The Star Tribune’s 2024 election coverage will provide the facts and context you need to be informed about voting and who is seeking your vote.
Covering elections, candidates and critical policies is central to the Star Tribune’s public service mission. Our journalists are independent, curious and respectful, and committed to keeping you at the center of our election coverage.
How to cover the state?
Minnesota is geographically, politically and culturally diverse, and we cover races, policies and candidates across the state, not just the Twin Cities metro area. We have reporters in Duluth, Rochester and St. Cloud, and are adding reporters based in southwest and northwest Minnesota, as well as a columnist based outside the metro area. Our political and agricultural journalists frequently travel the state to write about the issues most relevant to these communities.
How do we decide which races and candidates to cover?
We have the largest political team in the Upper Midwest, but we can’t cover every candidate on the ballot this year. We choose which races to cover closely using our best judgment on what is most newsworthy.
So how do you decide what is most newsworthy? Some of the factors are:
- Power: Races for seats that wield disproportionate influence over policy, or that can shape or shift the balance of power in St. Paul or Washington, D.C., often receive more coverage and attention.
- Interest: We focus on what interests our readers. Is a race or candidate interested in something that attracts public attention because it is an oddity or an outlier, or because it is emblematic of a broader theme? But just because people tweet about it doesn’t mean we have to write about it.
- Competitiveness: Generally, races whose results are not a foregone conclusion will receive more coverage and attention. In our reporting, we seek to explain why a race is (or is not) competitive. We look at how voters have voted historically, demographic changes, political trends, polling, and the amount of money candidates spend.
Our election coverage also goes beyond closely monitoring individual races. We also seek to explain trends, movements and how money influences elections.
How to cover politics impartially?
We get this question a lot. We know it can be difficult to separate partisan messages from public service journalism. We are committed to considering issues fairly and broadly and representing diverse viewpoints in the best light. Our journalists hold each other accountable for being impartial and fair, and our top priority is enabling Minnesotans to navigate and participate fully in public life.
We are often asked about our owner and editor because our owner is a former Republican legislator and our editor worked in the administration of DFL Governor Tim Walz. We recognize that there is a perception that their roles influence our media coverage. But the firewall between the news and our opinion section is real: Glen Taylor and Steve Grove don’t tell us how to cover politics. We are journalists with extensive experience covering all aspects of political debates and our team has an extensive network of candidates from across the political spectrum. Are we perfect? No. Do we constantly strive to report fairly and objectively? Yes.
What about political support?
At the Star Tribune, we have a clear line between our news and opinion departments. We have opinion journalists who write for the newsroom and whose role is to provoke healthy debate and influence public affairs. They support political candidates as part of this mission. They operate completely separately from newsroom journalists and do not report what they do to newsroom leadership. They don’t know what stories we’re working on and we don’t know which candidates the editorial page will support until we know about them, like all of you.
Why do we probe?
While we know many people are tired of “horse racing” reporting, polls can be an important indicator of what voters are thinking at any given moment. They are not intended to predict what will happen, although many people interpret them that way. In any survey, we do not ask everyone their choice; pollsters speak to a representative sample of people and ask a series of questions. There is always an inherent error in any survey figure, so we will share how the survey was conducted, as well as the estimate of the potential error (the margin of sampling error). We’ll be polling twice this election cycle, with our partners MPR News and KARE 11.
How do we check the facts?
Every election cycle, candidates make claims. Some are true, some are mostly true, some are mostly false, some are completely false. They may be misleading, incomplete or lack context. At the same time, not all allegations constitute verifiable statements: during a campaign, people may cite as true something that is not actually provable. We consider whether a claim can be verified, as well as how prevalent or widespread it is, when deciding whether to evaluate the claims and highlight them in our ongoing research. Campaign Verification series..
How do we select story sources?
We choose sources based on their relevance to the topic at hand, their expertise in a given area, and their lived experiences that can add depth to a story. Star Tribune journalists have developed an extensive network of sources over decades covering politics, policy and state, but they are always cultivating new sources and working to reach people who are often missed in coverage traditional media. When we include the voices of more segments of our communities in our coverage, the result is more accurate and nuanced storytelling.
When do we use anonymous sources?
Our preference is to name the sources of information we publish, but sometimes there is no way to provide important information to our readers unless we grant anonymity or confidentiality to a source. You can find our guidelines in the Star Tribune policies and standards.
Anonymous statements and quotes are published in the Star Tribune only when necessary to provide important information and only after we are satisfied that we are meeting our standards for accuracy and fairness.
Before deciding to publish anonymous information or quotes, we must be satisfied that it is not possible to obtain the same information or quotes on file; that the value of the information is important and that we have no reason to doubt the reliability of the information. It must also be approved by an editor, often the editor-in-chief or editor-in-chief.
