The Minneapolis Star Tribune goes to a slimmer page format the day after MinnPost.com announces its plans for an online local news venture, and publisher Joel Kramer says:
This is not just for political junkies or policy junkies, by any means. It's about, for example, what you might expect to see on the cover of the New York Times. The Times does a lot of government coverage and a lot of political coverage, but it also covers science, health, the arts, culture, popular culture, on occasion, when it has an interesting way of looking at it. That's our goal: to cover the whole range of human experience with writers who have had a long time developing their contacts, their understanding and who know what's going on.
The Strib has already been doing that, of course. Only with content that actually comes from the Times.
The front section is of greatest interest to those Minnesotans seeking substantive news Kramer means to attract. The 14-page section in today's print edition carried, by my rough count, four pages of original content. That includes one and a third pages of locally generated editorial/letters/opinion, more than a page devoted to Jon Tevlin's fine series on a multiple murder in Waseca last February, and about half a page for Dan Browning's story on the push for allowing heavier loads on state highways.
Incidentally, no local resources were evident in a front-page story about an Idaho Senator who pled guilty on August 8th to a charge of disorderly conduct after being arrested in a men's room at Minneapolis St. Paul Airport. The story was first reported by Washington's Roll Call and spread online well before it surfaced here in print.
The other 10 pages are split between advertising and other news sources, including "news services," the New York Times, LA Times and McClatchy News Service. Five pages of content available elsewhere.
This isn't a critique of the quality of what the paper has produced. And one day's stories in one section do not a newspaper make. But it's hard to miss that four pounds are being delivered in a 14-pound bag.
