And You Thought We’d Be “Under-Served”
By Mitch Berg
The Strib will be starting a “New” political section tomorrow.
The Star Tribune will launch a new website Monday that aims to be a one-stop shop for all things political in Minnesota. The site, Politically Connected, will particularly focus on the 2008 elections.
“The Internet has a wealth of political information, but it’s very specialized and very fractured,” said Dennis McGrath, a longtime Star Tribune editor who will oversee the site.
“What Politically Connected will do is not only give you the Star Tribune’s political news, but it will also sweep in all of the different political content that’s out there and assemble it in one place so visitors to this site can spend less time searching … and more time reading it, watching it and debating it,” he said.
I’m not going to hazard a guess as to the kind of “gatekeeping” the Strib’s crack political staff will do on all of this handy-dandy unregulated material, though.
Oh, no. Not me.
Politically Connected –accessible on Monday at www.startribune.com/politics — will feature a main news-of-the-day page, as well as pages on specific political races and individual candidates, weekly podcasts on Minnesota politics, staff-produced blogs, links to blogs across the political spectrum and archival information.
In other words, “Blog House” with a budget?
“We give a lot of information about what’s going on that day or that week in politics, but it gets lost [in time],” Star Tribune Editor Nancy Barnes said. “We want to collect it and archive it and engage people in the discussion.”
It’s likely to be a lively site during the next 13 months.
Oh, that more or less goes without saying.
But will it be a big improvement on their usual political coverage?
Barnes said that in addition to informing the public, the website has the potential to generate revenue.
“Over time, we hope to get political advertising as people see it is the place to come for political news and information,” she said.
I’m shocked. I expected unicorns on gossamer wings to flit from the sky with sacks of doubloons.
Here’s a question, Dennis McGrath; do you think the Strib has retained any credibility at all, after the past decade of in-the-bag bias?
September 29th, 2007 at 8:53 am
They continue to fight against their own slow, plodding trudge into irrelevance. Good for them. The Free Market may be the only hope they have of redemption. If only they believed in it.
September 29th, 2007 at 11:16 pm
Hmmm, TrueNorth launches, and suddenly the Strib launches what will likely be the ideological opposite. Coincidence?
September 30th, 2007 at 8:37 am
In the late 1960,s, I retrieved my Minneapolis Morning Tribune from the front step and set it on the dining room table. It was a ritual I learned from my Father, read the morning paper while you drink your coffee, learn the News of the Day. During this particular time, the Tribune was under some criticism from readers for its policy of editorializing on the News pages…… As I brought my coffee from the kitchen, I glanced down at the front page and a notation under one of the column headings on the left side of the paper glared back at me…… On the Front Page of a Major Metropolitan Newspaper under the Column Headline I saw this: …..An Analysis of the News….. I cancelled my subscription that day.
Pat Landy
October 1st, 2007 at 8:54 am
Does anybody believe it’s mere coincidence the name “Policially Connected” and the phrase “Politically Correct” are so close?
For the Star and Sickly to pick that name for its political website is either a gift to bloggers from Mamos, the God of Sarcasm; or it’s code-speak for the new group-think outlet issuing daily talking points to DFLers (cheaper than faxes).
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