In a deal that has been percolating and negotiating for months, Dolan Media, publishers of Finance & Commerce, Saint Paul Legal Ledger, and Minnesota Lawyer, among several of its publications around the country, is buying up the long-established Politics in Minnesota (PIM) newsletter and has already begun the process of bringing an eight-person staff to bear on reporting at the state capitol. (The Star Tribune and Pioneer Press combined field seven.)

PIM owner and publisher Sarah Janecek, besides collecting an—undisclosed—fee for the sale, is staying on as Dolan's director of political content. Dolan currently operates a publication similar to PIM in Arizona, and Janecek says that once this changeover and expansion is completed and the bugs worked out, "we hope to expand to other states."

Now, full disclosure, I don't know how one story could involve so many conflicts, but yes, Janecek and I once did a radio show together; we have recently appeared on FOX 9 as pundits together; my oldest kid, a.k.a. The Weasel, is currently working for PIM; and, finally, she did once loan me a kennel when our dog had knee surgery. So . . . consider all that before going any further.

Dolan's move here is significant if for no other reason than it is not halfhearted. By all indications, Dolan and Janecek appear well financed to play. Once constructed, possibly before the end of the current legislative session, Dolan's office space in the media warren at the capitol will include not just eight work stations (with flat panel TVs, to impress the rubes) but also a broadcast/video studio. With both local newspapers aggressively . . . pretending . . . to do more with no more and often much less, Dolan is positioned to be significant competition immediately, depending on how it staffs the operation.

Janecek says Dolan's coverage of Minnesota politics will be year-round, meaning during the session and wherever the action takes them the rest of the year.

Is this all straight news? Or will we also see commentary and analysis?

"Everything," she says. "There are so many political stories not getting covered in the major media. We see all sorts of opportunities to add to coverage."

She wouldn't say who or what type of staff she might be adding, other than that she'll be looking for people, "who can do aggressive reporting and write creatively and with attitude." It goes without saying that there are literally dozens of out-of-work/grossly underpaid ex-newspaper writers kicking around town for Dolan to choose from.

Down the hall from where Janecek and Dolan will be setting up shop, WCCO-TV's Pat Kessler (yes, I know him, and he knows her, and she knows me) says, "the more the merrier" while completely agreeing with her view about excess untapped story material. "On any given day," Kessler says, "there are a hundred stories around here that should be reported beyond the one or two we can get on the news.

"In the best of all worlds," he goes on, "we'd all have huge staffs, cover every story there is, and cover them all well. But in reality, deadline pressures and other issues prevent that from happening."

And that business about "aggressive reporting" and "writing with attitude?"

"Yeah," Kessler says. "We all say that. But she's right in that, to use a cliché, the paradigm is shifting. Viewers, listeners, and readers want so much more from us, it just isn't enough to sit in a committee hearing all day and interview a politician. We've been doing vertically delivered news since forever, but now our viewers are coming at us horizontally, with bloggers and people like that interacting with us directly. We have to figure this out. We're going at it pretty hard at our place."

The rise of well-financed competition, such as Dolan, is very much a good thing to Kessler's thinking, in that it pushes WCCO faster down the path it is already plotting, with analysis and attitude and point-of-view reporting. "CNN meets ESPN," he says.

Janecek, who has owned PIM outright since 2005, has been a registered lobbyist for eighteen years. "And for the last fifteen, I've been trying to find a way out of it," she jokes. She says she has now "completely unregistered as a lobbyist."