In This Corner, Minn. Gov. Jesse Ventura; In the Other Corner, the Press--Again

They say they love him, professionally, that he’s a journalist’s dream--a tongue-twisted, ham-handed, bottomless stein of stories. He says, in not so many words, that they are the bacteria on his Navy SEAL wetsuit and need to be blasted off with a high-pressure hose.

Jesse Ventura and the Minnesota press corps, arm in arm again.

It’s difficult to tell precisely what initiated the latest row between the Minnesota governor and the reporters who cover him day to day. But it’s gotten to the point that Ventura has called on Minnesotans to boycott the St. Paul Pioneer Press and the Minneapolis Star Tribune, urging them instead to get their news from talk radio.

There is, in fact, no real separation between this squabble and those past and future (a certainty, all sides agree). The animosity has ebbed and flowed since Ventura’s election in 1998, but it has never receded far.

“He’s kind of the anti-politician in many ways, and in playing to his constituency, it does not serve him well to be seen as cozy with the media,” said Ronald Clark, editorial page editor of the Pioneer Press. “He needs a foil, and the media is often his foil.”

Ventura’s chief spokesman, John Wodele, agrees. “The governor loves the battle. He was a wrestler, and the rule there is, when you get your opponent down, you kick him.”

Governor Threatens to Boycott Local Media

The bell rang on the latest political cage match in early October, when Ventura traveled to New York to deliver 10,000 sympathy cards written by Minnesota schoolchildren to New Yorkers grieving over the World Trade Center attacks. The Minnesota press corps, naturally, followed. However, ABC’s “Good Morning America” had paid the air fare for Ventura and Wodele, put them up and, in an ethically questionable arrangement, was then the only media outlet allowed to join the governor at ground zero.

Minnesota reporters were incensed. Minnesotans, they insisted, had a right to know what their governor was doing, which at the moment, they suggested, was giving interviews to the highest bidder.

Ventura, in turn, became furious and promised never to grant another interview to Twin Cities papers or television stations.

That, in turn, generated stories on the threat--most of which noted that Ventura had made and broken similar pledges before.

Indeed, the governor granted a lengthy interview the next day with a Twin Cities radio host who also writes a column for the Pioneer Press. And the media wrote stories about the broken promise.

The day after that, on his own talk radio program, Ventura said he had changed his mind and would do some interviews but would not allow tape recorders in the room. He wanted reporters to take notes “the old-fashioned way.” And another thing: “At all speeches I’m going to give, from now on, I’m not going to allow them to set their mikes up on the podium.”

Ventura was delivering pronouncements of such singular oddity and in such rapid succession that even some staffers admitted to being a bit startled.

And a completely befuddled press corps once again produced stories like this from WCCO-TV: “It’s back to business as usual between Minnesota media and Gov. Jesse Ventura. . . . “

The next week, the governor tossed another wrench into the Twin Cities’ media machine: Reporters would no longer be given his daily schedule. They wouldn’t be able to cover him because they wouldn’t know where he was.

Why? Security concerns, he explained on his radio program. He was one of Minnesota’s few “natural targets” for terrorists, along with the Mall of America in Bloomington and Minneapolis’ Metrodome.

The story doesn’t end there.

On Oct. 16, Ventura modified that policy. Reporters would be given the governor’s schedule, but they couldn’t publish it--which was fine, because they had never published it anyway.

All of which prompted humorist Garrison Keillor to write a wicked piece for the New York Times in which he referred to the governor as “Larry, so as to throw the terrorists off the trail.”

Star Tribune columnist Lori Sturdevant wrote about the whole episode too, but much more somberly. “Memo to Ventura,” she wrote. “Governors lost their licenses to be funny--or petty or vindictive or self-absorbed--on Sept. 11. Minnesotans want serious leadership now.”

Antics Include Mock Press Passes

A recent poll showed that 30% of Minnesota residents view the governor as something of an embarrassment. He is a wild, wonderful character, but perhaps a man not worthy of the job--a sentiment many in the media share.

Reporters didn’t like it when, earlier this year, Ventura’s office issued press passes to the Capitol that said “official jackal.” They don’t like the fact that he has made substantial sums of money penning two books while in office, the latest being “Do I Stand Alone? Going to the Mat Against Political Pawns and Media Jackals.” Or that he moonlighted as a commentator for the now-defunct XFL football league, as a pro-wrestling referee, as a soap opera actor--raking in what local media have estimated to be between $1.5 million and $3 million. (The governorship pays $120,000.)

And the media doesn’t like his seemingly endless efforts to make their job more difficult.

“He’s declared my newspaper off-limits most of the time he’s been in office,” said Jim Ragsdale, a veteran reporter who covers Ventura for the Pioneer Press. “He never talks to me. He just won’t do it. Almost every quote I get is by listening to him on the radio. The media that he likes are, well, anybody who is from another state.”

Not just anybody. Wodele said the governor had no time for an interview for this story, even a brief one--not on the phone, not in his office. “Maybe next week,” Wodele said.

Ventura has said that he won’t announce whether he will run for office again until July, just a few months before the election; he thinks campaigns last too long.

The conventional wisdom says he will, but some wonder.

It’s fun being governor when you get to cut taxes and even send rebate checks, critics note, but not as much so during a recession, when you’ve lost labor support over a strike. (About 23,000 state employees walked out for two weeks earlier this month before agreeing to a new contract.)

Governing in the current climate “might actually require some work,” chided Clark, who said Ventura is the most difficult politician he’s ever dealt with.

“But he’s been a great story. We’ll miss him.”