The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

Lost in the loud wailing heard in our little journalistic glade over the clear-cutting of staff at the Star Tribune and Pioneer Press is any serious discussion about what’s being severed: Is it actually worth the efforts of the journalistic tree huggers? To some, the answer is a stentorian “No.”

If you’re a shareholder, the money is still pretty good, but in almost every other way this is a rough time for the middlebrow, mainstream media. Judging by all the hand-wringing, navel-gazing, and gloomy, self-flagellating punditry you’d think the mainstream news media--the “MSM,” as bloggers love to peck—are at the fiery brink as a consequence of their fading influence and terminal irrelevance. Average daily newspapers in particular. There is no shortage of MSM news professionals somberly spreading their own ashes.