New name, new look. The Minneapolis Star Tribune has brought its rebranding campaign to Winona with a Highway 61 billboard. Err, it’s not the Minneapolis Star Tribune anymore. It’s now the Minnesota Star Tribune with a spiffy new tagline: “The Heart and Voice of the North.”
Legacy newspaper seeks outstate readers, advertisers
WINONA, Minn. – Now with a new name, the Minneapolis- based newspaper the Star Tribune is a shifting in focus from the Twin Cities to the entire state. Why? The corporate explanation: “The new name and brand identity reflect the organization’s ambition to connect people, ideas, and stories across the state” The paper more coverage in Greater Minnesota, particularly Duluth, Mankato, and Moorhead. A new opinion team headed columnist Phil Morris runs what’s called “Strib Voices.” Kavita Kumar was promoted to community engagement director to buid outstate content. Being revamped are digital products including mobile apps and startribune.com.
Inaugural edition. With high hopes for new nameplate, new design, “Strib Voices” and new readers.
Evolving newspaper landscape
The Star Tribune is the Midwest’s largest newspaper. Rivals among are Forum Communications of Fargo, North Dakota, which expanded aggressively through acquisitions of local newspapers and televsion stations. These include dailies in Duluth, Mankato, Red Wing and Superior. Shrinking in a regional presence is Iowa-based Lee Enterprises, which properteis include papers Chippewa Falls, Kenosha, LaCrosse, Madison and Winona.
Minnesota Strib profile
The Minneapolis Tribune was founded in 1867 and purchased competing Minneapolis Daily Star in 1920. The consolidation led to the Tribune publishing in the morning and the Star in the evening. They merged in 1982 into the Minneapolis Star and Tribune. The name was shortened to Star Tribune in1987 in a failed bid to take readers away from the St. Paul Pioneer Press Dispatch. There followed a financially confused. period in which the newspaper was sold and resold. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2009. Mankato billionaire Glen Taylor, a former Republican state senator, purchased by purchase of the paper in 2014, adding to a portfolio that included the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Minnesota Lynx.