‘I Am Heartbroken’: Strib Reporter Says Management Snuffed Out Paris 2024 Olympics Coverage

Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.

Strib Brass Squashes Olympics Beat

Since 1998 in Nagano, the Star Tribune's Rachel Blount has provided on-the-ground coverage of Minnesota athletes competing in every Olympic Games. Local readers better know Olympic greats like Sunisa Lee, Lindsey Vonn, Jessie Diggins, Regan Smith, and Gable Steveson because Blount was there to tell their stories. Last fall the veteran sportswriter had her credentials secured and hotels booked for Paris, home to the in-progress 2024 Summer Games, before receiving bad news from upper management: For the first time in decades, the largest news organization in the Upper Midwest would not be sending journalists to the Olympics. Blount was told that Suki Dardarian, the paper's senior managing editor/VP, made the ultimate call. No explanation was given.

Prompted by a show of public solidarity from MSP Mag's Steve Marsh, Blount aired her frustrations via Twitter over the weekend, writing...

As a further show of public solidarity, we present you with this conversation we had Monday afternoon with Blount. (We reached out to Dardarian for comment, but didn't hear back.)

Tell me about your history covering the Olympics.

It was an absolute dream for me. Ever since I got into this business, I wanted to cover the Olympics. I've watched the Olympics since I was a little kid; I'm one of those complete ring-heads, I absolutely love everything about the games. I could not believe my good fortunate in getting that assignment in '98, and that's exactly how it felt at every games I covered: Every single time they raise the Olympic flag at the opening ceremony I start crying, and when they lower it at the closing ceremony I get tears in my eyes. It's just such an emotional ride—you never know what's going to happen, your heart is right there with your local athletes.

And that's huge for local readers.

That's the crucial point of this whole thing. The Star Tribune, over the years, we have covered the Olympics in an intensely local manner. Our primary duty is to cover our Minnesotans for our Minnesota readers. For good or ill, you know how provincial we can be in Minnesota. But with our Olympic athletes? Those are truly wonderful stories that locals want to read. It feels a little different than, say, the Vikings, Twins, or even the Gophers; a lot of our Olympic athletes are our friends or neighbors. One of the beach volleyball players this year? She's the great niece of the couple that lives across the alley from us! People feel like they know them, and this is their big moment to shine. We've covered Suni since she was 16, and I've covered Regan since she was 15. We know their families, we know their coaches, and you're not going to get that from wire-service coverage.

And you anticipated being in Paris right now?

I did. Chris Carr, he was the sports editor at the time, intended to send me and a columnist to Paris. Last fall, three days before our deposit was due to lock in our hotel rooms, Chris was told he was being overruled and we weren't going. I was floored, absolutely stunned. Poor Chris had to give me the news, but Suki Dardarian was the person who made the call. Suki has not spoken to me or given me an explanation. I'd like to think senior management would recognize that this has been my heart and soul since 1998, that it means everything to me, but nobody from senior management has said anything to me.

Any guesses why the choice was made?

As far as I know we did have the money, and it was simply a choice that this was not important.

What kind of message do you think it sends to readers?

It sends a really poor message at a time when local journalism is so important and struggling. We need people to understand why it's important, and why they should support it. To not take this opportunity to give people proof why you need your local paper covering these things? It's a huge missed opportunity. One person in senior management questioned whether our readers would notice or care if the byline on an Olympic story read Associated Press or Star Tribune. AP is not going to write about Suni Lee the same way the Star Tribune would write about Suni Lee. And our local athletes who don't win medals? They won't be written about at all. Those up-close and personal stories about our Olympians? They're just lost. Vanished.

Twins Fans Reach Boiling Point with Tightwad Pohlads; Anthony Edwards, Gen Z Icon

Speaking of stingy, shortsighted leadership...

Last month, buried deep down in an article speculating about potential Twins trade deadline moves, our favorite hardball writer, Aaron Gleeman, put the Pohlad family on blast, writing...

It’s unfortunate, and frankly sort of pathetic, that increasing payroll at the deadline is even a question for a contending team that should be looking to build off its first playoff success in two decades. But until proven otherwise, that’s the skepticism created by cost-cutting owners, and the added degree of difficulty the Twins front office may face between now and July 30.

Go off, king! Predictably, things have not improved at 1 Twins Way, with veteran sportswriter Judd Zulgad tweeting Sunday...

Full-on pathetic. As of Monday afternoon, the financially "hamstrung" Twins have not made any moves ahead of tomorrow's trade deadline. Here's hoping your 58-46 squad (4.5 games behind Cleveland in the AL Central) can compete into October with their current guys, including freshly activated masher Royce Lewis.

In brighter sporting news, young Timberwolves superstar Anthony Edwards is enjoying the international shine that comes with playing for Team USA—both the hoops team and, possibly, the table tennis one. On Saturday the Washington Post published a glowing, voluminous profile of Ant, calling the 22-year-old phenom "the Gen Z star USA Basketball craved." Writes WaPo's Albert Samaha...

[Edwards's] competitive intensity, silky midrange game and ample trash talk have drawn comparisons to the greatest who have played his position. But those who have witnessed his journey up close are quick to point out where the resemblances to Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan fall short and how Edwards reflects the values of a new generation disillusioned by the emotionally abusive motivational tactics long venerated across the sports world.

“He plays with a joy,” raves Olympics coach Steve Kerr. And he's not lacking confidence. “I’m still the No. 1 option,” a smirking Edwards said of his role in Paris. Currently undefeated, Team USA will take on South Sudan this Wednesday.

Park Board Workers Get Boost from Lt. Gov. Flanagan

We're about to heap loads of praise on Gov. Tim Walz below, so to even things out, here's some criticism: When pressured during high-profile battles between bosses and labor—be it Mayo Clinic vs. nurses, rideshare duopolies vs. drivers, or school boards vs. teachers—the Walz administration hasn't been willing to stick its neck out for workers. That changed last week, when Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan intervened on behalf of striking Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board workers during contract negotiations, KSTP's Jay "Pointergate" Kolls reports.

“I found it to be an intimidation. Yes, absolutely,” MPRB Commissioner Becka Thompson tells Kolls. “It was like, if you want to be part of the club, get in line. I did find it threatening to mostly—not to me personally—but to the autonomy of the Minneapolis Park Board.” A bewildering comment, one made even odder by the fact Thompson said last week, a full three weeks into the strike, that she didn't know enough about the contract to vote on it, reports Minnesota Reformer's Max Nesterak. Around 300 union workers repped by LIUNA Local 363 and the Park Board reached a tentative contract agreement last Friday, ending a historic 23-day strike—the park system's first in 141 years of existence.

WALZ WATCH: Guv Emerges as Top 3 VP Finalist

Welcome back to our breathless WALZ WATCH coverage!

The avuncular guv continued his national press tour over the weekend, and goddamn, the guy is really firing on all cylinders out there—forceful, articulate, and unafraid to stand behind the raft of progressive policies he signed into Minnesota law. (His relentless branding of Republicans as "weird" is a stroke of messaging genius.) The muckety-mucks behind Kamala Harris's presidential campaign are taking notice: Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, and our very own chili/cinnamon roll freak have emerged as the top three VP contenders, Bloomberg reports. In the wide, wacky world of political punditry, prominent lefty talking head Mehdi Hasan made the case for Walz today via The Guardian, stating that...

This month? I’m Walz-pilled. I have watched dozens of his interviews and clips. And I’m far from alone. He has an army of new fans across the liberal-left: from former Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign co-chair Nina Turner, to one-time Democratic congressman Beto O’Rourke, to gun-control activist David Hogg. “In less than 6 days, I went from not knowing who Tim Walz is,” joked writer Travis Helwig on X, “to deep down believing that if he doesn’t get the VP nod I will storm the capitol.”

Should Walz get the nod, Republicans will surely tee off on his administration's failure to stop the nation's biggest pandemic-era fraud case, Feeding Our Future. But if they wanna attack him for feeding school children, providing free college to low-income students, helping families erase medical debt, and calling out the country's most-depraved political weirdos? Go nuts.