Senator Mel Hansen complained that the newspaper treated him unfairly when it edited and deleted portions of his letter to the editor without discussing the changes with him before publication. The letter had been solicited by the paper as a means of satisfying a complaint Hansen had over a previous story.
On July 22, 1974 George E. Melink submitted to the Dakota County Tribune an “Open Letter to Representative Bradley G. Pieper.” This letter was written in a response to an “Open Letter to the People of District 53B” by Rep. Pieper which had appeared in the July 18th issue of the Tribune. In Rep. Pieper’s letter, Mr. Melink was accused of “smear, exaggeration, inaccurate statements, and insulting the intelligence of the voters.”
Elizabeth S. Guthrie of Orono complained that the paper’s aggressive reporting about a local kidnapping endangered the life of the victim when it assigned a reporter to follow the course of ransom-drop attempts. She claimed that the paper acted illegally when it monitored and reported on police-band radio broadcasts about the kidnapping because a federal statute prohibits such reporting without permission from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Hennepin County Commissioner E. F. Robb Jr. complained that an editorial unfairly misrepresented him when it reported what he “thinks” by quoting a resolution supported by him at a previous commissioners’ meeting.
State Representative Joseph Connors complained that the newspaper was unfair and misleading when it portrayed him as advocating the election of Roman Catholics to the city school board as the sole way to achieve constructive change.