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Knight Foundation Helps Fund New MinnPost.com
Sept. 17, 2007
MinnPost.com, an Internet-based daily providing news and insight for Twin Cities and Minnesota readers, will launch later this year with funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
In addition to $250,000 from the Knight Foundation, four local families have contributed a combined $850,000. “Communities need news every way they can get it,” said Eric Newton, vice president of Knight Foundation’s journalism program. “What makes this experiment interesting are its nonprofit model and the willingness of such a broad spectrum of the community to give money and time to this effort.”
MinnPost.com will offer exclusive front-page news stories as well as “posts,” a new format in which professional journalists engage in an informal conversation with readers about what they're learning and what to make of it. Posts will be a bit like blogs, but unlike many blogs, they will be built around original reporting, not just opinions or links to other people’s work.
MinnPost.com, which will be updated Monday through Friday, is also planning to offer daily roundups providing perspective on metro, state, national and international news, stories from selected content partners, commentary from community leaders and experts, and comment from and involvement of readers. The webiste will be nonpartisan, and all opinion pieces will be signed.
More than 20 Twin Cities journalists — including the organization's CEO and editor, Joel Kramer, who served as editor of the Minneapolis Star Tribune in the 1980s and as publisher and president in the 1990s; Dave Beal, a former business/philanthropy editor and columnist for the St. Paul Pioneer Press; Pulitzer Prize-winning Pioneer Press reporter and best-selling novelist John Camp; and former Star Tribune columnist Doug Grow — have already committed to contributing regularly to MinnPost.com.
“MinnPost.com is all about substantive news for Minnesotans who are intensely interested in the world around them and want more insight and analysis than they’re getting from their media choices today,” said Kramer. “It will combine the best of traditional journalism with new forms of newsgathering and storytelling made possible by the Internet."
In addition to the website, MinnPost in Print will be a quick but thoughtful daily newspaper published Monday through Friday in 8.5x11-inch format, printable on home and office computers and expected to be available in high-traffic locations over the lunch hour.
Kramer said he will seek additional foundation support to help finance MinnPost’s early years, but that the plan is to eventually become self-sufficient, based on two main revenue sources: sponsorship/advertising and member donations.
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