Another Crack in the Dike?

It is my fondest dream to see one of the dominant newspapers in town become conservative in orientation. Newspapers are my favorite medium and to get a local one providing a counterbalancing voice to the unyielding yammering of liberal ideology expressed in this town day in and day out? It would be nothing short of exquisite, for me and the other tens of thousands of conservatives in this increasingly 50-50 state and metro area.

Such a move is also good business, particularly for the weaker sister in this tandem. According to reports, the Pioneer Press's circulation is dwarfed by the Star Tribune, with the disparity widening with every passing audit. They're losing the battle of who's heart could bleed more and without a major shake up, they may be destined for a Minnetonka Sun Sailor level circulation.

There have been a few hopeful signs that maybe, just maybe, something is in the works. Earlier this year there was the shedding of high-priced, extreme liberal columnist Nick Coleman and extreme liberal music columnist Jim Walsh and the as yet undefined "reassignment" of extreme liberal media columnist Brian Lambert.

Sunday's Pionner Press editorial page provided the most hopeful sign yet that the paper may be tilting right. Editorial page editor Art Coulson announced the addition of two new members of the staff:

Mark Yost, who joined us Monday, is a former Wall Street Journal editorial writer and native New Yorker who calls himself a "lifelong Vikings fan/sufferer."

Mark brings a wealth of experience to the job, as an editorial writer, a business reporter and as an editor. He worked at Dow Jones for 10 years, covering the auto industry for the Dow Jones Newswires. He also worked as an editorial page writer for the Wall Street Journal in New York and Brussels.

While some people will consider his opinions "conservative," he prefers to think of himself as a "libertarian."

I don't know the name of Mark Yost, but I like his resume. I used to read the WSJ editorial page daily and I propose it as a good model for the future Pioneer Press editorial page. The other new hire sounds promising as well:

We've also added a new voice to our opinion page, Craig Westover, who will write regular columns for us on state and local issues.

"On one hand, readers will find my columns 'conservative' in that I believe in limited government, individual initiative and responsibility," he said. "On the other, they'll find them 'liberal' in that I strongly believe that in a free society half the time one must defend the right of others to do things one finds morally reprehensible. Government's proper role is protecting liberty, imposing neither artificial equality nor collective morality."

Not bad at all, I must say. His hedging on classifying himself solely as a conservative is a little suspicious. Notice the description for Yost includes the same distancing from a true conservative embrace (he's not conservative, he's libertarian). Hopefully that's just a way for these guys to ease into their jobs without spooking the herd at the Pioneer Press too much. It could also mean that these guys aren't really conservatives at all. Instead they're simply more moderate liberals, compared to the zealots currently infesting the editorial board.

We'll keep an eye on these fellows and see how they develop. And if these additions do represent what Art Coulson describes as ...

Someone who brings a different perspective to the table, who doesn't just duplicate what we already have

... it's great news. But even then it's only a beginning. Understand, I'm not looking for balance within the new Pioneer Press. I'm looking for them, as an institution, to balance the overwhelming weight of liberal news bias and editorializing from the Star Tribune. Meaning, we need the entirety of the Pioneer Press editorial board to take a major swing rightward.