| Type | Non-Profit Newspaper, Monday through Friday |
|---|---|
| Format | Web |
| Publisher | Joel Kramer |
| Editor | Roger Buoen (managing editor), Susan Albright (managing editor), Corey Anderson (web editor), Don Effenberger (news editor), Kaeti Hinck (associate web editor) |
| Staff writers | Eric Black (Eric Black Ink), David Brauer, Derek Wallbank (Washington correspondent), Jay Weiner, Joe Kimball, Jeff Severns Guntzel |
| Founded | 2007 |
| Political alignment | nonpartisan |
| Headquarters | Minneapolis, Minnesota United States |
| Official website | MinnPost.com |
MinnPost.com also known as MinnPost is a non-profit news website in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with a focus on Minnesota news.[1] Its mission is "to provide high-quality journalism for news-intense people who care about Minnesota."
According to its website, "MinnPost.com provides news and analysis Monday through Friday, based on reporting by professional journalists, most of whom have decades of experience in the Twin Cities media. The site features video and audio as well as written stories. It also includes commentary pieces from the community, and comments from readers on individual stories. The site does not endorse candidates for office or publish unsigned editorials representing an institutional position. They encourage broad-ranging, civil discussion from many points of view.
"Our goal is to create a sustainable business model for this kind of journalism, supported by corporate sponsors, advertisers, and members who make annual donations. High-quality journalism is a community asset that sustains democracy and quality of life, and we need people who believe in it to support our work."
MinnPost's initial funding of $850,000 came from four families: John and Sage Cowles, Lee Lynch and Terry Saario, Joel and Laurie Kramer, and David and Vicki Cox. Major foundation support has come from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Blandin Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, the Minneapolis Foundation, and the Otto Bremer Foundation.
The CEO and Editor of MinnPost is Joel Kramer, former editor and then publisher of Star Tribune. Other members of the MinnPost board of directors are founding donors David Cox and Lee Lynch; Kathleen Hansen, director of the Minnesota Journalism Center at the University of Minnesota; Patrick Irestone, CEO of Meritide; John Satorius, of the law firm Fredrikson & Byron; Vernae Hasbargen, former executive director of the Minnesota Rural Education Association; Samuel Heins, of the law firm Heins Mills & Olson; Jennifer Martin, Chair of the Martin and Brown Foundation; Chris (Oshikata) Widdess, managing director at Penumbra Theatre Company; Judy Blaseg, fund-raising consultant; Tobin J. Dayton, president and CEO of JobDig; Rebecca Shavlik, former COO of Shavlik Technologies, a security software firm; Wendy Blackshaw, Vice President of Marketing, Sun Country Airlines; Fran Davis, REALTOR and Sales Manager, Coldwell Banker Burnet; Jack Dempsey, President of the Filtration Solutions Global Business, Pentair, Inc.; Kandace Olsen, vice president of communications and human resources, Great River Energy; Jeremy Edes Pierotti, Principal and Owner of Validus Consulting, a health-care management consulting firm; and broadcast journalist Fred De Sam Lazaro, director of the Project for Under-Told Stories at St. John's University in Collegeville. Founding donor John Cowles is director emeritus.
Among those who write for MinnPost, John Camp won a Pulitzer Prize for the feature article "Life on the Land: An American Farm Family" published in the St. Paul Pioneer Press and Dispatch in 1986.[2]
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Content is "politics, government, science, health, culture" and not so much crime, sports and celebrity news. The non-profit model was estimated to save MinnPost about 15% of a traditional newspaper's outlays.[3] Whether MinnPost's Web designer Clockwork and the team's model provides for persistent Uniform Resource Locators and long term archives, its privacy policy and use of HTTP cookies were not yet found in Google search. The online format was inspired by Voice of San Diego and other sites.[4]
The format takes its shape from online newspapers. At first, MinnPost published a print version of about eight pages at the lunch hour to high traffic locations.[5] The print on demand model and print version was discontinued during the newspaper's first year.[6]
The organization is part of a much-discussed trend away from print toward online media. Quoted by Minnesota Public Radio News, Laurie Schwab, executive director of the Online News Association, said in June 2007, 45 percent of the association's 1,100 members "started working at print publications and migrated online".[7]
Staff includes Joel Kramer (CEO and editor), Roger Buoen (managing editor), Susan Albright (managing editor),Corey Anderson (Web editor), Kaeti Hinck (associate Web editor), Don Effenberger news editor), and about 25 journalists.[8] According to Editor & Publisher, opinion pieces are signed and nonpartisan.[1] Several of the editors previously worked for the Star Tribune, MediaNews Group's St. Paul Pioneer Press or Village Voice Media's City Pages. Staff members also come from Minnesota Public Radio, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Hartford Courant and Congressional Quarterly.[4]
Kramer was a Star Tribune editor (1980s), publisher (1992–1998) and president (1990s).[8]
MinnPost is one of just two news organizations from Minnesota with a bureau in Washington, D.C. (along with the Minneapolis Star Tribune). The Washington correspondent and bureau chief is Derek Wallbank.
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Kramer raised US $1.1 million.[8] Members of four local families including Cowles and Kramer originally contributed US $850,000.[9] The Knight Foundation in Miami, Florida initially donated US$250,000[10] and in 2008 subsequently granted additional funds to expand local reporting.[11] As of June 29, 2010, MinnPost had more than 2,000 member-donors contributing amounts ranging from $10 to $20,000.