Why Star Tribune layoffs matter beyond the newsroom

• "This newsroom is about to take a serious hit. … We aren't going to try to do more with less. We're going to have to do less," courts reporter Jeff Day, the Star Tribune Guild's co-chair, told Axios last week.

Yes, but: Star Tribune management frames the cuts as a one-time "right-sizing" that will put the newspaper on firmer financial footing long-term, spokesperson Chris Iles told Axios.

What we know: The anticipated cuts target front-line editors — known internally as "team leaders" — print designers, the copy desk and news assistants. Reporters and photographers are protected, Day said.

• The layoffs and buyouts will eliminate 25 newsroom jobs and reduce the newsroom to about 175 journalists, down from 230 three years ago, according to Twin Cities Business.

The big picture: For years, good stewardship of the Star Tribune has helped shield the newspaper — and, by extension, the Twin Cities media market — from some of the devastation seen in local journalism nationally.

Catch up quick: Fifteen years ago, amid the recession and the collapse of newspaper advertising, the Strib seemed to be teetering.

• By 2010, the newspaper's then-owners had cut more than 100 staffers over three years — including Day, who began his career transcribing Sid Hartman's interviews. That year, the paper declared bankruptcy.

"Then, weirdly, good things started to happen," said David Brauer, who covered the media industry at the time for MinnPost.

• At a time when hedge funds were stripping newspapers elsewhere for parts, the Strib's creditors were "turnaround guys" who sought to preserve its journalism as a selling point while also getting the paper's debt under control.

A key turning point: The 2014 acquisition of the newspaper by billionaire Glen Taylor — an owner "who, if you are a newsroom, you pray for," Day said.

• Clearing the way for the purchase: the Strib's sale of several downtown properties near the then-incoming U.S. Bank Stadium, which helped the newspaper clear its debts.

What's next for the paper

Taylor's next move appears to be exploring "placing the Minnesota Star Tribune under foundation ownership," publisher Steve Grove said in a June 2 memo obtained by Racket.

• That would emulate a model now at work in Philadephia, Pittsburgh and Salt Lake City.

The intrigue: To many guild members, foundation ownership sounds better than the paper being sold to an unknown outside buyer, Day said.

What we're watching: Whether Taylor — who sold the Timberwolves and Lynx last year for $1.5 billion — would leave an endowment for that foundation.

Iles declined Axios' request to interview Taylor or Grove about the layoffs or foundation plans.

• But in his June 2 memo, Grove wrote that Taylor "believes deeply" in the newspaper, "which is why he's only ever invested money in its future and never once taken a profit from it."

Friction points: The economics of local journalism aren't getting any friendlier to newspapers as AI upends the search and digital ad markets.

• More than half the Strib's revenues now come from 110,000 digital subscriptions, Iles said.
• But Brauer questions whether net revenues from online readership will ever equal those from once-lucrative print subscriptions — of which the Strib loses roughly 20% every month, according to Iles.
• The now-shuttered North Loop printing plant is one of the newspaper's few remaining capital assets — and its sale could be the "last dose of insulin" for the paper's balance sheet, Brauer said.

The bottom line: There is no law that the Twin Cities remain a vibrant market for journalism — especially, Brauer said, if the audience is unwilling to pay for it directly.