The Minneapolis Star Tribune is Minnesota's paper of record. Its doing a disservice to Minnesota by not adequately covering Minnesota highest profile political figure, Rep. Michele Bachmann. They contributed to her winning election to Congress in 2006 by failing to print what she said and report what she did. They've continued this behavior to this day.
A case in point occurred this week.
The Strib busted her DFL opponent Jim Graves for saying on his online bio that he served on a United Way board when in fact he served on a committee. Graves admitted the error.
It's an error but its pretty minor. Especially in comparison to a lie that his opponent Rep. Michele Bachmann told this week.
Bachmann laid out a conspiracy theory this week that President Obama lied to the American people about the embassy attack in Libya. Bill Prendergast argued yesterday that she did this to try and deflect blame from the video that sparked the riots.
...we're going to see hearings on Wednesday in the Oversight Committee to try and get some answers from the administration that was continuing to try and push this fiction that it was the video that started all of this violence when in fact it wasn't.
Readers of the Strib wouldn't know about this latest conspiracy theory. In did not appear in Mondays, Tuesdays or Wednesdays dead tree edition and never appeared on their website. The Strib pretty much never write stories about her conspiracy theories. They must not think it newsworthy.
The only time the Strib will cover Bachmann embarrassing herself is when, for example, the national media covered her HPV Vaccine conspirary theory in which she believes it causes retardation.
It took a Presidential campaign and the national media becoming interested in Bachmann for the people of Minnesota to learn about her gaffes, lies and bigotry.
The Strib has never and will likely never provide that kind of coverage. They will give Bachmann a free pass and only rarely write the stories that put her in a poor light.
The Strib will never, ever fact check Bachmann.