Two months into the job, Chairman Mike Sweeney is feeling optimistic about his Star Tribune and indignant about MPR. In the first half of his recent piece, he delights in his new colleagues, high web traffic, favorable balance sheets and significant reporting capacity. In the second half he bemoans MPR's funding model -- particularly using public dollars to compete with private business.
While he makes some valid points, I do take issue with this statement:
We have numerous concerns about publicly funded news, but our primary question is how an organization funded by government can objectively report on government.
So, does this mean that the Star Tribune cannot objectively report on corporations it sells advertising to?
Or are we saying that the wall between MPR's editorial and funding/underwriting divisions is weak and porous?
Every news org has to get its money somewhere and there's no such thing as a pure source. If you're going to question MPR's editorial integrity, realize that we could just as easily raise the same questions about the Strib.
