Minnesota weekly newspapers seek to survive

It has been more than two months now since two weekly newspapers in rural Minnesota made the national news by initiating a GoFundMe campaign to try to raise enough money to keep the lights on and the presses running.

The announced goal on April 29 was to amass $50,000. As of June 30, just 22 people had stepped up to make contributions totaling $1,740. Sadly, the campaign is not off to a stellar start. A single contribution of $1,000 in the lone bright spot.

Rick Bussler is the owner and publisher of the Dodge County Independent, based in Kasson, Minn., a city with about 6,000 inhabitants, and the Steele County Times, based in Blooming Prairie, Minn., which has about 2,000 residents. Combined, the two papers have a circulation of about 3,600. (Dodge and Steele counties are adjoining counties in southeastern Minnesota.)

Bussler’s GoFundMe plea is titled “Journalism Matters: Now More Than Ever.” The text begins: “It’s another small-town graduation day. Seniors are dressed in their caps and gowns, the valedictorian and salutatorian are getting ready to give their big speeches, and a student who struggled for 13 years of school is about to cross the stage.”

“With all this going on there’s something missing, though. There’s no one there taking photos for the local newspaper…documenting the biggest day of many kids’ lives. Why? Because the local newspaper that the town knew for more than 100 years no longer exists.”

The appeal continued: “Our goal through our GoFundMe campaign is to bring awareness to people that local newspapers, like ours, are…important to the lives of the local communities and that newspapers are keepsakes and are our history for generations to come.”

Mary Lynn Smith of the Star-Tribune, published in Minneapolis, covered the GoFundMe launch and interviewed Annie Anderson, advertising director at the Independent. She said: “Small-town papers keep people engaged in the schools, sports and local events and ensure that city and county officials are held accountable. If the community wants a newspaper, they need to step it up and be part of the solution.”

Linda Ha, reporting for KTTC, a television station based in Rochester, Minn., interviewed Bussler, who said on camera: “We are struggling. We are on life support.”

Bussler told Ha that several factors are at play, including the rising cost of newsprint, a decline in advertising sales and smaller subscription bases. “We’re down to a skeleton crew already,” Bussler said, “and it’s tough to keep going.”

Dagnabbit all. Is community journalism on its last leg?

That thought worries Hannah Yang, a reporter at the Austin (Minn.) Daily Herald. She reached out to Alex Malm, editor of the Independent. He’s also the chief reporter, the guy who covers city council and school board meetings in Kasson.

Malm told Yang that he “loves journalism and loves small towns.” She said Malm has “found the affinity of writing stories about the people around him.”

“This newspaper means a lot to me,” Malm said, “and the community means a lot to me, too. Who is going to cover this stuff if the newspaper is gone?” Yes, who indeed?

Yang has her own opinions on this subject of community journalism, and she shares them willingly with her readers. “Losing a community newspaper has its effects in the towns it serves,” Yang commented. “Studies also indicate that a lack of local media coverage is associated with less informed voters, lower voter turnouts and less engaged local politicians.”

“We know that the people we write about are our neighbors, business partners and friends. We are members of the community, too. We care about the successes and hardships that people experience. Their voices deserve to be heard, and we’re usually the first ones there to share their stories.”

“That’s something that small town newspapers have that bigger news outlets cannot replicate from a distance, because they don’t know the full scope of the community the way small newspapers do.”

Yang suggested: “If our newspaper were to disappear, where will you go for the most accurate, important source of news specifically catered to Austin and surrounding towns? Would you wait for a larger news outlet to come by and maybe report on a story that the Austin Daily Herald could’ve had within a day or two?”

“You may be left waiting. Many larger news organizations depend on smaller newspapers for coverage ideas. If we’re gone, it’s almost certain no one will know what’s happening in Austin. No one will hear about the everyday amazing things that happen here, rather only about something bad that may happen on occasion, if it’s big enough to catch the attention of a big news outlet. You deserve accurate representation of the community you live in by the reporters who are based in your town.”

“I implore you,” Yang wrote, “please do not take for granted the valuable resource you have in Austin. There are so many stories in Austin and surrounding communities happening, and you, as readers, deserve to have those told and shared.”

“Until then, expect us working in the newsroom and continuing to put out the best paper we can every single day. That’s no exaggeration. That’s a fact.”

Have you been noticing and counting the parallels? The very fabric of our lives would be so very weirdly different if we were left “news-less at the Crystal Coast” in Carteret County, North Carolina, U.S.A.

Glass Wax vanishes while Mr. Bubble carries on

Dagnabbit: You might be an old fogey if you still have Gold Seal Glass Wax in the classic pink can tucked away on some forgotten shelf or in a neglected storage compartment.

Loyal Glass Wax fans insist that no product ever invented has done a better job of cleaning glass and mirrors, silverware, metal appliances or chrome automobile bumpers.

Do you recall the print advertisements of the early 1950s that featured “Goldie,” the Gold Seal seal? She wore the Gold Seal medallion around her neck, and said: “Sponge it on, wipe it off; it’s quick and easy.”

Cleaning windows became a breeze. Just a few dribbles of the pink goop applied to a damp sponge could cover a lot of glass. When it dried to a white haze, simply swoosh it off with a dry cloth and magically, the window pane was left sparkling clean.

The Glass Wax product was introduced to the public by Harold Schafer of Bismarck, N.D., owner of Gold Seal Products Co., a floor wax business he started in 1942. Tom Hintgen, a columnist with The Daily Journal of Fergus Falls, Minn., wrote that Schafer was attending a conference in Minneapolis in 1945 where he learned about “an emulsion that was used in World War II to clean aircraft windshields.”

The next morning, Hintgen reported, Schafer “ordered two boxcars of the emulsion. It came in three colors – pink, blue and green. Schafer picked pink.” Schafer’s Glass Wax was an instant success and went into national distribution in 1948.

Linda M. Young, author of HolidayHarbour blog, may have started the conversation about “whatever happened to good old Glass Wax?” In one of her essays, she reminisced about past Christmas seasons when Glass Wax offered sets of holiday stencils to make “window wonderland” images as decorations. The 59-cent stencil packets contained 34 designs.

Dave Jacobs responded online to Young, adding a bit of Gold Seal history. He said the “phenomenal success of Glass Wax was repeated again” by Gold Seal in the 1950s with the introduction of Snowy Bleach and in 1961 with the rollout of Mr. Bubble.

Glass Wax, Snowy Bleach and Mr. Bubble each rose to become the top product in the world in their respective categories, Jacobs reported.

Gold Seal scored a marketing trifecta. Randy Hoffman, author of the BisManCafe blog, specializes in Bismarck history. He wrote: “At its height, Gold Seal had annual revenues of $50 million, positioning it as the largest privately held business based in North Dakota.”

The Gold Seal family business was sold to Airwick Industries of Wayne, N.J., in 1986. Soon thereafter, Airwick was acquired by a British company, Reckitt & Colman. The business eventually morphed into the Reckitt Benckiser Group (RBG) in 1999. RBG silently discontinued production of Glass Wax in 2002.

Jacobs said he figures Reckitt Benckiser deep-sixed Glass Wax without a proper burial because the product contained petroleum distillates. The Glass Wax containers were imprinted with messages that cautioned consumers that contents are “harmful or fatal if swallowed.”

“Even so, I can’t imagine anyone with half an ounce of common sense who would ever have a problem in using the product,” Jacobs commented.

The Schafer family’s Gold Seal legacy, however, continues to live on through the popularity of Mr. Bubble. The product was launched in 1961. Very rapidly, Mr. Bubble became a favorite bath-time tub buddy in millions of American homes.

Mr. Bubble promised to “bubble kids clean and leave no bathtub ring.” The tagline was: “Mr. Bubble makes getting clean almost as much fun as getting dirty. Kids come out so clean, their own mothers don’t recognize them.”

Since 2008, the Mr. Bubble brand has lived on as a member of the family of personal care products owned by The Village Company (TVC) of Chaska, Minn., a privately held enterprise. Its headquarters is about 25 miles southwest of Minneapolis.

On Mr. Bubble’s 50th birthday in 2011, the character was updated in an attempt to become “more animated and appealing to today’s kids, while still maintaining the nostalgia that parents know and love,” wrote Lisa McTigue Price for Packaging Digest magazine. “A dramatic change from the original pink bubble with white outlines, the new Mr. Bubble was created with brighter pinks and deeper dimensions.”

The “refreshed” Mr. Bubble seems to be quite content at TVC, complementing the diversified Sesame Street brand of children’s personal care products. Imagine how much fun you can have in the tub with Cookie Monster, Elmo and Big Bird all joining Mr. Bubble. “Rub-a-Dub-Dub.”

Community newspapers are making their own news

Hail to the Hillsboro (N.D.) Banner, the oldest weekly newspaper in present-day North Dakota. The Banner was founded 140 years ago in 1879 – 10 years before the Dakota Territory was split to form the states of North Dakota and South Dakota in 1889.

This bit of trivia was shared May 28, 2019, with readers of a regular column titled “Neighbors,” which is written for Forum Communications, a family-owned media company based in Fargo, N.D. Its author is Bob Lind, a leading advocate for community journalism. Lind has worked in the newspaper business ever since graduating from the University of Minnesota in 1957.

Lind complimented his longtime friend Neil O. Nelson, former publisher of the Banner, by reprinting one of his final editorials that appeared earlier this year.

Nelson boasted with pride that the Banner “never missed a publication date and remains not only in business after 140 years but is also recognized as one of the better papers in the state.” That attests to “the lasting viability and vitality of the paper and its communities.”

(Hillsboro has a population of 1,610 and is the county seat of Traill County, located on the Interstate 29 corridor about 40 miles north of Fargo near the Red River of the North, the boundary between North Dakota and Minnesota. The Banner has a circulation of about 1,150.)

“…Demands put on newspapers today are no less challenging than they were 60 or 100 years ago, when a printer’s hands were mired in black ink, burned by hot lead and callused by the task of handling tons of newspapers,” Nelson wrote. “Back shops in those times were distressingly warm in the summer and uncomfortably cold in the winter.”

“The elements today we can handle; the challenges offered by the advent of new-age technology and the people’s insatiable thirst for on-demand news and information have newspapers scrambling to keep pace in today’s ever-changing world.”

“Hardly a surprise but no less distressing, advertising profits realized are the subject of diminishing returns; for the small-town business owner, the demand for his and her advertising dollar is unending. Yet businesses continue to support their hometown newspapers, and for that…the newspaper industry…is forever grateful.”

Nelson continued: “As a community newspaper, we are sensitive to our many readers and what they expect to find in their hometown newspaper. We take great pride in delivering a quality newspaper; we are guided by the public’s trust that what we do, we do with their best interests at heart.”

Bob Lind was one of the old-timers interviewed for an oral history project sponsored by the North Dakota Newspaper Association, and he commented about the importance of community newspapers as it relates to local government. “People run a democracy, but you can’t do it unless you know what’s going on,” Lind replied. (Dagnabbit, that’s good stuff.)

The truth of the matter is: The Bismarck Tribune, as North Dakota’s leading and state capital newspaper, is not going to be sending a reporter to cover the regular meetings of the municipalities, school boards or planning commissions within Traill County. Neither the Tribune sports desk nor ESPN is going to be covering the athletic contests that involve the mighty Burros of Hillsboro High School.

Hannah Yang worries about such things. She is a reporter at the Austin (Minn.) Daily Herald, which is published Tuesday through Saturday and has a circulation of 5,280. (The community has a population of about 25,000 and is the county seat of Mower County, located just above Iowa on the Interstate 90 corridor.)

Yang’s column on May 29, 2019, provided an insightful look into the current state of affairs relating to community newspapers. She wrote:

“For more than a century, the Austin Daily Herald has been your beacon as a source of news and information. This is the place where you go to learn more about the stories that matter to your community. Yet, I feel as if local journalism has been taken for granted, and that many have forgotten what an essential role and service community newspapers provide for their town.”

She noted that adjoining Dodge County lost two of its local newspapers in 2018, “leaving a hole in coverage for specific communities in the area. Eventually, many towns may become ‘news deserts,’ communities that will not have consistent local news coverage.”

Yang commented: “The Associated Press recently released a data analysis compiled by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill that showed more than 1,400 towns and cities in the country lost a newspaper over the past 15 years.”

“Losing a reliable local news source will affect the community, including the inability to serve as a watchdog for government agencies and elected officials,” she wrote. The esteemed Columbia Journalism Review agrees with Yang and Lind: “If local newspapers were to die, then voter engagement will decrease, and the community will become apathetic to its own democracy.”

Yang’s passionate appeal is: “The country deserves to have vibrant, strong newsrooms that are dedicated to telling stories in their communities accurately and efficiently.”

“Larger news organizations won’t be writing about accomplishments that your child achieved in high school or do features on someone retiring from a business after working there” for umpteen years.