Newspapers dying? Not so!
The awe of community journalism and its powerful impact on communities hit me at an age when most of my friends were busy concentrating on other things.
I still remember being a terrified 14-year-old sitting outside the office of my hometown newspaper in Brownton, hoping there would be some way to convince the editor to hire me as a photographer. After a little selling of myself, I got a part-time job and I was off running with my newspaper career.
Ever since that teenage job, which turned into me running the paper as assistant editor by the time I graduated from high school, I have fallen in love with community newspaper work. It’s a profession that demands lots of hard work, energy and passion for informing the public.
When the opportunity came up a few months ago to do a story with local public television on small town newspapers, I jumped at the chance, especially with the station being in the market I used to work in. KSMQ of Austin traveled to the Times office to interview me for its “Off 90” magazine show. (I previously worked for KAAL in Austin in the early 1990s.)
It reminded me of the time I was interviewed by a Twin Cities TV station at age 16 while I worked at my hometown paper. Not much has changed as I promoted newspapers then and I’m doing so now some 30 years later.
The show aired for the first time Sunday night and will be replayed Thursday at 7 p.m. and Saturday at 5 p.m. In addition, the show will also be streamed on KSMQ’s website and placed on YouTube beginning Wednesday.
One of my pet peeves is when I hear people talk about the death of newspapers. I guess I’ve become even more sensitive to that issue since I became an owner of two papers within the past five years. It just makes me bristle to hear folks chatting as if newspapers have been buried in a cemetery. My main message in the KSMQ story is that newspapers are not dying. While some papers around the country, especially dailies, have fallen on hard times over the past 15 years, there are many others that are thriving and doing well. The Times is one of those thriving papers.
The public TV story gave me the perfect chance to tout what in some ways has been nothing short of a miracle with what we’ve been able to accomplish with the local paper. Over the past five years, we have expanded into a countywide newspaper covering all of Steele County and the surrounding adjoining counties. The expansion has allowed us to nearly triple our circulation, triple the size of our staff, double the size of the newspaper in pages and overall coverage and dramatically increase our revenue.
I also shared this same message recently when I spoke to the Golden K Kiwanis Club in Owatonna. Several hands went up when I posed the question if they thought newspapers were dying.
I hope I changed their minds when I shared the success story we’ve had with the Times.
The reason weekly newspapers will not die is because they have a niche that nobody else has. They’re committed to local news. Nobody can cover communities better than the local newspaper. Our slogan rings so true: “Always local. All the time.” As long as newspapers hold true to being local, there will be no fear of dying.
I hope our readers and those who maybe are on the fence with reading our newspaper will take incredible pride in what we’ve accomplished with the Times. There are not many papers around that can boast about the growth and progress we’ve experienced in recent years.
At the very least, I think the segment on KSMQ will give viewers valuable insight into just exactly what is involved with publishing a newspaper every week. It’s certainly not the easiest job in the world. I hope you’ll take the time to watch it this week or pull it up on the Internet.
Community journalism will never lose its luster with me as I plan to go in hot pursuit of publishing award-winning papers as long as I’m able to. It has always been my commitment to our readers.