“I think it’s more important than ever to hear from media executives, from publishers, from people responsible for this very essential function of the press,” Clegg said. “Why did Steve Grove want to come in and lead the next generation of the Star Tribune?”
Grove is a native of Northfield and worked as a journalist for his hometown newspaper before stints with the Boston Globe and ABC News. But the graduate of Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, Calif., may be best known as the founding director of the Google News Lab and YouTube’s first news and politics director. Grove, who earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and economics and later a master’s degree in public policy analysis from Harvard, also led Google’s civic engagement work, which included the company’s nonpartisan voter information and get-out-the-vote efforts.
In 2018, Grove and his wife, Mary, relocated to Minnesota and a year later he went to work in the Walz administration. Grove became a familiar name and face to many Minnesotans as he was a consistent presence on radio, TV and in newspaper accounts during the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact it had on citizens and businesses, including many that were forced to temporarily close. At the same time, Grove was tasked with distributing billions of dollars in aid, making over unemployment insurance and redeveloping neighborhoods.
In the last week, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times have come under scrutiny after their publishers abruptly canceled presidential endorsements written by their opinion section.
The Minnesota Star Tribune announced in August that it would not endorse political candidates this year, instead choosing to “evaluate the key issues relevant to the most important contests, and offer readers a studied perspective on how they might view them at the ballot box,” according to opinion editor Phil Morris.
Clegg said a memoir is a unique approach for a publisher and could serve as a corrective measure to the “opaque statements” publishers often issue around their decision making.
