Here's the memo from Scott Gillespie:
Newsroom staff: During almost 30 years in journalism, Dave Hage has been passionate about public service journalism - first as a local news reporter, then as a national magazine writer and more recently as a member of the Star Tribune's editorial board.
Now he's decided to put that passion to work in politics and government as communications director for Sen. Amy Klobuchar.
To say we'll miss Dave's contributions to the Star Tribune and journalism in Minnesota is an understatement. He's one of the best in the profession and has been a tremendous contributor to the newspaper, both in News and Editorial. He's an award-winning journalist who has always been humble about his own work while supporting and praising the efforts of his colleagues on the third floor.
Many of you know Dave quite well, but here's some background for those who might not have worked with him over the years:
Dave joined the Star Tribune in 1979 as a suburban reporter for the Community section, then wrote about labor, business and the economy from 1981 to 1991. From 1991 to 1995 he was an economics correspondent for U.S. News & World Report in Washington.
He returned to the Star Tribune as an editorial writer in 1995 and has written expertly on a range of subjects including Minnesota's economy, health care, aviation, poverty and agriculture. He's also written two books, No Retreat, No Surrender, a chronicle of the meatpackers' strike at Hormel, co-written with our own Paul Klauda; and Reforming Welfare by Rewarding Work, published by the University of Minnesota Press in 2004.
In his new job, Dave will divide his time between Washington and the Twin Cities.
I know you'll join me in wishing Dave and his family all the best.
[The following comments are pasted from the old site.]
Huge loss for the Strib. Hage and I haven't seen eye-to-eye on many of his writings, but he always responded to questions or criticisms. To show how class a guy he is, the first time I sent him an email questioning a few of his facts, his response started with "Thank you for reading what I wrote and caring enough to contact me..." At the end of his response he talked again about how much it meant to him that people read his writings and responded to him. On top of that his responses to me have been excellent, well thought out points.
A true class act.
LAMBERT: He'll be tough to replace.
~Posted by: Dave at October 30, 2007 06:36 PM
Replace? REPLACE? Does the Star Tribune replace anyone these days? That would cut into Avista's profit margin and some executive's bonus. Besides, we keep being told how the paper is better than ever, with fewer workers than ever putting it out.
It's the new motto there: "Edition by subtraction."
LAMBERT: "Edition by subtraction". That's good. I may steal it.
~Posted by: Ethics 101 at October 30, 2007 07:40 PM
>Moving him back to the opinion pages would solve that situation, plus give publisher Chris Harte the kind of editorial writer he appears to be seeking.
Vapid?
~Posted by: Petra at October 30, 2007 08:09 PM
Let me speak up on behalf of my friend Doug Tice.
I'm troubled by the comment "Doug Tice provided the conservative voice for the Pioneer Press editorial pages when he worked there, and has faced some criticism for allegedly bringing that bent into the Strib newsroom. Moving him back to the opinion pages would solve that situation . . . "
The phrasing validates a supposition that has been spread by liberals looking for bogeymen behind ST coverage that they did not care for.
The ST metro/state team (and most of the newsroom) is populated largely by liberals. The implication is that liberal journalists do not inject coverage with their politics and world view, but conservative journalists are lacking in such scruples. Are my friends on the left so blinded by their sense of grievance that they can't see the ideological baggage they carry around as well?
This also assumes that the likes of Dane Smith and the other veterans who populate(d) that section are so spineless that they would tailor coverage to suit an editor's political agenda or allow their pieces to be edited in a way which distorted the facts and then fail to speak up about it.
And can't we get past this bullshit expectation of objectivity--which bears no small role in so much of the culture's dissatisfaction with newspapers to begin with? Objectivity is a straw man, fairness is the objective.
I can think of scads of ST coverage over the years which seemed rooted in a liberal social agenda (see the preoccupation with multiculturalism and inequity), but very little, if anything, that reflects a conservative view of the world, other than the rote stylings of Katherine Kersten.
Doug Tice would make a great addition to the ST editorial page. He's got one of the best minds in local journalism, though I share little of his politics. Those who only see him as "the conservative" in the liberal paradise should take a deep breath and try to embrace a more nuanced take on the facts, lest they end up embodying the thought crime they're so quick to accuse others of.
LAMBERT: Nicely said, Adam. I too have great respect for Doug. His work at the PiPress was both well-written and thoughtful. There were times when, God help me, I was almost convinced by his Libertarian logic. But putting Doug in charge of the paper's political coverage is problematic ... a significant appearance issue for anyone who knows the back story.
Without question the Strib would be offering a higher quality product were Doug writing the "conservative" metro column instead of Kersten. The man does have a sense of humor. But, alas, he also has an extra "Y" chromosome, and Gyllenhaal wanted BOTH a conservative and a woman.
Your basic point is valid though. Although Chris Harte apparently is concerned with the flow of ex-Strib government reporters to liberal think tanks, the Dane Smiths of the world (and their editors) were well experienced in the game of dialing to nearly nothing their personal POV.
~Posted by: Adam Platt at October 30, 2007 08:57 PM
Huh, that's funny, Kat Kersten doesn't repond that way to my emails. But then Hage's a journalist with 30 years of experience. And Kersten's a token sop to the Strib's florid-faced right wing critics from the world of agitprop right-funded think tanks with zero years of experience as a journalist. Hage left. Kersten enjoys a sinecure. Huh.
LAMBERT: "Balance" has nothing to do with "quality".
~Posted by: jimmy at October 30, 2007 11:49 PM
well said, adam platt.
boo to brian for implying that anyone with a clearly understood political philosophy could not be a fair editor of political reporters.
screw perceptions. show us the evidence that tice skewed the stribune's coverage.
~Posted by: hoppy at October 31, 2007 08:11 PM
Valid point, Hoppy, about giving more weight to evidence than accusation. May I suggest you and yours give it a try.
~Posted by: jimmy at October 31, 2007 10:24 PM
jimmy,
you know nothing more about me and mine than i know about you and yours. and that is the way i plan to keep it.
hoppy
~Posted by: hoppy at November 1, 2007 10:46 AM