Secrets of the City

Brauer reports on a strike that could potentially cripple the ailing Star-Tribune: Star Tribune drivers have moved step closer to a walkout that could paralyze the bankrupt paper’s print operation. According to a memo from publisher Chris Harte, the drivers voted Tuesday night to authorize a strike if U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain grants the company’s request to throw out their contract.

Could we be heading toward a Minneapolis without a daily newspaper? Would that be a bad thing? And what could take the place of the Star-Tribune?

David Brauer discusses the Star Tribune’s newsroom Newspaper Guild’s efforts to create a new business model for the Strib. But can it be saved? Is it worth it? And, if the Strib is gone, what will replace it?

Reading the Strib comments on the Red River flood, James Lileks, who has family in the area, has been unusually stung by something the rest of us noticed quite a while ago: That a good number of the comments on the Strib site are the semi-literate mumblings of ax-grinding morons. So he offers a bit of advice: Log off, idiots.

David Brauer offers up rare words of praise for the beleagured Star-Tribune. Specifically, their Whistleblower feature: “Whistleblower has proven a pathway to top-flight enterprise stories. Among the high points: a compelling indictment of the state’s lax guardian oversight system which cost an 86-year-old Minnetonka woman over $650,000.”

David Brauer gives us the rundown on the Star-Tribune’s new columnists, who will be replacing Nick Coleman and Katherine Kersten. Rather than partisan gasbags, which so many papers have promotted to columnists (and, arguably, the Strib has likewise been guity of), Brauer shows the new columnists as having a solid grounding in journalism and no established partisan agenda. It should be interesting to see what their columns end up being like.

I’ve just been checking out the Star-Tribune’s new blog section, Your Voices, and I have to give them credit for assembling an impressive selection of witers, including Grammy-winning songwriter Dan Wilson, former senator Dean Barkley, rapper Maria Isa, photographer Wing Young Huie, and, of course, MnSpeak’s own Andrew Eklund. It’s an interesting mix of voices, and a far cry from the slice-of-life humor or partisan squabbling that newspapers usually look to columnists for.

I guess a barebones staff is bound to make a few mistakes. The subhed, in full: Here is a summary right here and more in here. Here is more summary right in here and here.