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As Al Franken rests his case today in the U.S. Senate trial over the still-undecided race, there’s much to discuss — from former Sen. Norm Coleman’s chances of winning hanging on fewer than 1,360 absentee ballots that might’ve been improperly rejected to news that Coleman’s donor database was revealed yesterday by Wikileaks.org. Minnesota Independent reporter [...]

Could a Minneapolis-based news site be the first ever to pick up a Pulitzer Prize? It may be a stretch, but in a post at Editor & Publisher today, Joe Strupp handicapped the prizes, positing that an online entrant is “likely to at least garner a finalist spot.” In the first year web-only news operations [...]

The Washington, D.C.–based Center for Public Integrity salutes MnIndy’s parent nonprofit, the Center for Independent Media, and the Minneapolis-based citizen videoblogging outlet The UpTake in its “Top 10 Website of 2008″ list today. Citing media “from projects to blogs to websites that help keep our country transparent,” the investigative journalism organization named the entire six-site CIM network, but specifically applauded our sister site in Michigan.

Naturally, Shepard Fairey, who created the ubiquitous poster of Barack Obama that eventually made the cover of TIME (in revised form), was dubbed artist of the year by one writer at City Pages. But when Paul Schmelzer, Minnesota Independent editor, was asked to make his pick for the Minneapolis altweekly, he went for a less obvious choice: Trevor Paglen. An experimental geographer based at the University of California – Berkeley, Paglen has long tried to peer into the murk of the U.S. government’s “black” world, which makes up around $30 billion of the annual budget.

Newswise, it was an eventful 2008, thanks to the Republican National Convention, the historic election of Barack Obama, Sarah “In what respect, Charlie?” Palin, John McCain, Michele “anti-American” Bachmann, P.Z. Myers (and the communion “cracker” incident) and, now, the ongoing recount of ballots in Minnesota’s U.S. Senate race between Norm Coleman and Al Franken. MnIndy had a record year: We more than doubled 2007’s readership, welcoming nearly two million unique visitors, and saw nearly 6,000 comments. Here are two gauges of the stories you liked best — top 10s of the most-read and most-discussed stories.

Minnesota Independent reporter Chris Steller discussed two of his recent stories on two radio programs yesterday. On Air America’s “Doing Time with Ron Kuby,” he discussed what he calls the “funnel of love” — schemes to fund elected officials via their wives’ jobs. He cited the Rod Blagojevich scandal as well as similar alleged plans involving Sen. Norm Coleman and Tom DeLay. On WORT, Madison, Wisconsin’s community radio station, he offered an on-the-ground perspective on the final days of the Minnesota Senate recount.

Listen to the WORT segment here and download the Ron Kuby show here.

In tonight’s inaugural episode of “Declaring Independence,” a Michigan radio show hosted by Michigan Messenger reporter Ed Brayton (pictured at left), MnIndy’s Paul Demko will discuss the latest developments in Minnesota’s statewide recount — and the historic Senate race between Al Franken and Norm Coleman. The show streams live only every Thursday from 6-7 pm CST on Grand Rapids’ Public Reality Radio, and will be available as a podcast following each edition. Listen here.

This morning, Minnesota Independent political reporter Paul Demko appeared via Skype on Amy Goodman’s radio and TV show Democracy Now to discuss the recount in Minnesota’s U.S. Senate race.The independent news site is closely watching the battle between Al Franken and Norm Coleman as one of three still-up-in-the-air races that, if won, could garner the Democratic party a filibuster-proof, 60-seat “super-majority” in the Senate.

Watch or listen to it. (Fastforward to 38:35)

Paul Schmelzer, managing editor of the Minnesota Independent, is the guest speaker at October’s Twin Cities Media Alliance Brown Bag Lunch to be held Wednesday, Oct. 22, at the East Lake Library in Minneapolis. Winner of the prestigious Frank Premack and SPJ Page One awards for journalistic excellence, he’ll discuss online journalism, including the site’s [...]

Reporter Jeff Severns Guntzel consistently found himself in the middle of some of last week’s sketchiest skirmishes between police and protesters at last week’s Republican National Convention. And the media has taken notice: Last week, he shared his reporting on Los Angeles’ KCRW, and yesterday Salon.com’s Glenn Greenwald welcomed him on his podcast to discuss the tactics and weaponry law enforcement used in St. Paul.