Two Minnesotas

As I’ve noted a few times in this space, the cultural left, regionally and nationally, is in a panic over the news that the libertarian-conservative Koch Brotehrs are pondering buying some newspapers, including the Tribune Group. 

Last week in the MinnPost – a web publication formed by a former Strib publisher which serves largely as an afterparty for an array of former Strib, PiPress and City Pages writers – Eric Black has a story on the potential Koch purchase of theStrib, told in a tone that reminded me of a scary story a parent might tell a fussy toddler to keep them from jumping out of bed:

Businessman Mike Sweeney, currently serving as chairman of the Star Tribune, says it’s the best gig he’s ever had. He says that covering government in a one-party state presents special challenges to a newspaper. He asserts that the paper is living down its old “Red Star” reputation. And he completely rejects the popular canard that the paper’s economic interest in the new Vikings stadium influences its coverage.

Leave aside the patent balderdash of the Vikings reference; it remained to regional conservative blogs to show the gaping holes in the revenue plan for which theStribwas a constant cheerleader. 

I’m more interested in the “Red Star” bit.  Black goes into no details – but his wording implies that Sweeney indicated that there was a “Red Star” reputation to “live down”?

That would be a big admission, coming from a paper whose party line for forty years has been that they are they objective center, and it’s their critics who are the extremists.

It might have been an interesting subject for inquiry, depending on who attended the conversation – but as Black notes…:

 

In an interview with Larry Jacobs at the Humphrey School Tuesday…

…only our media and academic Brahmin “elites” are ever invited to that conversation.

Which may be why the conversation always reaches the same conclusion.

Anyway, on to the chase:

Oh, and Sweeney said that when the current ownership wants to sell the paper – a time that is in the foreseeable future – if the only willing buyers are the Koch brothers, then such a sale could happen.

 Cue the scary music.

The “K” word has been uttered. 

The question arose on a question from the audience, undoubtedly inspired by some recent suggestions that the Kochs might experiment with buying newspapers.

 

“The time is coming when Wayzata Investment Partners [the partnership that owns the biggest share of the Strib] will want to sell. I spent time on it today,” he said. The owners are certainly interested in what price their property will fetch, but they are also mindful that to a city like Minneapolis, a newspaper like the Strib is a “community asset.”

 

“We also have a special role in the community,” Sweeney said. He said “community asset” more than once. I assume that’s supposed to imply that owners would allow certain non-financial considerations to enter their thinking.

 

His attempt to imply what he wasn’t willing to say caused Jacobs to tell him that he was leaving the possibility of a Koch purchase “up in the air.” So Sweeney tried to leave it at this: When the owners are ready to sell, if the only offer they get comes from the Koch Brothers, “it could happen.”

 

You can take that how you choose. My best guess is that that’s something of a warning to other potential buyers not to put the current accidental owners in that position.

There’s so much to talk about in those five grafs:

What Community? – Sweeney asserts a statement that is itself a question that the entire regional left begs; the Strib is an asset to the community. 

The obvious response is – no, it’s not, it’s a business, albeit one that’s enjoyed a few decades as the senior partner in a duopoly in a dying industry – someone needs to ask the question “so what part of the paper does Sweeney consider to be the “community asset?””. 

So what’s the asset?:  Is it the existence of a newspaper, period?  Well, a Koch Brothers purchase would probably put that existence on firmer ground, even if they didn’t change a single thing.  And if, as seems likely, they do as Fox News did – run a straight news operation with an overtly conservative editorial board and columnist slate, more or less exactly the opposite of the Strib we’ve known this past fifty years – then voila, there’d be no change!

But it’s not the existence of a newspaper that matters to them; it’s the existence of a center-left newspaper with an editorial board and columnist bullpent  and newsroom culture that carries the water for the soft-left DFL establishment in this state, that’s the important part.   That is the only thing threatened by a hypothetical Koch takeover – in the same way that Abraham Lincoln’s head was the only thing John Wilkes Booth ruined in the production at the Ford Theater.

A Community Let Down:  No surprise here; I think that if the Strib wants to claim to be a “community asset”, it has a tough hill to climb. 

But let’s take Sweeney and Black at their words; let’s say the Strib is a community benefit. 

So what?

It’s a business.  Romantic (and wrong) notions that the Strib ever served a higher purpose are subject to all sorts of debates among journalists and news consumers – but Sweeney has a fiduciary responsibility to his investors to get the best return he can.