In December last year, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement – ICE – began its Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis. By the time Renée Good was killed by ICE agents on January 7, the whole world was following the story. It was being covered by everyone from the BBC to local people witnessing and documenting events on the ground and sharing through social media. But the most significant reporting on the ICE raids and their impact on Minnesota communities has been done by local newsrooms. Speaking at the Innovate Local webinar,  Minnesota Star Tribune CEO & Publisher Steve Grove emphasised how vitally important strong local journalism is, not just in the everyday life of local communities, but particularly in a situation like the past months in Minnesota:

“We realized very quickly that the conflict and what took place in the streets of our Twin Cities [Minneapolis and Saint Paul] and across the whole state was probably the most documented crisis in American history up to this point. I’m sad to say that in many communities across the country today, if something like this happened, the coverage would have been largely dominated by blogs or Facebook groups. We are lucky in Minnesota to have a strong local news network. The Strib [Minnesota Star Tribune], yes, but I should also say, the Sahan Journal, Minnesota Public Radio, the Minnesota Reformer, and a whole host of other publications, too, really leaned in to cover this moment. All of our reporters live in the communities they report on, and they care about those communities. They know their leaders, they know their neighbors, they know the intersections, the streets, the neighborhoods. So the reporting they're able to do is just so much stronger than if we simply rely on national news organizations to kind of swoop in and cover a crisis.”

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Reporters and community members together. While the ICE operation was still ongoing, the story on the ground in Minneapolis was fast-moving, potentially dangerous and often quite chaotic. The Strib had 50 reporters dedicated to covering it, but also relied a lot on locals documenting events on the ground. “Their contribution was powerful and I think helped us understand what's happening in our community far better than if we had our reporters who were dedicated to the story trying to do it all by themselves. So, we spent a lot of time focused on how to verify videos that came in from bystanders around the Twin Cities and around the state. And of course, we spent a lot of time out in the streets ourselves, with our photographers in particular, trying to capture what was taking place.”