Two very significant things happened at the Cook County News- Herald this week. Things that people may not even notice, so I’m going to point them out. I could play a little game like I did a few months ago with cartoonist Carson Haring’s Gitche Gitche Gumee bears—have you figured out the secret of the two bears yet? There is still a free subscription to be had if someone can tell me the inside joke about the political bears.
But I digress. The first change this week is very subtle. We have moved our printing services from a printing plant in Hibbing to one in Duluth. The change primarily affects our designer Laurie who had to tweak every page to a slightly different size. Someone who is extremely observant may notice that our paper is a smidgen thinner and a hair taller than it was previously.
It’s a tiny difference in appearance, but the printing move does mean a more restrictive deadline. We will have the same deadline we have had for more than 10 years now, Tuesdays at 4 p.m. However, we will now have to truly stick to that deadline. We have to get our pages to the printer sooner so we no longer have as much flexibility to “fudge” the deadline. It will require a bit more planning ahead.
The second change is not quite as subtle. Some readers may have noticed that like an odometer on a dashboard, the digits on our masthead have changed. We have moved from Volume 122 to Volume 123 and from No. 52 to No. 1.
That means we quietly celebrated an anniversary this week. The Cook County News-Herald has entered its 123rd year of publishing the local newspaper. It’s a privilege to be carrying on the rich tradition of being the community newspaper.
Long before any of us were born, the News- Herald was here—in some form. For a while it was the Cook County News and for a while it was the Cook County Herald and it eventually became the Cook County News-Herald.
We do our best to produce a paper that will still be here—in some form—when we are all gone.
There are some people who say newspapers are a dying industry, but I don’t agree. I think the 123-year tradition of a local newspaper will continue because it is just that—local.
There are many places to find news, yes. But there is only one place to find all the news that may affect you. You may be able to watch county board meetings on borealTV.com and you may be able to visit a township website to see a legal notice. You may be able to read a crime story in a Duluth or Twin Cities paper. You may be able to see fish or hunting photos in outdoor publications like Outdoor News.
But that would mean multiple subscriptions, multiple Internet searches. And you may miss something because you didn’t even know to go look for it.
Here at the News- Herald we work hard every week to figure out what people need to know. We sit through hours of meetings. We read reams of government notices and court documents. We attend events and take pictures. We call people to follow-up on issues that our readers would never have time to do. We happily accept birth and wedding announcements and we sadly publish obituaries. We sift through press releases from throughout the county and the state, always asking ourselves if it is something our readers want to know.
The big corporate papers may flounder because they are filled with boilerplate news from major news outlets. If you look at a big paper in Duluth or Fargo or Chicago or Cleveland or Seattle or Spokane, they all look pretty much alike. They all have the same national news from the same media sources.
Small papers are different. We don’t have access to the big press organizations and we don’t need them. We have more than enough news right here in our own back yard. We have more freedom, and yes, perhaps more responsibility.
But we can handle it. We’ve been doing it for 123 years now.
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