When South Dakota Governor Bill Janklow and Minnesota Governor Rudy Perpich were taking verbal shots at each other in the early 1980s about business climate, that was news, mostly because Janklow and Perpich were the highest ranking elected officials of their respective states, and because in those days neighboring Governors  were typically genteel with each other.  This was something new.

But today the St. Paul Pioneer Press ran a breathless piece on its front page, above the fold, about a relatively obscure Tea Party-backed state legislator, Wisconsin State Rep. Erik Serverson (R-Osceola), who wrote a little letter taking a shot at Minnesota about taxes.

A Tea Partier griping about taxes.  Gee, I’ve never heard that before.  Seriously, this is news, Pioneer Press?  It would have been news if this Tea Partier wasn’t opposing Dayton’s tax reform plan.

If the Pioneer Press wants to put something like this in its political blog, an editorial, a Soucheray snark-o-gram or as a News Brief item, fine.  But front page news?  Above the fold?  Twenty-seven column inches?  Wow.

I know that the Pioneer Press is trying soooo hard to make itself into the conservative alternative to the Star Tribune.  (See it’s shameful editorial last fall in favor of banning gay marriage.)  That strikes me as an curious business decision for a publication serving one of the most liberal areas of the state — Obama won Ramsey County by 35 points in 2012, and won in neighboring Washington and Dakota Counties as well.

Still, taking a highly predictable pot shot from a low-level Tea Party-affiliated legislator and making it into front page news strains the bounds of journalistic credibility.

– Loveland

Note:  The post was also featured in Politics in Minnesota’s Best of the Blogs.