{"podcast":{"title":"Essential Minnesota","slug":"essential-minnesota-7677952","podcast_index_feed_id":7677952,"rss_url":"https://feeds.megaphone.fm/essentialminnesota","website_url":null,"image_url":"https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/bc053764-f646-11f0-af37-4358c03a09a8/image/e978c9ce6b10da51398ae11d72bee4d8.png?ixlib=rails-4.3.1&max-w=3000&max-h=3000&fit=crop&auto=format,compress","author":"The Minnesota Star Tribune","episode_count":40,"summary":"Every Friday host Melissa Townsend brings her distinct curiosity and humor to these weekly deep-dive conversations with journalists from the Minnesota Star Tribune. Together they dig into interesting and important local stories that matter to Minnesota and beyond. It’s what the Minnesota Star Tribune does best. Available Fridays at 4:30 A.M. Central.","last_synced_at":"2026-09-18T20:19:33.591844+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/essential-minnesota-7677952"},"episode":{"title":"How Minnesota's new flag became a political flashpoint","slug":"how-minnesota-s-new-flag-became-a-political-flashpoint","published_at":"2026-06-26T09:30:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/essential-minnesota-7677952/how-minnesota-s-new-flag-became-a-political-flashpoint","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/essential-minnesota-7677952","url":"https://traffic.megaphone.fm/STB4719132432.mp3","audio_url":"https://traffic.megaphone.fm/STB4719132432.mp3","summary":"Acceptance of the new flag among Minnesotans is divided mainly along party lines. But how much of that comes from partisan fervor fueling the culture wars and how much is from a rushed and imperfect design process? Reporter Briana Bierschbach was there every step of the way and breaks it down.","meta_description":"Acceptance of the new flag among Minnesotans is divided mainly along party lines. But how much of that comes from partisan fervor fueling the culture wars…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":1604,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/essential-minnesota-7677952/episodes/how-minnesota-s-new-flag-became-a-political-flashpoint/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/essential-minnesota-7677952/how-minnesota-s-new-flag-became-a-political-flashpoint.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}