Minnesota Rag: Corruption, Yellow Journalism, and the Case That Saved Freedom of the Press

Minnesota Rag takes the reader on an exhilarating tour of the seamy underside of a dark period in Minnesota’s past, one rife with crooked public officials, vengeful gangsters, and yellow journalists. Featuring notorious characters such as Jay M. Near, racist and antilabor publisher of Minneapolis’s Saturday Press, pioneering newsman Fred W. Friendly weaves the tale of a court case that molded our understanding of freedom of the press and set a precedent for the publication of the Pentagon Papers. Friendly moves us from the ore-dusted brothels of Duluth, Minnesota, to the gothic top of the Chicago Tribune Tower, to the cloistered conference room of the Supreme Court…. Rich and bizarre.