Katherine Kersten

This is some extremely shoddy journalism from Mickey Kaus. The Slate blogger asks if “ACORN chicanery” elected Sen. Al Franken, who won a razor-thin 2008 race for the U.S. Senate after eight months of legal challenges. Kaus links a “tactfully phrased Minneapolis Star Tribune story” to argue that fraudulent votes might have stolen the election [...]

After a several-month hiatus, Katherine Kersten’s lightning rod-conservatism is back at the Star Tribune, and her edgy, faith-tinged opinion hasn’t failed to disappoint those looking for controversy.
Her Sunday-only column this week took aim at atheism and what she perceives as its detrimental impact on society. She argues that without faith in God, people have no [...]

The American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota filed suit Wednesday against Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy and the Minnesota Department of Education alleging a violation of the separation between church and state. TIZA was at the center of a media storm last year after the Star Tribune’s Katherine Kersten wrote an inflammatory commentary alleging religious instruction at the taxpayer-funded school. ACLU-MN investigated the allegations and in court documents filed in U.S. District Court said the Muslim organizations from which TIZA leases its space are illegally benefiting from the leasing arrangement.

With the Star Tribune possibly within two weeks of filing bankruptcy (according to newsroom Guild sources), we’re seeing yet another wave of big-name departures at the Strib: columnist Katherine Kersten, online managing editor Will Tacy and web designer Jaime Chismar, among others. But curiously, if you’re on the microblogging service Twitter, you might get the [...]

This morning, conservative Star Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten started saying her goodbyes, informing readers of her blog that her “Think Again” blog and print column are being discontinued. (Apparently she isn’t interested in staying on as a reporter.) “I’ve been informed that my services as a columnist are no longer needed at the Star Tribune,” [...]

MinnPost’s David Brauer, who has documented the financial woes at the Star Tribune better than anyone, writes that a memo went out at the paper today revealing that the paper’s conservative and liberal columnists, Katherine Kersten and Nick Coleman, may be losing their columns. Both can keep jobs at the paper as reporters. Brauer writes, [...]

A round-up of media, new and old: YouTube partners with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting to give a $10,000 reporting prize, while the Star Tribune’s Teamsters again vote down contract concessions. Also: Outrage over a newspaper liveblogging a funeral and key context as the Strib’s Katherine Kersten again targets a Muslim school.

A guide to help teachers and school administrators combat bullying is taking a hit by social conservatives who claim it’s merely a Trojan horse meant to indoctrinate students on “homosexual behavior.” But students, parents and school officials see the Welcoming Schools guide as a useful tool to combat growing anti-gay bullying in Minneapolis schools.
The concern [...]

Drama ensued Monday morning as Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy officials attempted to take cameras away from a reporting crew from KSTP that showed up to cover a report from the Minnesota Department of Education on the charter school. The report was commissioned to determine whether the school had run afoul of church and state concerns [...]

The Minnesota Department of Education released findings in the review of Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA), the majority Muslim elementary school that became a target of conservative Star Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten. She claimed that TIZA was “an Islamic school, funded by Minnesota taxpayers” and that its activities violated separation of church and state concerns.

MDE [...]