Minnesota Reformer

What you're reading

Minnesota Reformer is a nonprofit digital newsroom based in St. Paul, founded in 2019 as part of States Newsroom's national network of state-capital outlets. It covers Minnesota state government — the Legislature, Governor Walz's office, the courts, the state's agencies and commissions — and the policy fights downstream including paid family leave, recreational cannabis implementation, public-school funding under the DFL trifecta, voting access, criminal-justice reform, immigration, environmental and mining policy on the Iron Range, and tribal affairs.

The publication is digital-only and free at the point of read. It runs under a Creative Commons license that lets the Star Tribune, the Pioneer Press, MPR, and weeklies across the state republish its work. The staff is small — about a dozen reporters and editors — with bylines drawn from prior stints at the Star Tribune, the Pioneer Press, Minnesota Public Radio, and MinnPost. The audience skews civic — legislators and staff, lobbyists, advocacy groups, county officials, and engaged voters tracking the Capitol without a paywall.

Ownership & funding

States Newsroom (nonprofit). Funded primarily through nonprofit.

Nonprofit funding via States Newsroom removes the ad and subscription pressure that shape commercial Minnesota coverage. There is no paywall to drive and no need to chase national virality. The trade-off is dependence on national philanthropic donors underwriting the States Newsroom umbrella plus Minnesota-based givers, which concentrates funder influence and aligns coverage with the priorities those funders care about — voting access, environmental policy, criminal-justice reform, tribal sovereignty, healthcare access, public-education funding. It is not advertiser pressure, but it is a real gravitational pull on story selection that nwsly readers should weigh.

Where they land on the spectrum

nwsly's editorial team places Minnesota Reformer at Lean Left with a factuality rating of High.

The Lean Left rating reflects the States Newsroom house pattern as it lands in Minnesota — a state with a DFL trifecta during the Walz administration and a long-standing labor-and-farmer political base. Story selection prioritizes coverage the progressive press cares about: the DFL's major-session legislation (paid leave, cannabis legalization, the ERA), implementation challenges, Walz-administration agency moves, environmental fights over mining and pipelines, voting access, police-accountability work post-George Floyd, and Tim Walz's national profile after the VP run. Sourcing leans on advocacy groups, public-interest law firms, tribal-government voices, and DFL progressive legislators.

Where Minnesota Reformer breaks the pattern is its accountability coverage of DFL incumbents and Democratic-allied institutions. The newsroom has filed adverse stories on the Walz administration's handling of the Feeding Our Future fraud scandal, on Minneapolis city government and MPD failures, on DFL legislative-leadership decisions, and on progressive nonprofits where the documents warranted it. The Reformer's reporting on Feeding Our Future has been particularly notable for going hard at a state Democratic agency. Statehouse-process reporting on the budget, redistricting, and agency rulemaking is procedurally straight and quotes Republican legislators on the record. The High factuality rating tracks the newsroom's discipline — corrections are flagged, named attribution is the norm, court filings and bill text are linked, and the publication does not run anonymous-source political scoops without independent confirmation.

Editorial vs news side

Minnesota Reformer does not run a traditional editorial board or unsigned editorials. It publishes a clearly labeled commentary section with bylined columnists and outside contributors — most progressive, some center-left — that sits separately from the reporting feed. Straight news stories carry no editorial voice and quote across party lines on procedural matters. The Lean Left rating applies to the reporting side because of story selection and source mix, not because opinion bleeds into news copy. nwsly cites the reporting, not the commentary, and the split is clearly labeled on the site.

Why we include them in nwsly

St. Paul nonprofit covering Minnesota state government.

Minnesota's statehouse press corps has thinned considerably — the Star Tribune still files but with a reduced Capitol bureau, and the Pioneer Press is thinner still. The Reformer files daily on Capitol moves the larger papers often pick up days later. nwsly pulls it for Minnesota state briefs because it surfaces bill movement, agency actions, and court rulings first, and the Feeding Our Future investigations have demonstrated the willingness to file adversely on DFL-aligned subjects. The CC-licensed model means we credit the original reporter rather than the downstream republisher.

Recent nwsly briefs citing Minnesota Reformer

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