MPR’s Major (But Unsurprising) Failure

Following Tuesday’s primary election results in the North Star State, Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) News declared that:

Minnesota made history on primary night. For the first time, all of the candidates for the top political offices in Minnesota are women. U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Republican House Speaker Lisa Demuth will face each other for governor this fall, and Michele Tafoya and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan are vying for U.S. Senate.

This is simply not a fact-backed statement of truth.

For contrary to what MPR News declared, not all the candidates for Minnesota’s top offices are female. The Green Party’s candidate for Governor, Steve Young, is male. Young’s running mate, however, is female – Lieutenant Governor candidate Jane Kirby. (You can read about their campaign here.)

MPR’s erroneous reporting confirms the recent observations of Kristina Gronquist, a former Green Party-endorsed candidate for Minneapolis City Council. In a letter-to-the-editor of the Star Tribue, Gronquist notes the following.

Truth be told, there exists numerous feisty, principled candidates who are anti-fascist, unapologetically working class and who do not have monsters in their backgrounds. But you won’t find us in either of the two [corporate-backed “major”] parties. We are in third political parties, like the Green Party. Our platforms promote universal health care, peace through diplomacy, the environment, women’s rights and economic democracy. All our positions challenge the oligarchy and unfettered capitalism. Problem is, our voices are drowned out by the back-and-forth scandals of the two parties and a media that only reports on Democrats and Republicans, as if nothing else and no one else matters.

“[A] media that only reports on Democrats and Republicans, as if nothing else and no one else matters.” There it is, folks. And MPR’s recent failure is clear evidence of this denouncement; a failure that makes a mockery of the network’s own ethics guidelines which insist that “We are here to inform the public by considering multiple perspectives, but ultimately presenting fact-based truths.”

If you’re as concerned and disappointed by this failure on the part of MPR News as I am, then I invite you to join me in letting the network know this by clicking here and sharing your thoughts.

Above: Steve Young and Jane Kirby, Green Party candidates for Governor and Lieutenant Governor – June 2026. (Photo: Michael J. Bayly)

See also the related Wild Reed posts:
• Campaigning With the Green Party
• With the Green Party at Twin Cities Pride
• Butch Ware on Why Third Parties Are Crucial
• Meet Some of the “People-Powered” Green Party Candidates for 2026
• “Green Wave 2026 is Global”
• “It Is Our Responsibility to Make a Third Party Viable”
• Something to Think About – December 8, 2024
• “We Give Reasons for People to Come Out and Vote”
• Elise Labott on How Third Parties Can Revitalize Democracy
• Third Parties and the Historical Record
• Something to Think About – August 15, 2024
• Howie Hawkins: “The Democrats Are Not the Answer to the Trump/Fascism Problem”
• Demolishing the False Narrative About Jill Stein and the 2016 Election
• Cornel West: “The Next Step Is a Green Step, a Progressive Step”
• Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein: Is a “Historic Collaboration” in the Making? (2016)