It is starting to look like the Grim Ridder not only wants to kill the body of the Star Tribune newspaper, he wants to steal its soul, too. Two experienced newspapermen identified as progressives—by the spittle-flecked boys at Powerline, anyway—will be leaving the paper. Both have long been on the head-hunting list of local conservative bloggers.
One is Minnesota Pollster Rob Daves who was shown the door:
The paper gave [Spot says if you give something to somebody, he has the option to reject it] an involuntary buyout to Rob Daves, director of the Minnesota Poll and the part-time manager of the newspaper's community website, Buzz.mn.
Daves said he was called into a meeting with Barnes and Managing Editor Scott Gillespie after the newsroom meeting and told that his job had been eliminated.
The Minnesota Poll, an institution at the Star Tribune since its first story appeared on March 19, 1944, ran between six and eight polls last year. It has not run a poll so far this year, Daves said.
The poll, although usually concerned with politics, has over the decades polled Minnesotans on "whether oleomargarine should be allowed to be sold in the state and should it be colored and whether people have cabins up at the lake and everything in between," said Daves.
In the last election cycle, there were howls of protest (read the comments to Eric Black's post) about the Poll's margin between Mark Kennedy and Amy Klobuchar. Amy won handily by a margin similar to that predicted by the Poll.
You might also be interested to know, boys and girls, that Rob Daves is currently the president of the American Association for Public Interest Research.
The other big kill, as far as Powerline is concerned, is Jim Boyd, a 27-year veteran and member of the Strib's editorial board:
It is difficult to capture the combination of intellectual thuggishness combined with buffoonery that Jim Boyd has engaged in and orchestrated from his perch as deputy editor of the Star Tribune editorial page. Today we learn that Boyd at long last will be leaving the Star Tribune.
Spot only hopes that people will say such nice thing about Scotty when he finally shuffles off this mortal coil, which will undoubtedly occur as the consequence of a fatal bile-choking incident.
On the other side of the ledger, we have Jim (he hates that) Lileks, the sire of some of the most inconsequential twaddle in the Strib:
I like Pepto-Bismol. There. I said it.
Spotty, did they can the author of that?
No, grasshopper, he was merely reassigned. But that didn't stop Hugh Hewitt from comparing Lileks to E.B. White.
Why are you laughing, Spotty?
Never mind, grasshopper. Maybe when you're a little older.
When the Star Tribune lies gutted and lifeless next to the Pioneer Press at the fishmonger's, thinking residents of Minnesota will rue the day they ever heard of the Grim Ridder or Avista Capital.
Tags: the Grim Ridder kills the Minneapolis Star Tribune
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