Startribune continuing to be shrunk

[CatholicEdHead]

Well, the dismantling of the Startribune continues. After laying off so many quality staff members last year, they now have all 5 of their downtown Minneapolis blocks up for sale. I expect it is too "expensive" to stay there and they will shrink their offices to something cheaper in a different part of the Cities. All this so that money fund that owns it can make a quick buck and leave the area.

http://www.startribune.com/business/15109261.html

The Star Tribune's real estate is on the market once again, Publisher Chris Harte told his staff in a memo Friday. The company hired a real estate broker to sell its five downtown Minneapolis blocks, but no deal is imminent or even guaranteed, he wrote.

A $45 million deal that would have sold off the newspaper's four parking lots and its less-used Freeman office building to the Minnesota Vikings collapsed last year when the team dropped its bid.

Harte said the company may now sell all its land near the Metrodome, including the headquarters at 425 Portland Av. S., which houses the advertising staff, newsroom and publisher's office, among others.

Tom Holtz and Rolf Kemen of CB Richard Ellis, a Los Angeles-based commercial real estate firm, will handle the sale, according to the company.

[dpbrown]

1. I dropped the Star Tribune as soon as it had been bought by an "investment" company

That means they decided to carve it up and leave it for dead. Why hang out until the end?

http://www.minnpost.com /

This is where I've gone.

[pengillian101]

6. Thanks for posting the link, dpbrown

Since I left the TC 10 years ago, I am so out of local news except online.

http://www.minnpost.com -- is a news site I never heard of before. Thanks for posting the link.

[Zookeeper]

2. I've started to think about cancelling my subscription...

since so many of the articles and columns can be read on the NY Times website the day before they appear in the Strib.

It's just a shame to watch another newspaper be destroyed by corporate greed.

[dodger501]

4. I think I'm gonna do it, too

Have resisted for a long time. I would miss the sports section, though, but there is always startribune.com.
Not to mention Katherine Kersten's enlightened commentary.
Every time she puts out one of her dumb-ass columns, several barrels of ink are used for days afterward repudiating her crap.

[CatholicEdHead]

5. Actually the sports section has really sucked this year

It used to be in the non-State editions you could get all the High School scores statewide. Well, now it is published too early (or cutbacks mean late score arrival) that you need to wait a day to read the outstate and even outer ring suburb/exurb scores. I am mostly thinking about Friday night football scores you need to wait until Sunday to read unless you go online, yet it was also bad during the holiday basketball tournaments.

[CatholicEdHead]

3. Another cutback today, 58 layoffs, non-union pay freeze for 600

http://www.startribune.com/business/15507122.html

The Star Tribune this morning announced the layoff of 58 employees, about 3 percent of the newspaper’s workforce, and an indefinite wage freeze for all its nonunion employees, about 600 in total.
Publisher Chris Harte cited continuing revenue declines, the efficiencies of new technology and outsourcing in a morning memo to employees.
Three-fourths of the eliminated jobs are in the circulation department, which got the news at 9 a.m. meetings.
The exiting employees will receive the same severance given to about 140 employees who took voluntary buyouts last May, which is two weeks’ pay for every year’s employment and six months of health coverage.