A couple of days ago, I related a story about the way in which people who argued that they were “happy to pay for a better Minnesota” decided to leave after the bill came due in higher taxes. Little did I know that the exodus continues — and this time, involving one of the biggest cheerleaders for progressive policies.
The Minneapolis Star-Tribune has never met a tax increase it didn’t endorse, a union position it didn’t defend, and a progressive policy position it even questioned. They have carried the water for Tim Walz for years and the DFL for decades. They have demanded “investment” (tax hikes and bigger spending), and have done so not just through editorials but in the way they report and print the news.
Starting in December, however, they will print that news in Iowa rather than in Minnesota, killing 125 union jobs in the process. Why? Out of concern for their “financial health,” a concern which appears to be justified (via Twitchy):
INBOX: @StarTribune is closing its printing plant. 125 jobs cut. Paper will now be printed in Iowa. pic.twitter.com/o7R20437Eg
— Blois Olson (@bloisolson) September 8, 2025
CBS News followed up and confirmed the change:
According to the release, the Minnesota Star Tribune will negotiate with the union representing the 125 impacted employees to determine “benefits and other resources available.”
The newspaper said in-house print production has become unsustainable due to a drop in print circulation and that the Minneapolis facility currently uses only 18% of its available capacity.
Here’s a fun fact: Iowa is a right-to-work state. That certainly plays a large role in the cost reduction that the Strib hopes to achieve in this move, no? Otherwise, why relocate printing out of state at all, especially for a product that has to get delivered every morning on doorsteps throughout the state? It will cost significant money to haul those papers from Iowa — at least a two-hour drive — to their distribution centers for delivery.
Want to know what the Strib thinks of right-to-work policies? Their editorial board blasted the idea in a February 2012 editorial (paywalled), when the Minnesota GOP tried to get it passed in the legislature. One letter to the paper later quoted a passage from that argument, which is still accessible:
The Star Tribune Editorial Board opines on Feb. 19 that a right-to-work referendum “would put Minnesota on a new and risky path. That’s a risk legislators should not invite voters to take.”
It’s a risk that the Strib is willing to take, though — because it impacts their own “financial health,” after years of cheerleading unconcern over everyone else’s for the sake of the progressive cause. Funny how that works.
The Strib can expect a big fight with the union, and it deserves to get dragged — mainly for promoting their happiness for others to pay for a ‘better Minnesota’ while opting to bail out of the costs driven by policies they cheerlead. Small wonder the Strib has suffered from “a drop in print circulation.” The paper’s editors have long been hypocritical clowns, an amplification platform for the Twin Cities’ progressive elite, part of the vanguard of the Protection Racket Media’s obsession with corrupt narratives rather than honest news. About the only virtue they have left is that they are running themselves out of town rather than putting others into the incovenience of doing it for them.
The Twin Cities deserves a real newspaper. Maybe one day, they’ll get one.
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