HOT PURSUIT

A while back someone sent me a sticker that serves as an important reminder of the work we do for our communities. The sticker simply reads: “Local journalism matters.”

I keep it close at my workstation so that I am constantly thinking about serving our readers in the best possible way.

The sticker isn’t the only reminder I have about local news being important. Last year we ran an investigative series on Christian Family Church in Owatonna. After some of our stories were published, a reader wrote, “These are very gutsy articles for your newspaper to publish, and they are exactly whey local journalism is so dang important. We just can’t lose this local journalism.”

If there’s anything that drives us to keep going, it’s reader comments like that one.

This week we are providing another saturation of the Times in which nearly 18,000 households in Steele County are receiving the newspaper. We usually do this several times a year to remind people of where they can get quality local news.

There may be some people who have not been regular readers that missed the exciting news in late January when the Times was named Minnesota’ s best weekly newspaper. We were honored with the prestigious Mills Trophy, along with 24 other journalism awards, including 12 first place honors.

As thrilling as this news is for us, we hope it’s even more exciting for our readers. We hope you are incredibly proud of having a local newspaper that journalists from other states have deemed the best. It warms my heart that we won a prestigious honor for a community that truly values local news.

I also want you to know that our small staff works its tails off every week to provide readers with quality journalism. Do we always get it right? No, we don’t. Are we perfect? Absolutely not. Believe me I am the first one to beat myself up when I make a mistake, or something slips by my editing eyes. I haven’t come across anybody yet that doesn’t slip up from time to time.

But the one thing we offer is a staff of veteran journalists who are passionate about local journalism. And we believe the recent awards are evidence that we are doing something right to benefit the greater good of the communities we cover. When journalism thrives, so, too, do the communities covered. Research shows that communities suffer when there are no local newspapers or other media covering them.

We take great pride not only in our accomplishments, but what we’ve been able to do for our communities. For me, building the Times into a quality newspaper has been at times on a rocky and bumpy road over the past 16 years. But I remember the promise I made to readers way back that someday the Times would be Minnesota’s best.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, we love our readers. Our passion fuels a burning desire within us to continue providing a great local newspaper that people can be proud of and perhaps even brag to others about what they receive in their mailboxes every week. Spread the word about the Times, especially to others who may be missing out by not subscribing. We’d love to keep growing our reader base that has already exploded by 60% over the past several years. We are offering a subscription special for new readers as well as our regular ones. (See page 9A).

Local news does matter. I hope you’ll always go in hot pursuit of valuing that statement. We certainly will be to make our communities stronger.