A few other highlights of 2012: Almost 900 people attended MinnRoast 2012 at 2012: A Year of Stability and Growth the Pantages Theatre. Gov. Mark Dayton, Sen. Al Franken, gubernatorial candidates Tom Emmer and MinnPost celebrated its fifth birthday this year with a Tom Horner, St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman, MPR redesigned site, another small surplus, and continued leaders Jon McTaggart and Dave Kansas appeared growth in readers and donors. on stage along with MinnPost journalists and other media personalities. The site had about 12.5 million page views in 2012, up 13%. Pages viewed by Minnesotans rose 12.6%, to 8.5 A Fifth Anniversary Celebration on November 12 million. That’s 130% higher than in our first full year at Solera attracted 35 sponsors and 300 attendees. of publishing, 2008. MinnPost Milestones 2007-2012 compiled for the anniversary are at the end of the report. Visits to the site by Minnesotans rose 2.3% to about The four-year growth capital campaign to Take 3.8 million. The average Minnesota visitor looked at MinnPost to the Next Level passed $630,000 in 2.25 pages per visit, up 10%, thanks in part to easier total pledges. navigation made possible by site redesign in February. We established a new Earth Journal Circle to Site traffic on the three days surrounding Election Day support expanded coverage of the environment, 2012 was triple what it was for the same days in 2008. energy and related issues with three-year funding Other areas of rapid growth include mobile traffic and by a small group of committed donors. Founders social media engagement. More than 20,000 follow us are listed on page 4. We hope to establish one or on Twitter (up 40%) and 7,000 like us on Facebook (up two more groupfunded beats starting in 2013. 24%). We have more than 26,000 followers on Tumblr. Our staff and board recently conducted a strategic In year 5, we significantly expanded our journalistic review, and we decided that our strategy going forward ambitions. Eric Black’s series on the Constitution, is to focus primarily on deepening relationships with “Imperfect Union: The Constitutional Roots of the the more than 60,000 people who read MinnPost at Mess We’re In,” and the Sharon Schmickle/Steve Date least twice a month, and secondarily on continuing to series on “Casinos on Indian Reservations: The New add additional readers who care about Minnesota. Buffalo?” were groundbreaking examples of To strengthen relationships, we will expand MinnPost’s approach. Our newsroom received six opportunities for readers to contribute content to the Page One Awards for excellence in journalism from site and engage with interactive data, and we aim to the Society of Professional Journalists. A report on make it easier for visitors to find additional content. journalism highlights of the year starts on page 2. We will also experiment with ways to attract new Responding to that coverage, our base of individual readers. An expanded Google grant will give us up to donors continues to expand. More than 560 people $40,000 a month in free advertising on Google Search, donated for the first time in 2012, and we had a total of up from $10,000 a month last year, which we’ll use to 2,063 donors for the year, up more than 8% over 2011. attract visitors searching for specific content. Perhaps most important for our long-term viability, two-thirds of those donors were sustaining members – Heartfelt thanks to our hard-working editors, which means they give automatically every month or technology and business staff, journalists, advertisers, year, or they have donated for three or more years in a sponsors, Board of Directors, Advisory Council, row. Sustainers have an S after their names on the MinnRoast and Fifth Anniversary sponsors, comment donor list. For more about sustaining membership go moderators and other volunteers. And extra thanks to to www.minnpost.com/support. all our donors, from Copy Boys and Girls to Media Moguls. Your names are listed starting on page 10. For the third straight year, MinnPost posted a modest surplus, this time $19,228 on spending of $1,492,008. If you haven’t yet become a donor, please consider this Overall revenue was $1,511,236, with gains in a personal invitation to join the MinnPost family. Your donations and events offsetting a decline in advertising support makes courageous, independent journalism for revenue. Foundation grants remained stable at about people who care about Minnesota an ongoing reality. 20% of revenues. Our financial report is on page 4. Joel Kramer Laurie Kramer Editor and CEO Chief Revenue Officer Journalism Highlights of 2012 And Eric took on the issue of gridlock, producing a provocative series of articles about obstacles the U.S. State and national elections dominated the news of Constitution presents in dealing with the problem. The 2012, and MinnPost journalists provided readers with series, which also was published on Huffington Post, lively analysis and insights on those events. resulted in a flood of thoughtful reader comments about the big flaws in our constitutional system. In Minnesota, we paid close attention to a watershed political year that included the fight for control of the One of our most ambitious efforts of 2012 was a five- Legislature and vigorous campaigns by both day series of reports – articles, videos, photographs and proponents and opponents of two controversial graphics – by Sharon Schmickle and Steve Date on constitutional amendments – one banning gay marriage gambling on Minnesota’s Indian reservations. It’s been and the other dealing with voting procedures. almost 25 years since casino-style gambling came to Minnesota’s reservations, and Sharon and Steve set out On the legislative front, we teamed reporters Cyndy to determine how gambling profits changed the lives of Brucato, Doug Grow and James Nord on a special tribal members. For months, they toured the state, interactive “Battle for Control” project that identified visited reservations, talked to tribal leaders and others, and spotlighted 28 key “swing races.” Our reporting and saw for themselves the consequences – intended indicated that the DFL was poised to regain control of and unintended – of casinos on reservations. They both chambers, which they lost in 2010. Our results produced a substantive and honest account that drew showed the DFL winning 9 of the 12 Senate races and praise and thanks from readers. 14 of the 16 House swing races to take back control. Several grants enabled MinnPost to focus on specific We also provided comprehensive coverage of the two issues in 2012. amendments, with Beth Hawkins detailing behind-the- scenes strategy that led to a national first as Minnesota Sharon Schmickle and Gregg Aamot profiled became the only state to reject a gay marriage ban. Minnesotans who’ve demonstrated leadership Meanwhile, James followed the contentious debate skills in the ongoing series “Driving Change: over the voting amendment, which also went down to A Lens on Leadership,” funded by the Bush defeat. Foundation. Washington correspondent Devin Henry concentrated Iric Nathanson, John Fitzgerald and Peter Schilling on Minnesota’s congressional races, closely following produced historical articles for our Minnesota developments in the state’s most competitive race – the History project in collaboration with the Minnesota 8th District – and chronicling the defeat of incumbent Historical Society. The MHS partnership also Chip Cravaack. Another GOP incumbent, Michele includes an ongoing weekly publication of Bachmann, was nearly beaten, and Devin and Eric MNopedia.org entries, curated by web producer Black tracked and analyzed the sometimes strange Tom Nehil. developments in that race. John Fitzgerald’s weekly “News from Greater The past year included an important presidential Minnesota” column is part of our commitment to election, of course, and Eric was assigned to analyze coverage of rural Minnesota funded by the Blandin that contest. As Election Day drew near, Eric blogged Foundation. almost every day on the race, offering readers context and analysis on what the candidates were saying and This past year, MinnPost's interactive team completed debating on the campaign trail. Eric’s presidential approximately 30 stand-alone projects, in addition to a debate analyses were among our most popular articles. number of graphics and sortable charts to supplement articles. We documented our process in a handful of It was a year of government gridlock in Washington, as how-to articles, releasing our code and projects into the the White House and Congress fought over the budget, open source community. taxes and almost everything in between. Devin covered the debate over the debt ceiling and fiscal cliff, Interactive highlights of 2012 included the Live focusing on Minnesota’s congressional delegation. Election Results Dashboard (one of our most 2 successful projects to date), an animated map of Nice Karen Boros and Joe Kimball beefed up coverage legislative election explorer, and a game that allowed of Minneapolis and St. Paul City Halls with Journalism Highlights, continued frequent reports in their Two Cities blog. readers to try their hand at passing the Minnesota MinnPost continued to partner with the University GRAD math test. Our highest traffic project – the live of Minnesota’s School of Journalism and Mass election coverage – received 71,000 page views with Communication, working with Chris Ison’s an average time on page of 6:52. Overall, in 2012, time advanced reporting class by publishing the on page for interactive projects was 20 percent higher students’ stories and offering internships for some than the site average. promising future journalists. Other highlights in 2012 include: Ron Meador’s Earth Journal covering the environment, energy and related issues expanded We added a talented and engaging writer – from once weekly to twice as a result of an Marlys Harris – to MinnPost’s crew of regular beat innovative groupfunding initiative.