Strib editorial page editor out: In a letter to staff, interim Star Tribune publisher Chris Harte on Wednesday announced that Susan Albright, editorial page editor for nearly 15 years, will be stepping down following a difference of opinion about the vision of the page. Managing editor Scott Gillespie will temporarily fill her postion, and Harte has given him a “mandate” — to make the editorial page “complement” the local news strategy embodied by the locally zoned metro pages. While readers can get opinions on global warming or Iraq anywhere, he writes, the Strib “can stake a claim like no other media can.” Uh, ok…

This can’t help the paper’s woes: The ad battle between Norm Coleman and Al Franken — Coleman took out an ad chiding Franken for not condemning MoveOn’s Petraeus ad; Franken replied, with a similarly designed ad showing Coleman arm-in-arm with Bush — took an ironic turn. Franken’s campaign had to pay more for an ad the same sized as Coleman’s. $12 grand more. So the paper is refunding the Franken campaign and eating the loss.

KARE nabs Emmy: Congrats to KARE-11’s Boyd Huppert and John Drilling who beat out competitors CBS Sunday Morning and ABC World News Tonight to win a national Emmy Award for their story on Kaziah Hancock, a Utah artist who paints portraits of soldiers killed in action.

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