Jim Boyd, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune's deputy editorial director, is taking a buyout and leaving the paper after 27 years. But he's going out with quite a bang:

Avista Capital Partners, the Star Tribune's new owner, seems driven by financial goals and not ideology, so [Boyd] expects a minimum of meddling -- unlike with the paper's previous owner. McClatchy didn't approve of the Star Tribune's outspoken editorials, [Boyd] said, mainly because they "hated any kind of nail sticking up" and felt the editorials were harming the company financially. So they instituted what editorial page staffers jokingly call the "codpiece" — the "conservative of the day."

"They ordained that we would have a conservative of the day. I’ve got to tell you, you run out of good ones real quick," he said. "You’ve got Steve Chapman, whom I really like, who’s a libertarian and a good guy. So you didn’t mind running him, but you kind of held your nose when you ran Mona Charon or Debra Saunders. I mean, good grief. Jonah Goldberg? Finally, we were able to get rid of that bugger. That’s my point: Avista is much less of a micromanaging outfit than McClatchy was."

If Boyd has to hold his nose to read excellent, well-known columnists like Mona Charon, Debra Saunders, and Jonah Goldberg, then it explains why the Strib has been tanking for the last several years. The dearth of challenges to the house positions -- really, Boyd's positions -- made it clear that the Strib under his direction would never allow dissent to creep into the opinion pages. McClatchy forced him to add other voices for a semblance of balance, in essence telling Boyd to grow a pair. The fact that he calls these fine columnists "codpieces" only highlights what a horse's rectum he is.

Boyd essentially proves once again that he has no real courage. In a tussle with my friends at Power Line, in which he used his position at the Strib to falsely call them liars, he was forced Boyd to allow Scott Johnson and John Hinderaker an opportunity to rebut him on the Strib's opinion page. When he made essentially the same allegations in response, we repeatedly invited Boyd to appear on the Northern Alliance Radio show to debate the issue with either Scott or John on the air. We also extended him an invitation to appear with us live at the Minnesota State Fair to debate any of us. Not only did he not accept the challenge, he never had the guts to respond to us.

Later in the interview, Boyd talks about how he wants to see the Strib turned into a community-owned non-profit. Some would say that Boyd accounts for the current de facto non-profit status of the Strib, and his departure may actually improve the paper's performance. Had he really wanted to make the paper decline in value to the point where it could become community owned, Boyd should have remained on board to chase out the remaining subscribers of the worst major metropolitan newspaper in America.

More news of fresh disaster here and here.