HOT PURSUIT

I had the rare opportunity to address a roomful of Minnesota journalists last week not just once but twice after winning two major awards from the Minnesota Newspaper Association.

Near the end of the awards banquet, the Times was awarded the Lynn Smith Community Leadership Award for last year’s extensive coverage of the sex scandal at Christian Family Church in Owatonna. The first-place winner is always given the opportunity to give some remarks.

In accepting the leadership award, I shared what I found to be one of the most thought-provoking responses from a reader that reached out after our coverage. “These are very gutsy articles for your newspaper to publish, and they are exactly why local journalism is so dang important. We just can’t lose this local journalism,” I said in quoting what the reader shared with us.

But that wasn’t it.

Just a few minutes later it was announced that our newspaper had won the Mills Trophy, which recognizes Minnesota’s most outstanding weekly newspaper. Our team of seven staff members who were present converged on the stage to accept the award. Again, I was given the honor to say something.

One of my key messages was that I challenged journalists if they don’t think good journalism matters to look specifically at our readers. I shared how readers of the Times have shown incredible support over the past five years with circulation skyrocketing by 60%. I saw just a few jaws drop.

I also shared how winning the Mills Trophy is incredibly humbling for me personally. This actually was the second time I had something to do with winning the top honor. The other time came in 1984 when I was 17 years old working for my hometown newspaper, the Brownton Bulletin. So, 41 years later I finally won the award with my own newspaper. I know my previous boss, Chuck Warner, would be remarkably proud of our accomplishment.

Warner is responsible for planting the seed in me for providing readers with quality community journalism. He monitored and often commented about what we were doing at the Times up until he died in 2018 at the age of 93.

On the day after getting the big award I had the privilege of having lunch with Gov. Tim Walz. He spoke at the luncheon and recognized the accomplishments of the Times.

Last year in this column I shared how my journalism career will not be complete until I lead the Steele County Times to winning the prestigious Mills Trophy. We had a heck of a year winning 25 awards, including 12 first place honors. Six of those awards were considered “special awards” in the contest. Such a strong showing is what led us to the top honor.

It’s also thrilling for me because it’s the first time ever such a big honor has come back to any newspaper in Steele County. The Mills Trophy for weekly publications such as ours dates to 1982 while the Vance Trophy for the state’s daily newspapers started in 1985. We are beyond ecstatic to bring this honor back to Steele County, and we are incredibly grateful to serve the greater community in this noble profession. 

Despite all the rhetoric that’s spewed all over, local journalism matters. And we all play a role in saving it.

Even after winning the big award, our work is not done. We will continue to work hard to cover the local news in our communities.

In fact, the celebrating certainly didn’t last very long. Just as soon as we won the awards, it was time to turn around and go in hot pursuit of putting together another edition. Oh, the life of being a journalist.