The Strib May Have Just Done Something Right

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

Strib Ends Endorsements, Adds 'Voices'

I have, if anything, too many thoughts about the Star Tribune’s opinion page and Editorial Board. Some are dark thoughts perhaps best left unexpressed publicly. But today Strib community engagement director Kavita Kumar introduced the 11 new contributors who will make up what the paper is calling Strib Voices, and I don’t have a lot of complaints. 

I could nitpick—if there’s a conservative voice, why not a progressive columnist, and Andrew Zimmern is a ringer. But the names I recognize here are all welcome additions. Aaron Brown’s commentaries in the Reformer about the Iron Range have been great, Maggie Koerth has a flair for conveying scientific knowledge in language even we English majors can grok, and Sheletta Brundidge is… well, she’s Sheletta! 

The picks are diverse, with a Native American, Hmong-American, and Somali-American in the mix. There’s also a Lutheran pastor, a weed guy, and a civics wonk. I may happily read what at least some of these people will have to say. I hope this move is more successful than when the Strib hired a half-dozen bloggers to spice up their opinion section in 2014. 

Also today, opinion editor Phil Morris announced that the Strib will no longer issue endorsements for candidates or ballot questions. This is a wise decision because the Strib was very bad at endorsements. Let’s set aside the extreme example of when they had to withdraw an endorsement for City Council candidate Mickey Moore because they ignored reporting by the paper’s own journalists. Even a routine Strib endorsement for a Minneapolis race tended to recycle centrist platitudes about civility and the like while restating whatever the Downtown Council happened to think in the guise of common sense. 

From now on, Morris says, the opinion page will “evaluate the key issues relevant to the most important contests” for readers and run pieces by the candidates themselves. That’s at least a half-step up from before. So while I still wish Morris wouldn’t write droid-like sentences like “we hope to use the tools of opinion journalism in more empowering ways that add value to your voting experience,” I gotta say so far he’s taking the op-eds in the right direction. 

WALZ WATCH: Our Man From Nebraska?

If you’d asked me earlier this year, I would not have imagined there was so much to be said about Tim Walz, but every day a new writer brings a new approach from a new angle. We’ve been pretty good about not peppering you with every mention of the guv in the national press, but there are some recent profiles worth spotlighting. 

First, ready your indignation, thin-skinned Minnesotans: In the New York Review of Books, Ian Frazier highlights Walz’s Nebraskan qualities, comparing him to Johnny Carson. The New Yorker writes about Walz’s coaching style at Mankato West. The Times takes a look at Gwen Walz, focusing on her work with the Bard Prison Initiative as well as her celebrated scotcheroos, ending with a great kicker. (“‘There couldn’t be a better person to do this,’ Richelle Norton, a former student of the Walzes, said of Mr. Walz’s joining the Democratic ticket. ‘Except for Gwen.’”) And the Walzes’ dog Scout made the cover of Dogue. 

Back at home, local journalists are reconsidering Walz’s record, Deena Winter takes an exhaustive look at Walz’s record on public safety in the Minnesota Reformer, the Strib’s Andy Mannix and Liz Sawyer provide a detailed timeline of Walz’s involvement with the response to the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, and in Sahan Journal Becky Z. Dernbach covers the protesters trying to convince Walz that Minnesota should divest from Israel. 

P.S. We are aware that other Walz Watches exist, but fancy logo be damned—we got there first.

HIV Services Dwindling

At Sahan Journal Andrew Hazzard and Becky Z. Dernbach follow up on the sudden closure of Rainbow health last month, along with the closure of the African American AIDS Task Force in May. It will be difficult for remaining organizations like The Aliveness Project to pick up the slack since DHC is cutting funding for HIV services this year by $9 million, or about 30%, they report. There’s much more here you should read about a health issue that’s often overlooked by the broader U.S. population now that it’s not a widespread crisis. Of note: More than half of the 10,000 Minnesotans living with HIV are people of color.

RIP Mike McGuire

I’m not in the habit of writing Flyover obits for my friends’ dads, especially if I’ve never met them, but seeing as the Strib ran a whole story on Mike McGuire today I think I can link to it and make an exception. McGuire, who recently died at 95, was an absolute visionary architect who contributed to the revitalization and preservation of Stillwater over the years. I’ve been in a few of McGuire’s buildings, including the incredible detached office (what Minneapolis St. Paul magazine once referred as a “magical writing shed) in the backyard of his daughter Kate’s home, and they are experiences. You can (and should) check out his architectural work (along with his paintings and drawings) here.