Inside The Star Tribune’s coverage of the Minneapolis immigration raids
Publisher and CEO Steve Grove shares how the paper balanced aggressive reporting with care for journalists covering a deeply personal story
One of the biggest news stories of 2026 has been the immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis, and the protests that have gone along with those operations. Some 4,000 federal agents descended on the Twin Cities back in January, sparking a story that gathered massive national attention.
The story tragically gained even more attention on Jan. 7 when Renee Good, a poet and mother of three, was shot and killed by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent. Two weeks later, an ICU nurse named Alex Pretti was shot and killed by a Border Patrol agent.
As I said, this was a huge national story.
But it was also a really big local story for the people of Minnesota and the Twin Cities and, in particular, Minneapolis.
Related Knowledge Center: Inside the newsroom
As newsrooms struggle with rickety business models and precarious finances — as well as new technologies — they are deploying an array of editorial responses.
The Times and its critics | Washington Post mortem
Related Knowledge Center: Local media
The hollowing out of the local news ecosystem has been well documented; in some communities, efforts are underway to reverse the growing news desert.