When the Star Tribune hired Steve Grove to lead the newspaper in 2023, outgoing publisher/CEO Mike Klingensmith said, weirdly, "If you asked an AI to draw up a resume for a Star Tribune publisher job, I don't think they could do any better than Steve Grove."

On Tuesday night Grove channeled AI in another way: the elimination of jobs. Sixty-five jobs, specifically, 25 of which will impact the 200ish person newsroom but not news gatherers (reporters, photographers, videographers), Grove announced in an internal memo that has been shared with Racket (see below). Last year, the Upper Midwest's largest media company sliced off 125 jobs when it outsourced printing operations to Iowa.

When news orgs report on themselves, the results often feel like glorified press releases. That's absolutely not the case with the story Stribber Christopher Vondracek just published (gift link) about the department-wide job slashing that'll reduce the 495-person company by about 15%. Vondracek asks his boss, point-blank: Do these layoffs and buyouts represent a failure of leadership? "I certainly wish this [layoff] step in our journey wasn’t needed," Grove responds. "But the shift we’re trying to do is really significant.” The publisher's tenure has been defined, at least in terms of Racket coverage, by: embracing sponcon, flirting with AI, betting on gambling, showing homework to Gov. Tim Walz, questionable rebrands, résumé-padding memoirs, and downright spinelessness.

In addition to the dramatic staff reduction, Grove revealed that, in partnership with beautiful Republican billionaire owner Glen Taylor, Strib brass will "explore placing the Minnesota Star Tribune under foundation ownership, similar to other for-profit newsrooms owned by foundations, to expand opportunities for philanthropic donations to support the core business."