Nancy Barnes: New bylines in your paper

In the last few weeks, we've added three staffers to our business department, to fill positions created by departing reporters and to add some journalistic muscle to one of the most important sections in the paper. To fill these positions, we literally looked at applicants from all over the country, then invested in relocating those we hired to the Twin Cities.

You've seen some of their work already. Mike Hughlett, a veteran business reporter, is now covering the food and agriculture industry, and his byline has appeared frequently since he landed here last month. Hughlett was hired from the Chicago Tribune and previously had been a reporter at the Pioneer Press. Wendy Lee, formerly a business reporter at the Tennessean, has joined us to cover emerging technology companies, and Thom Kupper, a longtime business editor at the San Diego Union Tribune, arrived this week after driving four days cross-country (by way of Mount Rushmore) to be a senior editor in the business department.

Since fall, we have also hired two reporters for our political team and a veteran reporter to dig out in-depth stories, and we are interviewing for a data reporter for our investigative team.

These are just some of the investments we have made, and continue to make, to provide readers with strong, thoughtful and engaging content. Just last week, I heard someone in the community proclaim that newspapers were leaving beat after beat unfilled, failing to fulfill their core mission. That may be true at some newspapers in the country, but it's simply not the case at the Star Tribune. That perception may be born of a misunderstanding of what was happening at this company in the midst of a terrible recession that forced significant cutbacks, as it did at businesses around the country.

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