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But... but... how could gold like this not rake in the dollars?

LOL things might be bad but if anybody (local media "experts" or otherwise) thinks Minneapolis won't have a major metropolitan daily newspaper any time soon, or that it won't be called the Star Tribune, you are out of your mind. The paper may not be great, it may not do good reporting, it might be half the staff, but it ain't going anywhere.

good. the mainstream press is terrible.

we should move away from objectivity, like the uk. then there'd be tough reporting whenever the opposition is in power, i wouldn't have to see kersten's column anymore, and our press would be a little more exciting.

but their solution: fire talent and put some videos up on the web.

Think about how the money they pay Katherine Kersten to bitch about immoral video games and scary Muslims could be better spent on getting their shit together! Or on hiring somebody with talent.

CD -

Thanks for referencing my MinnPost story. Here's the link:

http://tinyurl.com/5re58l

The major things to me are:

1. Has the Strib failed to meet its debt obligations? The Post says yes, but I'm hearing now. This summer is crunch time.

2. Hiring Blackstone to restructure debt is new news. It makes sense to do this whether bankruptcy looms or not. The question is whether lenders will restructure amid the credit crunch.

3. The financial condition of the paper is old news, at least several months old if you've been following MinnPost and other local sources.

4. It's not entirely clear whether a bank takeover means deep cuts. Ultimately, you want to sell the asset, so there's a real question about making cuts that harm the asset value. Could it lead to a PiPress joint operating agreement? Maybe - the paper would have to be losing so much that the anti-trust stuff would be waived.

Crap - first numbered point in my first post should be:

The Post says yes, I'm hearing no.

This is the two reasons why the Strib failed as a newspaper:

1. The editors turned the paper's newsroom as the mouthpiece for the DFL elite.

2. Objective Journalism went out the door, replaced with partisan politics with an extreme ideology.

Strib now denies a key part of the Post report - says it's not missed debt payments and hiring Blackstone does not mean bankruptcy.

Not waving away the Post's frame, but I think they're at least several weeks early. As I suspected, they were right about Blackstone but sensational about most of the rest. Surprising, I know, coming from the Post.

My story's been updated, with Strib statement:

I second and THIRD sending Sid packing. Amen.

Okay, now, look. Dean Singleton, Pope of the Pioneer, has two strategies:
1) Con rich people into letting them handle their money.
2) Cluster newspapers together and monopolize advertising.

Which he's done successfully for years. How the New Media thing will play out, nobody knows. But I have a question for you: Did the railroads become airlines? They were both in the transport business. So what makes people assume newspapers will make the transition to New Media companies. Probably they won't. They are AFRAID of the internet.

But back to Deano. He bought the Pioneer not to run it but to use it as the hub of a new newspaper cluster. He knew very well what kind of company Avista was. He knew they had bought the Strib to sell it. If he somehow combines both papers, and surrounds them with suburban dailies and weeklies, he'll accomplish the same thing he's done in the SF Bay Area.

Right, Calm Down, there'll always be a Strib in Minneapolis. But it might be a four-sheet skyway give-a-way. And it might be called the Strib, but it will be owned by Dean and/or his successors. (He has MS, you know.)

City Pages has some scary new details:

http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2008/05/strib_bankruptc.php

just a thought - i have not bought a sunday paper since they got rid of the tv guide insert....

Also, the ruckus over GTA IV is a fucking comedy.

The game will bring the dark side in everyone. Nooooooo.

Can't wait to play this when it comes out on PC. Hope conservatives haven't succeeded in banning it by then.

The joint operating agreement rumor has been circulating for awhile now.
Does anyone know how that works?

Would they share printing & distribution, but keep both newsrooms and other depts? I would guess there would be some dept. overlap that they would have to figure out, but it would seem to be a decent solution.

I don't know why people hate the Strib so much. I actually think taken as a whole, they do a pretty good job. The TV stations and websites certainly don't have the staff to break the sheer volume of stories that the Star Tribune covers. I don't get what people are looking for out of their newspaper, or what existing paper is the standard people wish the Strib would achieve.

Fair enough.

Local newspapers are like the school cafeteria. No matter what they do, people are going to whine and complain about it, because it's in the culture to do so.

Honestly, like ron santo jr., I haven't picked up a Sunday Strib since they dropped their television section. I now buy the Pioneer Press instead.

We get both papers at work, so I stay informed.

I would add this to Jason's list of good stories in today's Strib -- it's about local efforts to store wind-generated electricity in batteries.

well, i will be discontinuing our weekend service. there was nothing of interest to read this weekend, and 4 inches of advertisements.

I was a Thursday through Sunday subscriber for years and after a while it seems that most of the stories that I was reading had run in the NYTimes 2 weeks before. I called to cancel everything but Sunday, a boy has to have his coupons and x-word puzzles. The person on the phone offered me 26 weeks of Wed-Saturday for an addtional $0.18 a week. I turned them down. Just too much paper to recycle.

We do get the NYTimes everyday and I read local news on the Strib website.

I was a Thursday through Sunday subscriber for years and after a while it seems that most of the stories that I was reading had run in the NYTimes 2 weeks before.

I don't know about the daily paper, but there is no time lag on the Sunday. Many of the big stories in the Sunday Times show up in the same day's Sunday Strib.

My problem with the Strib's home delivery has always been the delivery personnel. My door is 30 feet from the street, and the paper was always 25 feet from my door. As if someone was walking down the sidewalk and decided to drop the paper there. Further, it always came after I left for work.

I'd been a NYT subscriber when I lived in NYC, and I took a subscription to the Strib when I moved here in 2005. It was odd, to say the least, to repeatedly find myself on the No. 14 bus, re-reading articles I'd first read weeks before on the E Train.

Still, I kept the subscription until I couldn't rationalize paying $$$ to a newspaper that associates with Katherine Kersten. I'm happy to be back with the NYT, even if I have to go online to read the very few interesting articles in the STrib.

In general the local media is the c to d - team. All of the news outlets seem to think they are the spokes person for the state and it gets old. They need to report the news, provide us with the facts and keep their opinion in the background. I don't think the strib is a conservative or liberal paper, it is just a poor paper. Colman is a moron and Kristen is a hack and that constitutes their editorial staff, what a joke. They are both charatures of a view point and they parrot that view point. I hope the strib goes broke.

Well, so much for a nice cordial MNspeak morning.

It will be interesting to see how this evolves. It's too bad that Harte came too late to the party as he seems to be pretty straightforward. Avista made some pretty big mistakes early on which could be part of what is increasing their need to make sure that they hold it together as long as possible.

When did we become a society that didn't want to hear the other POV? It's one thing to not agree with someone else's view, but it doesn't make him or her a moron or idiot or whatever the name of the day is.

There are, of course, exceptions to every rule.

I'm a 7-day Strib subscriber and weekly find an article or commentary piece that I'd read previously online. So some of their content is recycled--BFD. It's still worth the cheap price of a subscription.

I live in an apartment and frequently had my paper stolen, but the Strib would always send another at no charge. Their customer service has been faultless, and like nateek I look forward to those mornings when I have time to just peruse the paper, KFAI in the background and bloody mary on the table. Of course, at 29 I'm probably one of the older people here, but I would definitely mourn this daily if it were gone.

Thanks Miller. I'm not sure if a JOA is the solution or just a patch, but it seems as if it would stem the hemorrage for a bit.

Jared: You're handsome and intelligent. Is it working?

You're 6 years older than I claim to feel.

Of course, at 29 I'm probably one of the older people here

Hey wait, I'm not ready to be "one of the oldest here"...

We canceled our weekend subscription because the billing continually got screwed up and we kept getting collection notices. It got really annoying after the 2nd time. Now if we want a paper, which is not very often, we'll walk to the store and buy one.

I do think having a daily is important in a community of this size.

I just act as if I'm 8, I'm really 107.

Well, if that's the case, Miller, I'm telling your mom.

I'm so old, I was the short-pants and cap-wearing newsie who sold it to you, and then burst into a song and dance number about striking.

Oh my God. Batman is six years younger than me?

Yo Cat, can you drop me an email with your email address at the address in my profile?

Thanks.

Christian Bale is yummy. And if my being older than he makes me a cougar, I take it back as I hate that term.

Bixby: Sure, but if this is some ploy to get me to tell you my age, it's not going to work.

I'm way bummed about the possibility of the Strib going under. IMHO, it's far better than the PiPress, which regularly recycles the work of those in the newsroom at my weekly community newspaper (Elizabeth Mohr in particular - and we have a crappy Web site and don't upload stories frequently so we know she just reads our papers and writes stories on our topics in the next few days). As far as I can tell, the Strib's reporters actually break news and that, in response to Jason's question, is what I'm looking for in a daily.

To clarify: I should say breaking news is one of the top things I'm looking for in a newspaper. The others are accuracy and relevancy (so no, Kersten's BS doesn't make the cut, but in the name of free speech I can forgive them that.)

I'm just waiting for Sid's close personal friends to come to his defense.

I am pretty certain it won't go under; I find it hard to believe that a major metropolitan newspaper would cease publishing, not in this decade at least. The name alone must be worth some decent scratch.

That isn't to say that there won't be some big shifts and more hard times ahead. But I find it hard to believe that there won't still be a Star-Tribune five years from now. I don't know what size its print run will be, or how much of its content will be in online format only.

Scarborough Research Co. - who measures readership, television viewing, etc. just released the 1st quarter ratings for WCCO4, KARE11, Channel 9 and KSTP 5. OUCH! Ratings for all their local television news shows down 15% for the 2nd year in a row

They are biased and full of fluffy stories about nothing. I think we are past cat in tree, global warming bad ect.. It is poor news and a waste of time. The news casters all seem so preachy and disingenuous. The rating show how little people values their product. Maybe if they did not fill their half hour with pre-made spin videos of the "greatest and latest product we need, they might have an audience. Product placement segment have destroyed the news and they are getting what they deserve.