regimes and (through) a small group of clerics, impose their dark vision on all the people they can control. So 'war on terror' is a problem for me."

Comic kudos: The American Press Awards have just been announced: on the list is the Star Tribune's Steve Sack, named Berryman Cartoonist of the Year.

The elephant in the newsroom: Salt Lake City's Deseret Morning News has appointed a new editor and, apparently unconcerned about reader perceptions of political bias in the newsroom, he's former chair of the Utah Republican party Joseph Cannon. File under: What liberal media?