Free Republic

The St. Paul Pioneer Press is offering another round of buyouts to employees as advertising revenue continues to slide. The paper is seeking a total of 30 buyouts, with 15 of those expected to come from the newsroom. Editor Thom Fladung told newsroom employees of the plan in an afternoon meeting today. If the paper doesn't get the buyouts it's looking for, layoffs are a possibility, he said. Those who take the buyout would leave the newspaper by July 27. "There's no way to sugarcoat this. I'm not going to try," Fladung said, noting that advertising trends need to turn...

Par Ridder, the publisher at the center of a legal fight between Minnesota's metro dailies, acknowledged in court testimony Monday that he took confidential computer files and a folder of noncompete agreements - including his own - when he left the St. Paul Pioneer Press for the Star Tribune. In videotaped testimony, Ridder admitted copying documents from his Pioneer Press computer and transferring them to his new computer at the Star Tribune, then sharing some of the documents with key Star Tribune executives. "I had profit numbers, revenue numbers, expense numbers," and sensitive information on advertisers and personnel, he said....

The Pioneer Press will get access to several computers and servers from the rival Star Tribune newspaper of Minneapolis, a judge ruled today. The Pioneer Press has been trying to recover computer data that it says its former publisher, Par Ridder, took with him when he left the Pioneer Press in March and crossed the river to take the same job at the Star Tribune. The 13-page decision by Ramsey County District Court Judge David Higgs said that the Star Tribune needs to hand over Ridder's three work computers and his home computer, Star Tribune computer servers and computers used...

ven though employees knew it was coming, word that 21 newsroom staffers at the Pioneer Press are taking buyouts still had some shock value when it was announced Thursday. In all, about 30 employees across all departments at the paper took buyouts. Among those leaving the paper are columnist Laura Billings, politics reporter Patrick Sweeney and others who all told have 502 years in the newsroom at the state's oldest newspaper. "There's a lot of pain associated with this," said Kay Harvey, a features writer with 26 years at the paper who is among those departing. "I would not be...

Two excellent human beings died this week, long before their time. One thing connects Kirby Puckett, baseball player, and Dana Reeve, actress and widow of Christopher Reeve. It is Ernest Hemingway’s immortal definition of heroism, “grace under pressure.” This man and this women were both heros. Kirby Puckett was a Hall of Famer, one of the finest athletes in Minnesota in any sport. As an outfielder and slugger for the Minnesota Twins, he made the impossible seem natural with his skills. There’s an article in the Pioneer Press, “Weren’t the Cheers Only Yesterday?” which captures the magic of his ability....

As distrust of the press grows, news articles are relentlessly scrutinized for bias, but almost no one is focusing on stories that are simply ignored. For instance, a May 18 report in the Afghan newspaper Kabul Weekly said the riots that killed 17 people were not about disrespect for the Koran in American detainment camps--they were a show of force by the Taliban and another fundamentalist group, Hezb-e Eslami. "These demonstrations were organized by the Taliban and their supporters, and only some naive people joined the protesters," the newspaper said. The BBC picked up the story on May 22, but...

High school students who skip too much school would lose their driver's licenses under a plan announced Tuesday by Gov. Tim Pawlenty. Pawlenty said that under his plan any students who are absent more than 20 percent of the time could also be held back in their grade. "I have no hesitation linking expectations around school attendance and the privilege of driving," Pawlenty said. "We need to make sure we have the horse before the cart." He also said that he would end the practice of "social promotion," which is when students advance to the next grade even though their...

What does it mean to be liberal or conservative in politics today? ART COULSON Editorial Page Editor Liberal. Conservative. The terms are tossed about like grenades in the current war for the soul of American politics. We in the newspaper business — particularly those of us who speak as the institutional voices of our newspapers on the editorial pages — are often labeled with these words by our readers. Some on the right call us liberals. Their neighbors on the left believe us to be conservative. But what do these terms really mean? Is Republican California gubernatorial candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger...