Will there be a Minnesota miracle?

Joel Kramer has unveiled -- sort of -- MinnPost.com, the Twin Cities web project he's been working on for months. Today's announcement tells us at least the major sources of funding (including former Cowles Media chiefs John Cowles and David Cox, and the Knight Foundation), and lists some stellar names among the journalists who will be writing for the site.

From the Star Tribune they include Doug Grow, Chris Ison, Delma Francis, Jay Weiner, Greg Patterson and Bob Whereatt. From the Pioneer Press they include John Camp, Dave Beal, Kay Harvey and Cynthia Boyd. And from the alt weekly world we have people like longtime media commentator David Brauer. And many others. It is a powerful team, including a couple of Pulitzer winners and authors (Camp is also known as John Sandford) .

Clearly there is talent and power in the mix. It is a damned shame that people of such caliber are not writing today for either of the daily newspapers in Minneapolis in St. Paul. I believe the plan is to serve up high-quality original reporting and commentary on the Web, sort of a local/regional Slate/Salon, updated daily.

What is not so clear is whether the business model will work. It will combine advertising/sponsorships, foundation support and "member donations," borrowing from the experience of VoiceOfSanDiego.org.

I'm reminded of the line in EPIC 2014 about the New York Times going offline and becoming a "print-only newsletter for the elite and the elderly." This Web effort (actually, there also will be a print newsletter) is undoubtedly targeted at the elite, a layer of the community that's unsettled and dissatisfied in the wake of changes and cutbacks at the Star Tribune. It is a layer that is primarily older. Will advertisers pay to reach that elite audience? Will that elite audience chip in to make this work?

This project doesn't have to "win" to succeed. It only has to stay out of the red.

Much analysis of changes in the mediascape is stuck in the old world in which consolidation progressively narrowed our choices, leading to winners and losers. Such analysis ignores the new reality of the Internet: layer upon layer of new choices and alternate voices. MinnPost will be a welcome part of that mix. It is unlikely to ever be a dominant part, but we may be heading for a world in which nothing is dominant.

(Note: Joel Kramer was publisher of the Star Tribune most of the time I worked there, and was a major backer of Star Tribune Online, which became startribune.com.)