If you’re a newspaper publisher today, leadership is about tough choices. Minnesota Star Tribune publisher Steve Grove made one such choice this week, choosing to close the company’s Heritage printing facility in the North Loop at year’s end, eliminating roughly 125 jobs, a capitulation to the decline of print newspaper readership.
Unlike the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which recently announced it is abandoning print altogether, the Minnesota Star Tribune will move printing operations to a Gannett newspaper plant in Des Moines operated by the Des Moines Register newspaper. The Strib simply has too many print readers to abandon the niche.
The Strib will then be trucked from Iowa to the Twin Cities, 253 miles plant to plant, typically just under a four-hour drive. There, Star Tribune drivers will start the distribution process. To accomplish this without disrupting delivery timelines, the newspaper is moving print deadlines earlier, to 5:15 p.m. weekdays and 4 p.m. for the Sunday paper…