Brauer: Twin Cities media will face fresh challenges in 2015

The new year will bring fresh challenges to several Twin Cities media institutions, says longtime media critic David Brauer. He talked to MPR News' Cathy Wurzer to review the year in media news and preview what's to come.

Twin Cities media: Three challenges in 2015

Pioneer Press on the block

Digital First Media put the St. Paul Pioneer Press up for sale, but it's unclear who would buy the struggling daily.

Despite the uncertainty, Brauer said, the paper saw some bright spots in 2014.

Rachel Stassen-Berger, a respected political reporter at the Star Tribune, announced she will return to the St. Paul paper, where she'd worked earlier, in 2015.

"You hope Rachel knows something about the future of the paper if she's going back there," Brauer says. With Stassen-Berger's return, the Pioneer Press is rebuilding its political desk — at the same time that it is heightening its pay wall, Brauer notes.

KFAI struggling to stay afloat

"KFAI has always been kind of a hand-to-mouth enterprise," Brauer said, "but some of the big changes in media have really hit them hard."

The station has succeeded in niche production — tailoring content to small, eclectic audiences — and those audiences have moved online.

"Their audience has been falling, their financial support has always been touch-and-go and they're really trying to figure out how to stay relevant in a business sense," he said.

Star Tribune enters first full year under new ownership

Mankato billionaire Glen Taylor purchased the Star Tribune earlier this year, sparking concerns that the paper would begin to strike a more conservative tone.

But if there have been changes under Taylor's ownership, they are happening behind the scenes, Brauer said. From a reader's perspective, "it's really been a non-event," he said.

Brauer expects Taylor to hold on to the paper for some time, however, and says there will likely be slow changes along the way.