The Racket is a writer-owned, reader-funded website founded in 2021 by a group of former ''
City Pages'' editors: Jessica Armbruster, Jay Boller, Em Cassel, and Keith Harris. Racket focuses on local news, politics, music, arts, culture, food and drink, and theater in the
Minneapolis–Saint Paul
Minneapolis–Saint Paul is a metropolitan area in the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States centered around the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi, Minnesota River, Minnesota, and St. Croix River (Wisconsin–Minnesota), ...
area.
The previous funding model used by Racket's predecessor ''City Pages'', as well as most
alt-weekly newspapers, depended largely on advertising, but Racket's founders felt that this model was outmoded. Instead, it is funded largely by reader subscriptions, a model inspired by the earlier success of
Defector Media
''Defector Media'' is a subscription-based sports and culture blog and media company founded in September 2020 and based in Manhattan.
The Defector blog is primarily written by former employees of the ''Deadspin'' sports blog. In October and No ...
.
Racket reported in 2024 that it had generated $322,000 in revenue over the previous year, including $242,000 from subscriptions.
In 2024, Racket won five Page One Awards, given annually for outstanding journalism by the
Minnesota Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. These included first-place wins for Best Interview (Keith Harris for “My Teen Niece Helps Explain the Taylor Swift Show I Saw on Saturday”) and A&E/Culture Criticism/Reviews (Harris for “I Saw 30 Concerts in 30 Days”).
Racket also won four Page One awards in 2003, including first place for Arts & Entertainment Reporting (Jay Boller for “How Music Streaming Impacts Minnesota Musicians“).
References
External links
Official website*
Alternative weekly newspapers published in the United States
Newspapers established in 2021
2021 establishments in Minnesota
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