The Star Tribune recently reported the launch of an independent reporting project: Iron Range Today.
It’s the brainchild of former newspaper reporters Leah Ryan and Jerry Burnes.
Iron Range Today launched last week and Jerry joined us on the Morning Show. We learned about why it was created and their first in-depth report on the mining industry, specifically how the community is rallying to save Hibbing Taconite.
CHISHOLM — The closure of Hibbing Taconite hadn’t arrived in downtown Chisholm, a city of about 4,700 people, as union organizers set out hundreds of signs and gathered on the sidewalk in front of their hall.
Closing the taconite mine, a decades-long employer of about 750
workers with an outsize impact on the local economy, has loomed for years over the United Steelworkers Local 2705 and Cleveland-Cliffs, the majority owner of the mine. It harkens back to darker times on the Iron Range, where outside economic pressures would shudder mines for months at a time, and in some
cases permanently, squeezing the pockets of community members that benefited from high-salary workers spending their money close to home.
The impact of losing Hibbing Taconite could be extensive.
Read the full article here.
