The New York Post reports that our local newspaper, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, teeters on the edge of bankruptcy. The paper has traded hands twice in the last ten years, the latter transaction in 2006 coming at half of the price of the former. It now appears that Avista Capital Partners still overpaid:

The Minneapolis Star Tribune, reeling under a heavy debt load and plummeting advertising sales, is on the brink of bankruptcy, The Post has learned.

One of the nation’s top dailies, “The Strib,” as it is known to readers in the Twin Cities, recently hired the Wall Street powerhouse Blackstone Group to restructure its balance sheet after failing to meet its debt obligations, according to people familiar with the company.

hotair.com

I posted this about 363 days ago about that very paper. Imagine! Heh!

James Lileks, Minneapolis-St.Paul Star-Tribune, has decided to kill his column and have him write straight local news stories.

It’s probably Mitchieville’s fault or some other blog cutting in with wit substance and um not that leftwing lobotomized boilerplate…

Update

Strib: Not quite dead yet, but as hypocritical as ever

posted at 7:50 am on May 5, 2008 by Ed Morrissey
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In response to the New York Post’s article yesterday, the publisher of the Minneapolis Star Tribune insisted that the paper has not missed its debt payments yet and that its creditors do not want to run the newspaper. Christopher Harte issued a statement late yesterday denying that the Strib is close to bankruptcy, but also announced the hiring of a private equity firm to evaluate the Strib’s finances. Their choice of firms calls into question their own reporting on the business industry:

hotair.com