A friend — a tipster — kicked over a letter sent out this past Aug. 13, roughly two weeks ago, by Steve Alexander, the Star Tribune’s Sr. VP for Circulation. Addressed, I gather, to new subscribers, it “welcomes” them to the Star Tribune family, thanks them for subscribing, and then commences telling them “a little … Read more
This just in … Vikings will not buy Star Tribune Property by Par Ridder, publisher and CEO August 29, 2007 – The Minnesota Vikings have advised us that they do not intend to buy the four blocks of Star Tribune property around the Metrodome. To date there is no change to the legal status of … Read more
Not that it quite rivals the Wall Street Journal stealing a Pulitzer Prize out from under the local dailies’ nose with Bill McGuire’s United Health back-dating scam, but it’s a little embarrassing to miss a U.S. Senator — Larry Craig, aka “The Militia Senator” and “The Right and Honorable Senator of the Aryan Nation”, not … Read more
Everyone’s criteria for a valuable on-line news site is different. Mine requires that professional writers are able to produce BETTER copy than they were able or allowed to do within the heavily-mediated institutional voice of daily newspapers. Otherwise, what’s the point? This attitude assumes that dullness and blandness afflicts daily journalism as much as piratical … Read more
In its entirety: INTERNET-BASED DAILY NEWS ENTERPRISE TO BE LAUNCHED THIS YEAR MINNEAPOLIS, August 27, 2007 MinnPost.com — an internet-based daily providing news and insight for Twin Cities and Minnesota readers — will launch later this year. Joel Kramer, CEO and editor, announced that he has raised $1.1 million in startup funds for the not-for-profit … Read more
photo by Raffy Abasolo(Cover photo by Brian Hayes) Strange and terrible things happen all over the world every day, of course, as well as wonderful things, things merely prosaically sad, irresistibly trivial, or urgently relevant to our lives. People suffer and die in far-away places and in neighborhoods where we live. Legislation is debated and … Read more
I am not offended if none of you are as interested in what ex-Strib publisher Joel Kramer will announce next week as the scurvy brother/sisterhood of newspaper wretches and I are. We are praying for a second coming of the written word, and hold out hope that the Denny Heckers, TCFs and Targets of the … Read more
(UPDATED WITH RESPONSE FROM MPR) As certain as the cycle of the sun and stars is the question of how much money Minnesota Public Radio gets in state subsidies … and why. The issue bobbed up again in the context of Joel Kramer’s to-be-announced on-line news site. Thanks to Julie Dinger in the Minnesota Legislative … Read more
Next Monday appears to be the date for former Star Tribune editor and publisher Joel Kramer to reveal his plans for the launch of a professionally edited and reported online newspaper. From his vacation home in Montana, Kramer, who knows the tricks of the information-peddling trade, is not offering any new details beyond what has … Read more
As counterpoints to mainstream thinking goes, it doesn’t get much starker than Bill Moyers’ take on Karl Rove’s career and record in this past Friday’s edition of “Bill Moyers’ Journal”. Note the particular point Moyers makes on Rove’s exploitation of religion and religious bigotry for naked political effect and ask yourself why if, A. Moyers … Read more