The Star Tribune represents the mainstream media at work in Minnesota. It is the dominant voice of conventional wisdom that relentlessly peddles the left-wing line on its news pages and in its editorial positions.
It is, moreover, a profitable business owned by a billionaire. Glen Taylor bought it in 2014 for $100 million. He may have assumed some of the paper’s debt in the process. It reportedly makes a substantial amount of money churning out its product. According to a 2019 Traffic Magazine story posted by the Star Tribune: “The paper has been solidly profitable each of the last 10 years.”
Taylor identifies as a Republican, but he has not altered the orientation of the newspaper. He suffers from two obvious limitations. He has a high tolerance for mediocrity and he gets his news from the Star Tribune.
Last year Taylor hired former Walz administration commissioner of economic development Steve Grove to run the newspaper. Grove is the chief executive officer and publisher of the Star Tribune. In a sense it is good to have a Democrat at the top of the organization. It should make things clear for those slow on the uptake.
In my opinion, Minnesota would be better off without the Star Tribune. Its performance adversely affects the state’s politics and public policy as well as its major institutions, generally pushing them ever further to the left. It facilitates the suppression and dissemination of relevant news affecting the left. In 2018 I summed up my observations in “The role of the Star Tribune.”
All in all, it should be difficult to imagine a worse object of philanthropy than the Star Tribune. However, that’s not how Grove sees it. In his 2024 report to readers, he advised (link in original): “We are…positioning ourselves to access funding from philanthropic sources, a growing trend in journalism. To that end, we’re hiring a development director to spearhead this new effort for the Star Tribune.”
Yesterday Grove updated readers in “We’re growing for Minnesota.” He reported: “[W]e’re bringing on a new philanthropy leader, Melissa Wind, whose many years of experience will help us kick-start this new effort for the Star Tribune. We’re positioning ourselves to benefit from philanthropic support for journalism — a growing movement and important aspect of any media business model today. More on that soon.” Grove’s update is headlined “Star Tribune is growing for Minnesota.”
It’s not entirely clear what “this new effort” is. These are the immediately preceding paragraphs:
On Thursday, we announced that Scott Gillespie, the longtime editor of our Opinion section, is retiring in June. That means we’re looking for a new Opinion editor, who will play a critical role in shaping the future of the Star Tribune. We’re looking for a dynamic leader to expand our vibrant editorial and commentary sections — a key aspect of our service to the state.
To that end, we’ll also have news soon on the hiring of a commentary and engagement director, whose job will include proactively soliciting compelling commentary pieces from a much broader group of Minnesotans across the geographic, political, and demographic spectrum. The goal is to make our opinion pages the most lively and important water cooler in the state.
The Star Tribune needs charitable contributions to support the employment of “a commentary and engagement director, whose job will include proactively [sic] soliciting compelling commentary pieces from a much broader group of Minnesotans across the geographic, political, and demographic spectrum”?
You have got to be kidding me. In the words of the William Holden character in Network, I implore potential contributors: “Don’t do it, buddy!”
As I say, this is the mainstream media at work in Minnesota. The Star Tribune “positions itself” to imitate the big players elsewhere, holding out a tin cup to divert money from potentially worthy causes. Some inspired editorial cartoonist could aim his pen at these people and inflict a moment’s embarrassment, assuming they are capable of shame. Ridicule is in any event warranted.
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