The condition of the press industry has been wavering for years, with layoffs and other cost-saving measures being a frequent reality witnessed. One common practice with many newspapers has been the move away from actual paper; a number of outlets these days have ceased to provide a print edition. So the news of another paper making a similar decision is not initially surprising.
However, with the news of the Minnesota Star Tribune making a printing move, it appears to be a case of the paper enduring the adverse market conditions realized via the policies it has promoted. The outlet has announced that it is going to be making the curious decision to have its hard copy edition printed out of state.
Just on the surface, this sounds like an oddity, but the reality is worse. The paper currently has its own printing facility, yet it has found it is more cost-efficient to outsource that work to Iowa and have its print editions shipped in for distribution. What makes this all the more stark is that the Star Tribune was a proponent of Tim Walz and his economic policies for the state, as well as being a pro-union news outlet for years. And it gets worse still.
Now the paper is shutting down its Minnesota-based operations and putting about 125 people out of work, many of those union members. It will be relying on the printing by a Gannett-owned facility (though the Star Tribune is not part of that news syndicate). To get a sense of the disconnect in its reporting and its business practices, at the same time that the paper made this announcement, we see on its front page a headline involving unions in Minnesota.
The Star Tribune has long been a backer of Governor Tim Walz and his economic policy, and this is because the paper has a direct connection to the former vice presidential candidate. It is owned and operated by a Walz acolyte.
The publisher and CEO of the Star Tribune is Steve Grove. He is a former Tim Walz cabinet member, when he served (we are not making this up) as Minnesota's Employment and Economic Development Commissioner, appointed by Walz in 2019. He left his post to take over the newspaper just over two years ago, in early 2023. Now he is taking (part of) his business elsewhere.
So the man who was in charge of the economic conditions in Minnesota for years has moved his operations next door to Iowa, which has lower taxes and is a right-to-work state, putting union workers out on the street. You cannot write this as parody and have people believe it, and yet there it is in full view.
This is a sign of a condition seen in the press, where outlets are impacted as they appear to be relying on wishcasting rather than looking at things in a sober fashion, trending closer to reality. In a similar vein, we saw something like this take place with Vox Media years ago regarding California’s gig-economy private contractor legislation. Vox had backed the new labor bill and touted its benefits, and then, the moment that the law passed, the media outlet laid off hundreds of writers from a number of its outlets because they were directly affected by the new labor standards.
Thus is the condition of many of the news outlets across this country. They prefer to report on the way they want things to be, rather than the facts and the way things actually exist, in reality. Then, they are forced to vote with their wallets.
Editor's Note: The mainstream media continues to deflect, gaslight, spin, and lie about President Trump, his administration, and conservatives.
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