Minneapolis television news anchor creates documentary saying that Minneapolis is a shithole

According to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, "What to make of ‘A Precarious State,’ the new film that sees Minneapolis through a dark lens." Rick Kupchela produced it, paid for it to be broadcast on local television--it's on YouTube too--in advance of Minneapolis' mayor election.

Billed as a public education campaign, the film, “A Precarious State,” has drawn some 300,000 views on YouTube and aired statewide on ABC affiliates last week as a paid advertisement.

Asked if it was released to influence city elections, Kupchella, in an interview with the Minnesota Star Tribune, said it wasn’t, but he also said it was necessary to release the film while it was still relevant.

The film doesn’t interview or mention Mayor Jacob Frey, who’s battling several challengers for a third term, but a woman who appeared in the documentary told the Star Tribune she agreed to be in it after she was told it would portray Frey in a positive light.

Kupchella won’t say who paid for the film, though he did tell the Forum of Fargo-Moorhead that it was produced with the help of “business and community leaders.” He said donors weren’t eager to come forward publicly in today’s supercharged political climate. “I think it’s a very important story that we uncovered here,” he said in an interview.

He says state school results are poor, city crime is out of control, that the city is socialist--like Seattle some Democrat Socialist of America members sit elected to City Council and this year the mayoral campaign features another ("Minneapolis mayoral candidate Omar Fateh is a democratic socialist. Here’s what that means," MST).  DSA representatives are in the State Legislature and on St. Paul's City Council as well.

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Interestingly, American Prospect has an article, "The ad campaign for capitalism," about the national business community's campaign in the 1970s to save capitalism.

And Rolling Stone on billionaires wanting to control politics, "The Right’s Secret Plan to Help Billionaires Buy Elections."

And it turns out Trump's proposed university compact ("Trump Offers All Colleges Preferential Funding Plan Rejected by MIT," Bloomberg, "Inside the Trump Administration’s Assault on Higher Education," New Yorker) was provided in draft form by a trustee of the Wharton Business School at Penn ("The Billionaire Behind Trump’s Deal for Universities," New York Times).  Note that even if a college president is against signing, a conservative board might force the university to agree ("‘One-sided deal’: College presidents see Trump offer rife with peril," Politico).

Speaking of socialists ("America's Socialist Experiment," TwinCities PBS), Professor Joshua Freeman argues that the ostensibly Fiorello LaGuardia, NYC's mayor during the Depression, had a socialist agenda ("How Mayor Fiorello La Guardia Transformed New York City," Jacobin).