Pioneer Press or Star Tribune (St. Paul, Mendota Heights: bankruptcy, high school, live)

[Transplants]

Hi. We will be moving to Mendota Heights in two months and am getting ready to cancel/start subscriptions/services. Begs the question: which newspaper and why? I'll try them both, but curious how y'all rate things like

1. local news
2. national/international news
3. content/number of pages (daily/Sunday)
4. left/right leanings
5. sports coverage
6. price
7. customer service
8. miscellaneous (recent cuts? future? funnies?)

Thanks and cheers, have a great weekend!

[Cruz Azul Guy]

If you want to stick to the most relevant paper, go with the Pioneer Press. Mendota Heights is a suburb of St. Paul and the Pioneer Press is St. Paul's paper. It's also cheaper.

Overall I like the Star Tribune more but both papers are pretty similar.

[BeckyS]

Here's my opinion:

1. local news: about the same amount: Pioneer Press' focus is St. Paul; Star Tribune's is Mpls
2. national/international news: About the same - they both pick up AP wire stories.
3. content/number of pages (daily/Sunday): Again, about the same
4. left/right leanings: I feel the Pioneer Press leans right. Star Tribune is more centric
5. sports coverage: Pioneer Press has great prep sports coverage. I only look at prep sports so I don't know about national sports coverage.
6. price: Pioneer Press is cheaper by half
7. customer service: I subscribe to the Pioneer Press and have never had a billing or delivery issue. Have never needed to call them
8. miscellaneous (recent cuts? future? funnies?): Pioneer Press has hemorrhaged staff over the last few years and has changed ownership multiple times. Star Tribune just came out of bankruptcy. Mps-St. Paul is a very small market to have two large local papers. This is complete conjecture, I would expect that one will fold or they will merge within the next five years or so. It's a bit shocking that MN has been able to maintain two newspapers for as long as it has.

Two really trivial things:
The Star Tribune is much better about appropriate jump placement in their stories. They set their jumps so that if you don't want to finish a story, you don't need to. Pioneer Press will place jumps in the middle of a sentence.
The Star Tribune has a much better Web site. The Pioneer Press Web site, although its name is worth a million bucks (twincities.com), the site is slow to load, freezes often, and is loaded with intrusive adverts.

I like the Star Tribune better, but I subscribe to the Pioneer Press because it is the cheaper subscription and I can easily read "The Other Paper" online.

Also don't forget about the free online local news sources, TC Daily Planet, MinnPost, BringMeTheNews...there are a lot of them out there!

[golfgal]

I like the Trib better except for high school sports coverage. Customer service at the Trib is horrible and we no longer subscribe.

[Mark_22]

Both papers were much better as few as five years ago before they had to dump half of their employees just to stay afloat. Now the Monday paper is about as thick as an envelope. I get the Pioneer Press, but I figure six of one, half a dozen of the other.

[MN55]

I get the Pioneer Press, but basically because I'm a Saint Paul guy and that's what I;ve gotten my whole life.

[ColdRedRain]

You can't go wrong with a newspaper that costs a quarter.

[Radical_Car]

Both randomly solicit by phone

But Star Tribune is better

[ColdRedRain]

The Strib's centrist!? What the heck have you been reading!? The Strib is about as centrist as I am subdued and subtle. The Strib leans so far left, if it were a motorcycle rider, it would constantly be veering into oncoming traffic.

[kcitti]

Strib leans left center, I find the Pioneer Press to be much more right/center.

My vote- read both online instead of subscribing at all. Or, read online to figure out which you like better, then subscribe.

startribune dot com and twincities dot com (pioneer press)