Bill Salisbury, who in almost 50 years as a political reporter with the Pioneer Press covered 40 sessions of the Minnesota Legislature, eight governors as well as presidential visits and state and national political conventions and campaigns, died Monday at Lyngblomsten Care Center in St. Paul after a period of declining health. He was 80.
A self-described “newspaperman,” Salisbury noted that during his career “assignments took me to Bosnia, the White House, conventions in New York, San Francisco and other major U.S. cities, a presidential limousine ride with Bill Clinton, factories and farms, prisons and jails, parks and sewers. I got to ask tough questions of high-ranking politicians and tell extraordinary stories of ordinary Minnesotans.”
Armed with an affable nature, an objective approach — he called himself a “political agnostic” — and quick mind, he worked the House and Senate chambers at the Minnesota Capitol as well as the halls where lobbyists and staff passed bits of news and rumor, as he made sense of policy and politics affecting the daily lives of readers.
“No one defined the Pioneer Press better than Bill,” said former executive editor Walker Lundy. “No one knew his beat better. Most importantly, no one was a more decent human being. An editor looks for reporters he can always count on. Bill was one.”
During a reception marking his retirement in 2015, Salisbury said some of the more memorable stories he covered included former Vice President Walter Mondale announcing Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate in 1984 at the Minnesota Capitol, the first time a woman was part of a national ticket. He also mentioned passage of the gay marriage bill in 2013.
And, there was the death of U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone in a plane crash in 2002. Salisbury had known Wellstone since the college professor first ran for state auditor in the early 1980s.
“That was maybe the best campaign I covered and it was definitely the worst campaign I covered,” Salisbury recalled.
‘Tough but fair, hard charging but respectful’
Salisbury, who often specialized in covering tax and spending bills, was “infinitely fair” and didn’t believe in “gotcha” journalism, said longtime friend and colleague Steven Thomma, who now serves as the executive director of the White House Correspondents’ Association.
“I knew him for nearly 40 years, and to this day, I have no idea who he voted for ever in an election. No idea,” Thomma said. “We didn’t talk about that stuff, and it didn’t show in his journalism.”
Thomma and Salisbury worked together at the state Capitol in the 1980s and in Washington, D.C. Salisbury ended every interview with a politician with the same question, Thomma said.
“He’d ask whoever he was interviewing — the governor, usually, ‘Is there anything you want to add or emphasize?’” Thomma said. “I remember that quote. I’m not sure it would make it into his story, but he gave them the chance of feeling that it was a conversation as much as it was anything else. It certainly wasn’t a gotcha interview. Not from Bill Salisbury. He wanted to get information and find out what that person was doing and thinking, and that helped draw them out.”
Rachel E. Stassen-Berger, who worked with Salisbury at the state Capitol for the Pioneer Press from 2001 to 2009 and from 2015 to 2017, said he drew respect from colleagues — those who worked with him and those he competed against on new stories.
“Bill was a consummate Capitol reporter, showing generations of journalists under the domed building how to be tough but fair, hard charging but respectful in our interactions,” said Stassen-Berger, who is now the executive editor of the Des Moines Register. “In recent days, colleagues who worked with him and competed with him visited Bill to show their respect and admiration. Working beside him in the Capitol basement helped make the journalist I am.”
St. Paul Pioneer Press reporter Bill Salisbury in St. Paul on Thursday, Jan. 8, 2014. (Ginger Pinson / Pioneer Press)
The Belgrade Tribune
Salisbury was born in Belgrade, Minn., on June 22, 1945. His father, the late E.R. Salisbury, was the editor and publisher of the weekly Belgrade Tribune. His mother, the late Marie Salisbury, was a homemaker and community activist who proofread his father’s newspaper articles and called every home in town weekly to ask: “Do you have any news for the Tribune?”
He liked to say he launched his newspaper career as a preschooler with a “typo.”
“Somehow I got behind my dad’s newspaper printing press, pulled the letter “B” from Tribune at the top of the front page and put it back in upside down. That week subscribers received the “Belgrade Triqune.” My dad found it amusing but made sure it never happened again.”
Upon graduating from Belgrade High School in 1963, Salisbury attended Concordia College in Moorhead, Minn., for one year, transferred to the University of Minnesota journalism school for two quarters, and then dropped out of school and landed a job as a copy boy at U.S. News & World Report magazine in Washington, D.C. Soon after he recalled that his draft board threatened to revoke his student deferment, so he enrolled at the University of Minnesota Morris, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in history in 1969.
While attending school in Morris he met Janet Holt, the love of his life. They were married in Alexandria, Minn., in 1968. Janet died in 2016. The couple had one daughter, Rachael, who was born in 1969 and became a talented musician. She died in 2020.
Reporting career
Salisbury landed his first daily newspaper reporting job at the Fairmont, Minn., Sentinel in 1971. He moved to the Rochester Post Bulletin in 1972 and was appointed their state Capitol correspondent in 1975. The Pioneer Press hired him as a general assignment reporter in 1977 and he was assigned to their Capitol bureau the following year.
St. Paul Pioneer Press reporter Bill Salisbury in the Minnesota House chambers at the State Capitol in St. Paul, circa 2015. (Ben Garvin / Pioneer Press)
He served as the paper’s Washington, D.C., correspondent from 1994 through 1999, before returning to the state Capitol. Salisbury retired from that beat in 2015 but continued to cover politics and government for the paper part time.
Ethics mattered to Salisbury. He would tell a story of declining the offer of an ice cream cone from then-President Barack Obama during a visit in St. Paul on the grounds that he couldn’t take gifts of any sort from politicians.
He is survived by a sister, Wilma Salisbury of Euclid, Ohio, and son-in-law Pierre Dimba of Shoreview. He also is survived by sisters-in-law Margaret Lichty and Judy Holt, and brothers-in-law Alan Lichty, Robert Holt and Dale Logan.
Salisbury’s last piece for the Pioneer Press was on Aug. 11, 2024, on Vice President Kamala Harris’ selection of Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate and past Minnesotans on the national ticket.
He continued reporting part time after retirement “because I enjoyed meeting people and learning new things,” he said. Journalism provided him with a “sense of purpose” and allowed him to serve others.
“But most meaningful to me, I got to meet and occasionally befriend a lot of smart, good-hearted folks who brought much joy to my life,” Salisbury said.
This story will update later today.
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