Silence of the Star Tribune

[Valin]

Power Line

Scott Johnson

Oct. 18 2019

Like many local newspapers, Minneapolis’s Star Tribune purports to present an institutional voice serving as something like the political conscience of the community. Its recent editorial disapproving of the year-old video depicting President Trump mowing down the media — with which President Trump himself had nothing to do — is a sort of classic of the genre.

And yet they weren’t done with the subject. They returned to it a second time here.

Did these editorials serve any good purpose? I’m sure they made the members of the editorial board feel better about themselves. Beyond the warm feeling generated by a bath in one’s own virtue, I doubt it.

The Star Tribune compiles its editorials on this page. I don’t think the newspaper has had anything to say in its institutional voice about the rioting and violence perpetrated by the left on Minnesotans attending the Trump rally in Minneapolis last week, even though at least one legislator was present in the streets (Aisha Gomez) and another (Ilhan Omar) wished she had been there.

I wonder why the Star Tribune’s editors have left this particular subject untouched. The paper actually might have served a useful purpose if the editors had anything worthwhile to say about it. By contrast, among the more remote subjects the paper has weighed in on over the past week are this year’s Nobel Peace Prize recipient, “toxic bullets and fishing tackle,” and the convening of the Manova Global Summit on the Future of Health in Minneapolis.

(Snip)