With this week’s column we’ll be trying something different . . . this will be sent through the magic of email to the DigElog ROCORI website where nearly anyone in the world (anyone who has a computer, that is) will have access to it.
This “small town newspaper” currently reaches over 3,600 homes – using a formula provided by the Minnesota Newspaper Association, the 3,600 homes translates to over 8,200 readers. That in itself is amazing. Now, with the magic of our electronic world, this opinion column has potential to reach millions more – Okay, we’ll be a little more realistic, – perhaps thousands more.
When we purchased this newspaper 20 years ago, we vowed to write this weekly editorial because we felt it was an important part of the newspaper. With very few exceptions, we’ve done just that – that means this column has reached readers somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,000 times. There are too many small community newspapers that don’t have an editor (or any other staff member) dedicated to writing a weekly editorial and in our opinion those papers are missing a very important part of communicating with their communities.
Although we’ve had complaints about things we’ve written in this corner of the newspaper, we’ve also had compliments. Thankfully the compliments have far out-weighed the complaints. We learned a long time ago that what words are printed here will never please everyone. No matter what we write, there will be those who like what’s said, and those who don’t. We also know for a fact that there have been occasions when a reader or two have decided to cancel their subscription because they didn’t agree with our opinion from time to time.
In conversations with many of our readers, we’re flattered to know that this corner of the newspaper is the first section many of you turn to. That’s humbling, to say the least. Maybe even a little frightening. Although we try to be somewhat careful with the thoughts we put in print, there aren’t too many things we’re afraid to write about. We definitely try not to offend too many people, but we’ve always felt it imperative to have our opinion, and express it here for our growing number of readers.
We have full intentions of continuing this weekly column, and reaching more readers through the DigElog site can only be considered an added benefit to this community newspaper. Have A Good Week!
Mike Austreng
Editor/Publisher
Cold Spring Record Newspaper
DigElogROCORI would like to welcome Mike Austreng and the Cold Spring Record as a weekly contributor to the "Stories of ROCORI". Thanks for your contribution Mike!
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