No alternative

Back in 1992, when I first moved to the Twin Cities, there were two major alternative weekly newspapers around -- the Twin Cities Reader, and City Pages. The TCR gave up the ghost years ago, leaving the field to City Pages. Other weeklies have tried to compete and have gone -- the Rake, Metromix and a local version of the Onion, to name a few. Over the years CP has had some very good writers in its employ and has, from time to time, been a useful source for stories that the larger media in town don't want to discuss. Sure, it was reliably leftist and often relied on commercialized nookie for much of its ad revenue, but those are the rules of engagement for most alternative weeklies.

Now, we have word that a big change is on the horizon:

The Star Tribune agreed Wednesday to buy City Pages, a deal that creates an uncommon coupling of the biggest alternative weekly in the Twin Cities and Minnesota’s largest news organization.

In buying the publication from Voice Media Group, the Star Tribune Media Co. said it would stop publishing Vita.mn, a website and weekly tabloid that refashioned the Star Tribune’s entertainment coverage into formats that directly competed with City Pages for readers and advertisers.

It's hard to be an alternative when you're owned by the entity you're trying to be an alternative to. And the Strib acknowledges the point in its coverage of the sale:

City Pages continued to draw more advertising than Vita.mn, and its news pages are less formal in tone and quicker to throw an elbow, often enough at the Star Tribune.

While the Star Tribune swears it will keep the newsrooms separate and that editorial decisions will be independent, I wonder about that. My guess is that CP will eventually morph into a slightly edgier version of Vita.mn. There are a lot of voices in the Twin Cities media, but they tend to be singing out of the same hymnal. This sale only exacerbates that trend.