Via Minnesota Independent’s nifty new AM.MN blog, Chris Steller notes the classy final column by Hibbing Daily Tribune editor Mike Jennings, who takes the high road following his involuntary early retirement. As up-north blogger Aaron Brown (a former Hibbing editor) notes:
Rather than waxing poetic about his career or lamenting the loss of the good ol’ days of American journalism, he simply “tied up the loose ends” on several stories he’s been doggedly following for the last year or so.
- An investigation of police conduct in Hibbing is explored one last time with fresh information from a public request of information.
- The Excelsior Energy Mesaba Energy Project is explained one more time. Indeed, Jennings provided the deepest and most unbiased local investigative journalism of this economic development project during his tenure here … had I or others been as good a journalist in 2001 perhaps the public wouldn’t be on the hook for as much of the debt on this beleaguered mess.
- Jennings closes with a final look at the immense public liability for the Essar Steel mine and steel proposal in Nashwauk. He demonstrates in just a few hundred words how desperation for jobs among public officials can lead to poor decisions.
One of the nice things about Jennings’ farewell is he doesn’t go medieval on bloggers, and in turn, Brown notes the raised stakes for citizen journalists amid cutbacks.
On the flip side, the blogger and former Superior News-Telegram editor Ron Brochu takes a long hard look at Fargo-based Forum Communication after laying off a publisher in the Twin Ports. While the doings of a North Dakota publisher and a Wisconsin paper might not seem so important down here, as I repeatedly note, Forum publishes more dailies than anyone in the state, and 21 Minnesota papers overall. What they do has a big impact on the state’s news eco-system.
