OUTSIDE PERSPECTIVES

For the past year or so, I have taken on the sports editor duties for our sister newspaper the Dodge County Independent (DCI), in addition to my news role with both papers.

We are blessed that a number of volunteers help with photos, and we consistently run a half-dozen pages or more of sports, similar to the Times, highlighting the different sports successes each week.

To say the least, we continue to ramp up our hyperlocal news coverage.

So I was shocked on Friday when I was covering the Class AAAA Prep Bowl for the DCI and realized this isn't the case everywhere.

After the state tournament games, the media goes to the press conference room at U.S Bank Stadium where select players from each team speak, along with their coaches.

Up first was the Kasson-Mantorville KoMets, who lost a heartbreaker.

In the room with me were reporters from the Rochester Post Bulletin, the local tv stations, the Star Tribune, and someone from the Minnesota State High School League who writes stories.

After the KoMets spoke, most of the local reporters left. I decided to stay just in case there was anything mentioned that would be worth noting in my story.

After we got done, I noticed the only reporters remaining were me and the reporters from the Post Bulletin, the League, and the Star Tribune.

No local newspaper reporter from Orono–whose team, by the way, just won a state championship?

As we were walking to the elevator, I asked the Post Bulletin reporter if Orono didn't have its own paper.

He said they probably did, around 25 years ago.

I couldn’t believe it. How could there literally be no one from the local press covering the state championship?

After the game, I did some research, thinking maybe the person who usually covers the team was sick or something. Maybe they had already interviewed the players from the field, despite that being against the rules.

I found out that there is a local newspaper for Orono and other suburban communities in the Twin Cities. I also found their “coverage” of the team’s semi-final game in the Class AAAA championship. Here is the end note for the story:

“This press release from Orono football was edited for length, clarity, and AP Style using ChatGPT. It was reviewed by an editor before publication.”

I am honestly completely saddened by this.

A state championship team, and the most they may get is an edited press release by AI. As of Sunday, news of the state championship still hadn’t hit the paper’s website.

This is the very unfortunate reality many communities across this state and country are facing.

In my opinion, there is no reason why a place like Orono, a high median income community with fewer than 9,000 people in it, can’t have more than this.

To put it into perspective, the KoMets didn’t win, and we will be running four or five pages of photos and coverage from the big game. Why? Because going to a state title game is a big deal for communities. It's a big deal for the players. It's a big deal for the families who, in some cases, have been dragging their kids to practices in the summer heat and watching games in the bitter cold for the past dozen years or so.

I say all of this because this is the complete opposite of what we are trying to do.

Instead of using AI to edit stories already written for us by the coaches, we at the Times have one of the best sports editors in the state in Johnnie Phillips. By the way, Johnnie was at the game helping me out on Friday. He didn’t have to, but he is committed to covering local sports and is motivated by the fact that we are trying to do things the right way at both newspapers.

Last week, we announced our fundraising push to help sustain local news and to help grow our operation.

Donations will not be going to line a corporate CEOs pocket. They will go directly to paying people who love local news and work hard to make sure our communities get the coverage they deserve.

If you feel so inclined to support local news, you will be helping to make sure that in the foreseeable future, there is boots-on-the-ground, human coverage of Steele County sports–and not an AI-edited press release.

I am very proud to work for an owner who cares about local news and has a commitment to it over profits.

I hope no one takes that for granted.