Minneapolis Star Tribune declares bankruptcy

You heard it right, cousins -- the Minneapolis Star Tribune, employer of cousins Pam and Chris, has declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy. For now, at least, this doesn't mean that Pam and Chris' families, with their many children, pets and knickknacks, will be moving into your basements. We're hoping that our owner, the shadowy private equity firm Avista Capital Partners, can shed some of its outrageous debts via bankruptcy and that our jobs will endure, though probably in very different, more demanding and lower-paid ways. (Chapter 11 involves reorganizing; it's not as dire as Chapter 7, which involves liquidation.) Although print newspapers are all in trouble these days because most people now get their news from free online sites and stellar scrapblogs like this one, it's your scrapblog editor's personal opinion that the Strib's financial troubles are due more to old-fashioned greed and mismanagement than they are to the cultural slouching toward digital-only media. And don't believe anything you read about it being the unions' fault -- our unions have made major sacrifices and are willing to make more, but only if equity is involved. As one of our colleagues told other media this morning, "This paper is more ours than theirs." The Strib we put out -- both print and online versions -- continues to make a profit. But Avista blithely used major debt to buy us, and now it can't get out from under that debt, so it's deep-sixing us to focus on its more profitable oil-drilling and waste-management holdings. Meanwhile, feel free to send cards, large checks and care packages full of delicious homemade cookies or hotdishes to Pam and Chris.