Election? What Election?

Amazing.  In a phenomenon that I first noted on primary election day, the Minneapolis Star Tribune does not have a single item on the 2014 election in its print edition of Friday, September 5, 2014.

Not one news story, not an Op/Ed piece, not a column or a column-inch discussing the event that will occur in only 60 days.

Minnesota will elect a governor, a U.S. senator, and three other statewide officeholders that day.  Voters in the North Star State will also elect eight representatives to Congress on November 4.  Early voting, by absentee, begins exactly two weeks from today.

The 2014 election in Minnesota may determine control of the state house of representatives and, perhaps, the United States Senate.  Seats on city councils, county commissions, park boards, and many other governmental bodies will be decided that day.

Unfortunately, even a careful reader of today’s Star Tribune would not be aware of that.  Of course, there are other newspapers, and other media outlets in TV, radio, and the internet.  But the Star Tribune styles itself as the state’s “newspaper of record,” with many other outlets taking the paper’s lead on what deserves coverage, and what does not.

The lack of news coverage of the election this cycle has been striking, given how competitive the races appear to be and how close we are to the event.  A lack of opportunities for what they call in the business “earned media” benefits incumbents, who enjoy greater name recognition.

In 2014, the incumbents just happen to be all Democrats.

Perhaps tomorrow’s edition will resume coverage of the election, putting the half-dozen or so Star Tribune staff reporters on the political beat back to work.  We’ll see.