Leaning on readers to strengthen the paper

As we head into a new year, it’s a good time to take a look at how we can change things up.
The new year always brings with it the hope for fulfillment, promise, surprise, joy and success. I am certain 2021 will bring us much more happiness and peace than 2020 did.
In recent weeks, our readers have been engaged with this newspaper by offering ideas and suggestions to make the paper better. In fact, one of our readers even led us to a person who is joining our sales team this week. I hope that surge of reader engagement will continue into the new year.
I always enjoy hearing from our readers about what they would like in their community newspaper. I’ve often said even though I may own the newspaper, this isn’t really my paper, but rather the newspaper of the people. It’s an institution that’s important to the success and well being of the greater community. I’m just here, behind the scenes, facilitating a great community icon.
If you have any ideas on how to improve this newspaper and better serve the community of Steele County, I would love to hear from you. For example, a few weeks ago someone told me that he was having trouble reading the crossword puzzle. I immediately got together with my production team and we found a way to make it more readable.
Readers can help us by providing story ideas and photos. With a limited staff, being everywhere covering everything is far from being realistic for us. We depend on the help of others to cover the communities we serve. We often use “submitted photos,” which oftentimes means they are from readers. With the improved quality of cell phone cameras, it’s easier to take print-quality photos.
Another way readers can help is by providing guest columns or stories that they have written. Rev. Russell Rudolf of Owatonna recently found out there are benefits to putting your thoughts on paper. He wrote a column for our holiday edition. Within hours of the paper coming out, several people reached out to thank him for what he wrote. As you can imagine, Rev. Rudolf was excited to let me know about those who cherished his writing.
With the start of the new year, we are adding some new features to our newspaper. One of those comes from Jeffrey Hall, a financial adviser with Edward Jones in Owatonna. He will be providing us with a weekly financial column. We are also exploring new ways to include more obituaries in our paper each week. 
We want to be known as a community newspaper where readers come to expect all local news. It’s a niche that no one else is providing, and we are happy to fulfill that role.
I am confident 2021 is going to be a great year as readers go in hot pursuit of helping us become their main source of local news. Happy New Year!