The Minnesota Independent

Last updated
The Minnesota Independent
Minnesota Independent logo-20081019.png
Type of site
Online magazine
Owner American Independent News Network
Created by American Independent News Network
URL www.minnesotaindependent.com
CommercialNo
RegistrationTo Add Comments
LaunchedAugust 2006; shut down in November 2011
Current statusInactive

The Minnesota Independent, formerly Minnesota Monitor, and sometimes known as MnIndy, was an independent online news website. It launched in August 2006, with a focus on coverage of political issues. The website was funded by the American Independent News Network. The website was closed down in 2011. [1]

Contents

Background

Minnesota Independent was staffed by both salaried reporters and paid fellows who received a stipend for their writing contributions. [2] The initial pool of writers included a number of journalists and liberal Minnesota bloggers, including original site editor Robin Marty, Somali journalist Abdi Ayne, Joe Bodell and others. Later, the site brought on board professional journalists, such as Eric Black, who had written for the Star Tribune , and former City Pages writers Paul Demko and Molly Priesmeyer.

The site was edited by Paul Schmelzer, and received about 150,000 unique visitors per month. Traffic surpassed 250,000 in the month preceding the 2008 U.S. elections and surpassed 260,000 unique monthly visits in April 2009. [3] A week after election day, the Center for Independent Media cut funding for two of six full-time staff members, Andy Birkey and Molly Priesmeyer, and for the entire freelance staff. [4] Birkey has since been hired back, and a freelance budget, albeit smaller, was reinstated.

History

Minnesota Independent broke a number of stories. During the Keith Ellison Qur'an oath controversy, the Independent's Abdi Aynte reported that Keith Ellison would not change his mind about being sworn in on the Qur'an. The Independent was the first to report that Living Word Christian Center may have violated IRS guidelines during a speech at the Church by Michele Bachmann.[ citation needed ] The story resulted in an ethical complaint being filed by CREW against the church.[ citation needed ]

The site also broke news that Minnesota United States Attorney Rachel Paulose was under investigation for mishandling classified information, and that a staffer for Rep. Michele Bachmann had sent out an emailed plea for support that violated house ethics rules. [5]

Minnesota Independent reporter Andy Birkey won a 2010 Page One Award from the Society of Professional Journalists for best continuing coverage of the controversial Christian ministry You Can Run But You Cannot Hide. [6] Media writer Paul Schmelzer won a 2008 Frank Premack Award for Public Affairs Journalism from the University of Minnesota School of Journalism [7] and a 2nd Place in the 2006 Society of Professional Journalists Page One Awards. [8] The site was nominated for the Koufax Award in 2007, [9] and Andy Birkey was a finalist for the 2007 Online Journalism Award for his coverage of LGBT issues. [10] In 2008, the site won three Society of Professional Journalists Page One Awards, [11] and in 2009 increased the number of SPJ prizes to eight, including four first-place awards. Among independent online news enterprises it won best single news story (Paul Demko), best use of multimedia (Newsroom), best use of video (Paul Schmelzer) and best news blog (Newsroom). [12]

Editorial stance

The Minnesota Independent's focus and editorial slant was politically left. Fellows were drawn from media outlets including City Pages and the Star Tribune , as well from the left-of-center blogging community in Minnesota. The site featured a code of ethics that reads in part, "New Journalist Fellows should be honest, tireless, fair and courageous in gathering, reporting and interpreting information for the public." [13]

Contributors

Related Research Articles

Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on current events based on facts and supported with proof or evidence. The word journalism applies to the occupation, as well as citizen journalists who gather and publish information based on facts and supported with proof or evidence. Journalistic media include print, television, radio, Internet, and, in the past, newsreels.

Citizen journalism Journalism genre

Citizen journalism, also known as collaborative media, participatory journalism, democratic journalism, guerrilla journalism or street journalism, is based upon public citizens "playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing, and disseminating news and information." Similarly, Courtney C. Radsch defines citizen journalism "as an alternative and activist form of news gathering and reporting that functions outside mainstream media institutions, often as a response to shortcomings in the professional journalistic field, that uses similar journalistic practices but is driven by different objectives and ideals and relies on alternative sources of legitimacy than traditional or mainstream journalism". Jay Rosen offers a simpler definition: "When the people formerly known as the audience employ the press tools they have in their possession to inform one another." The underlying principle of citizen journalism is that ordinary people, not professional journalists, can be the main creators and distributors or news. Citizen journalism should not be confused with: community journalism or civic journalism, both of which are practiced by professional journalists; collaborative journalism, which is the practice of professional and non-professional journalists working together; and social journalism, which denotes a digital publication with a hybrid of professional and non-professional journalism.

PA Media

PA Media is a multimedia news agency operating in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

<i>Grist</i> (magazine) Magazine

Grist is an American non-profit online magazine that has been publishing environmental news and commentary since 1999. Grist's taglines are "Gloom and doom with a sense of humor" and "A beacon in the smog". Grist is headquartered in Seattle, Washington, and has 35 writers and employees. Its CEO is former state representative Brady Walkinshaw.

Michele Bachmann American politician

Michele Marie Bachmann is an American politician and a member of the Republican Party. She represented Minnesota's 6th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 2007 to 2015. The district includes St. Cloud and several of the northern suburbs of the Twin Cities.

Kevin Sites

Kevin Sites is an American author and freelance journalist. He has spent nearly a decade covering global wars and disasters for ABC, NBC, CNN, and Yahoo! News. Dubbed by the trade press as the "granddaddy" of backpack journalists, Sites helped blaze the trail for intrepid reporters who work alone, carrying only a backpack of portable digital technology to shoot, write, edit, and transmit multimedia reports from the world's most dangerous places. His first book, In the Hot Zone: One Man, One Year, Twenty Wars, shares his effort to put a human face on global conflict by reporting from every major war zone in one year.

Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility

The Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) is a private, non-stock, non-profit foundation that has focused its endeavor on press freedom protection along with the establishment of a framework of responsibility for its practice. Its programs represent efforts to protect the press as well as to promote professional and ethical values in journalistic practice.

Brian Ross (journalist)

Brian Elliot Ross is an American investigative journalist who served as the Chief Investigative Correspondent for ABC News until 2018. He reported for ABC World News Tonight with David Muir, Nightline, Good Morning America, 20/20, and ABC News Radio. Ross joined ABC News in July 1994 and was fired in 2018. His investigative reports have often covered government corruption. From 1974 until 1994, Ross was a correspondent for NBC News.

The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting is an American news media organization established in 2006 that sponsors independent reporting on global issues that other media outlets are less willing or able to undertake on their own. The center's goal is to raise the standard of coverage of international systemic crises, and to do so in a way that engages both the broad public and government policy-makers. The organization is based in Washington, D.C.

MinnPost is a nonprofit online newspaper in Minneapolis, founded in 2007, with a focus on Minnesota news.

Tarryl Clark

Tarryl Lynn Clark is a Minnesota politician and a former member of the Minnesota Senate. A Democrat, she represented District 15, including portions of Benton, Sherburne, and Stearns counties, from 2006 to 2011. She was a Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party nominee for United States Congress in 2010, unsuccessfully challenging incumbent Republican Michele Bachmann.

The Twin Cities Daily Planet is an independent website specializing in news events in the Minneapolis – Saint Paul metropolitan area. The Twin Cities Daily Planet is an edited news source produced by professional journalists working in collaboration with citizen journalists from the local community. It publishes original reported news articles, articles republished from other local and ethnic media partners, and some content articles, blog entries, comments) that is moderated but not edited, including posts published by affiliated local and neighborhood blogs. The Daily Planet describes itself as a purveyor of "hyperlocal journalism."

You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International

You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International (YCRBYCHI) was a United States Christian youth ministry that held assemblies, including music concerts and discussions with students, in public schools. Founded by Bradlee Dean in 2008, the organization was based in Annandale, Minnesota. YCRBYCHI's mission statement was: "To reshape America by re-directing the current and future generations both morally and spiritually through education, media, and the Judeo-Christian values found in our U.S. Constitution."

2012 United States House of Representatives elections in Minnesota

The 2012 United States House of Representatives elections in Minnesota were held on Tuesday, November 6, 2012 to elect the eight U.S. Representatives from the state of Minnesota. The elections coincided with the elections of other federal and state offices, including a quadrennial presidential election and an election to the U.S. Senate. Primary elections were held on August 14, 2012.

Parents Action League (PAL) is a citizens organization started in 2010 to oppose changes in the Anoka-Hennepin (Minnesota) School District 11 policy which limited discussions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) issues in district classrooms. PAL's roots go back as far as 1994, when one of its most-vocal members, Barb Anderson, successfully influenced the school district's board to exclude homosexuality from its sex-ed curriculum.

<i>Free Malaysia Today</i>

Free Malaysia Today (FMT) is an independent, bilingual news online portal with content, in both English and Bahasa Malaysia (Maylay), with a focus on Malaysian current affairs, published since 2009. It is one of Malaysia's most accessed news sites with monthly visits of 11.83 million.

<i>CU Independent</i>

The CU Independent is the student-run news publication for the University of Colorado Boulder. It has been digital-only since 2006, when it became one of the first major college newspapers to drop its print edition.

Video game journalism is a branch of journalism concerned with the reporting and discussion of video games, typically based on a core "reveal–preview–review" cycle. With the prevalence and rise of independent media online, online publications and blogs have grown.

<i>City Pages</i>

City Pages was an alternative newspaper serving the Minneapolis–St. Paul metropolitan area. It featured news, film, theatre and restaurant reviews and music criticism, available free every Wednesday. It ceased publication in 2020 due to a decline in ads and revenue related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Citizen Matters is an award-winning independent news media outlet with a focus on cities and citizens by reporting on critical issues, ideas and solutions to India’s urban issues. Citizen Matters is published by Oorvani Foundation, a Bangalore-registered trust setup in 2013 to develop and promote journalism on governance, citizenship and society in India at the city, state and national levels.

References

  1. Brauer, David (November 16, 2011). "Minnesota Independent staffer says news site is shutting down". MinnPost. Retrieved 10 December 2015.
  2. Center for Independent Media » Programs
  3. "Minnesota Monitor: This Year's Visits by Month". Site Meter courtesy. Retrieved 2008-11-11.
  4. Turck, Mary (November 10, 2008). "Minnesota Independent staff slashed, DC office fumbles for explanation". Twin Cities Daily Planet. Twin Cities Media Alliance. Retrieved 2008-11-11.
  5. Minnesota Monitor:: Bachmann Email May Violate Federal Law, House Ethics Rules
  6. "Minnesota Independent wins journalism prizes for coverage of Christian ministry, Obama rally".
  7. Minnesota Monitor's Schmelzer wins a 2008 Premack Public Affairs Journalism Award
  8. Center for Independent Media's 'New Journalist Program' Bloggers Win Journalism Awards
  9. Minnesota Monitor nominated for a Koufax Award
  10. Online Journalism Awards: 2007 Online Journalism Awards - Finalists
  11. Minnesota Independent wins three Society of Professional Journalists awards
  12. MnIndy wins four first place Page One awards, four others
  13. Minnesota Monitor:: Code of Ethics