Star Tribune - History

History

Today's Star Tribune is the product of the merger in 1982 between the Minneapolis Star, an evening newspaper, and the Minneapolis Tribune, a morning newspaper published by the same company.

Several earlier mergers preceded that one by many years, as outlined below. The Minneapolis Tribune was founded in 1867, and operated by the Murphy family between 1891 and 1941. The Minneapolis Journal was founded in 1878 as an evening paper.

The Minneapolis Times was a morning paper starting in 1889; it was purchased by the Tribune in 1905 and its name was used in various forms until 1948. Finally the Minnesota Daily Star began printing in 1920, and later became the Minneapolis Star, distributed in the evening.

The Cowles family bought the Star in 1935 and the Journal in 1939 and the two were merged into the Star-Journal, soon truncated to Star. The Cowles family bought the Tribune in 1941. The papers were operated as separate morning and evening papers. In 1944, John Cowles, Sr. hired William P. Steven, a Wisconsin native and former editor of the Tulsa Tribune, as managing editor of the two papers. Steven was named vice president and executive editor in 1954.

During his tenure in Minneapolis, he served one term as president of the Associated Press Managing Editors Association in 1949 and became first chairman of the organization's Continuing Studies Committee. By August 1960, John Cowles, Jr. had been named vice president and associate editor of the two papers. It was soon apparent that he disapproved of Steven's hard-nosed approach to journalism. He told Steven that he would be the person clearing Steven's orders. When Steven balked, the younger Cowles fired him.

In 1982, the papers were merged into the Minneapolis Star and Tribune, and in 1987 adopted the present name Star Tribune and the slogan "Newspaper of the Twin Cities". In 1998 The McClatchy Company purchased Cowles Media Company and sold off its other holdings, keeping the Star Tribune.

In 1987, the paper had separate Minneapolis, St. Paul, and statewide editions but today it has two editions: a Minneapolis-St. Paul metro-area edition, and a Midwest edition covering news throughout Minnesota and parts of surrounding states.

On December 26, 2006 McClatchy Co sold the paper to private-equity firm Avista Capital Partners for $530 million, less than half of what McClatchy paid for the paper in 1998, when it bought the Star Tribune from Cowles Media for $1.2 billion.

In March 2007 Par Ridder was named Publisher of the Star Tribune, after his predecessor, J. Keith Moyer, decided to leave the newspaper after the sale. Ridder resigned on December 7, 2007. Ridder is a member of the Ridder family that had owned Knight-Ridder, the publishers of several newspapers including the (rival) St. Paul Pioneer Press. Ridder's arrival resulted in considerable litigation when it was discovered that he had stolen a hard drive which was Pioneer Press property. This hard drive was laden with information about employees and advertisers which the Pioneer Press characterized as "trade secrets". Ridder also took two high-ranking staff members with him to the Minneapolis paper, which raised eyebrows as the employees in these roles usually have non-compete clauses in their contracts (which prohibit their employment with rival papers for a period of time specified under their employment agreement). On September 18, 2007, Ridder was removed from his new post by a Ramsey County judge.

On January 15, 2009, as the nation's 15th largest daily paper, the paper filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

On September 17, 2009 the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York approved a Bankruptcy plan for the paper which saw it emerge from bankruptcy protection on Sept. 28. The paper’s senior secured lenders took hold of approximately 95 percent of the stock in the post-bankruptcy company.

In August 2012, Wayzata Investment Partners became the majority owner of The Star Tribune Company, with a 58% stake.