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BrauBlog

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    Et tu, North Dakota media moguls?

    By David Brauer | Published Tue, Feb 10 2009 9:35 pm

    Normally, the doings of a NoDak paper aren't news here in the big city, but Tuesday's layoffs at the Fargo Forum are noteworthy for a few reasons:

    1. Forum Communications has aggressively snapped up Minnesota papers, including the Duluth News-Tribune, and is considered one of the industry's healthiest players. In December, I floated them as a possible Star Tribune or Pioneer Press buyer; Forum CEO William Marcil flatly and publicly shot that notion down.

    2. The North Dakota economy has been one of the nation's healthiest —  they have a billion-dollar budget reserve, with a 3.3 percent unemployment rate and anecdotal evidence Minnesotans are moving there for jobs.

    One of the reasons Forum is among the industry's healthiest players is that it's among the tightest-fisted. Still, if they can't preserve headcount in one of the nation's economic oases, the media meltdown just got hotter.

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    minnpost.com/braublog

    David Brauer authors Braublog and is MinnPost's local media reporter. He's covered media and politics as a writer and editor since 1983 for City Pages, the Southwest/Downtown Journal, KFAN and KSTP-AM, Mpls.St.Paul, Minnesota Monthly, Law & Politics, the Business Journal, KARE11 and national outlets. Follow him on Twitter. Email: dbrauer [at] minnpost [dot] com. 

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