Family-owned weeklies hold their own: In northern Minnesota, the news business can border on the bizarre

Cook News Herald Publisher Gary Alberston has expanded his operation to purchase several newspaper in nearby communities. The Timberjay’s ad revenues steadily increase annually with three newspapers, despite its confrontational journalism. The weekly Voyageur Sentinel, a relative newcomer, started up in an already crowded market.

Northern Minnesota isn’t an anomaly. “Thousands of community papers are thriving and gaining in circulation even as the big boys decline,” writes John W. Stevenson in Publishers Auxiliary, the journal of the National Newspaper Association, a trade group with 2,600 small newspaper members.

Small markets newspapers usually have a lock on advertising, said Drew Digby, journalism instructor at the University of Minnesota Duluth.

“Advertisers don’t have as many choices as Duluth,” where TV, radio, and the Internet provide stronger competition, he said.

That quirkiness of these publications occasionally explodes into acrimonious editorials and battles for legal notices, rising to the level of soap opera drama found only in small towns.

The Albertson chain

Gary Albertson had been business manager for other Minnesota papers until 1978 when he and wife Edna bought the Cook News Herald, a paper with roots dating to 1903. He once wrote a small book on running community newspapers, in which he advised selling the paper after 10 years. “I haven’t done that,” he admitted. “It’s been a fun time up here.”

Albertson “got in debt up to my ears,” he said, after building a house, buying the Cook News Herald and its accompanying shopper North Country Free Press, and investing in a new printing press. The couple later bought three other newspapers on the verge of shutting down— the Range Times of Biwabik, Floodwood Forum, and most recently the Tower News.

Except for the Tower News acquisition, those debts are paid off, he said.

Albertson’s papers carry on the tradition of small community papers that report on the church bazaar and kindly gossip: For instance, “Newlyweds Jerrett and Becca discovered a nice big prime rib in their refrigerator this week, a wedding gift from the Heims.”

But Albertson, a staunch conservative in a Democratic stronghold, likes to spout off in his weekly editorial column with lines like “that den of idiots from the Kennedy clan.” “People love to hate it,” Albertson said.

The printing plant in Cook is an important pillar in the family operation. The papers wouldn’t survive “if not for all the jobs we do,” Albertson said. “Truth is this area’s not big enough to hold one paper.”

Curiously though, Albertson owns 46 percent of his arch rival, the Timberjay.

Timberjay Newspapers

The Timberjay has won numerous awards, including the prestigious University of Minnesota Journalism School’s Premack Award for a 2003 investigation into St. Louis County child foster care.

While small newspapers often survive by paying staff minimum wages, the Timberjay pays well enough to attract journalists from daily newspapers. Steve Foss, formerly with the Duluth News Tribune, edits the Ely edition. Tom Klein, news editor at the International Falls Daily Journal for 16 years, edits the Orr edition.

But it may be too smart for residents who are turned off by its liberal editorials and combative spirit. A typical editorial headline reads, “We won’t be intimidated into shirking our watchdog role.”

At one point Orr city councilor Jim Holman told publisher Marshall Helmberger, “You sure as hell can get in your paper and run people down. And that’s what we’re tired of…All’s you like to do is run your mouth and run Orr down.”

“(The Timberjay) started in an odd manner,” said Helmberger, a Bloomington native. The catalyst was Bill Arthur, an economic development volunteer in Orr who organized the first editions in 1989.

Local minister Art Dale put up $10,000 in seed money; Helmberger and his wife Jodi Summit assumed liability for the loan. They opened an edition in Tower and later expanded into Ely.

Ten years ago one of the minority owners sold her shares to Albertson, who paid $33,000, well above Helmberger’s $20,000 offer. “The next day he (Albertson) called and said ‘I’m shutting you down in a week,’” Summit said.

As it turned out, minority ownership has given Albertson little control. Albertson’s ownership “is a non-issue to us. It doesn’t affect anything we do,” Helmberger said.

“I haven’t made a dime,” Albertson said of his Timberjay investment. But he expects to reap a return when — or if — Helmberger and Summit buy out his shares.

In 2003, the Timberjay threatened to sue the city of Orr when the council voted to switch official newspaper status, the venue for publishing legal notices, from the Timberjay to Albertson’s Cook News Herald.

Helmberger argued the Timberjay, the only paper with a physical office in Orr, was the only legal choice. Ultimately, he withdrew the lawsuit due to the expense and moved the Orr Timberjay office to Cook, where it challenged and won official status from the News Herald.

Albertson and Helmberger agree not much money was at stake.

“Legals aren’t the business they used to do,” Albertson said.

Helmberger said the real issue was free speech— that the Orr city council was retaliating for the Timberjay’s tough treatment of David Dill, then Orr’s city administrator. Dill, DFL-Crane Lake, ran successfully for the Minnesota Legislature and is completing his second two-year term.

“The council’s retribution is not only a message to the Timberjay— it’s a message to anyone in Orr who might speak up against the petty tyranny that seems to have gripped the city,” scolded an editorial.

Voyageur Sentinel

The Voyageur Sentinel is distributed free through the mail and stores in northern St. Louis County, from Hibbing to International Falls. It’s largely the effort of Alice Hill, a former partner in the Ely radio station, WELY. She started it for “areas underrepresented in terms of news,” she said. She does most of the ad sales and writing, with some local contributors and reprints from the Christian Science Monitor.

The weekly started in 2003, but already it has the largest circulation of any single newspaper in the area, averaging 4,650, going high as 6,000 during the summer tourism season.

The Timberjay described the upstart as “started by Dill campaign volunteers shortly after the 2002 election.” The reference was a jab at Sentinel columnist Bill Arthur— the Timberjay’s founder.

A skillful cartoonist, Arthur once designed Timberjay t-shirts boasting “a new song in the swamp.” But in 2003 he drew a cartoon for the Sentinel depicting the Timberjay holding the city of Orr at gunpoint.

Helmberger responded with an editorial titled, “Bill Arthur shows his real stripes.”

Arthur said his work for Dill’s 2002 campaign is the source of his falling-out with The Timberjay.

In 2004 the state investigated Dill for exceeding campaign spending limits in the 2002 race, misusing Orr city funds, and for alleged conflict of interest. One complaint was that Arthur charged food for campaign workers to a grocery store account but those expenses weren’t reported.

After the 2002 election Arthur resumed his position as volunteer economic development director, the position he held when he helped start the Timberjay. The newspaper criticized his performance and for doing business for the city without accountability. Arthur complained to Orr’s city council that the city clerk had released his e-mail records too quickly to the newspaper, though she was required by law to release them.

The city council fired her two weeks later— three days after news reports surfaced around the state questioning Dill’s financial practices. They were based on information the clerk had released to an environmental advocacy group.

Ultimately, the state Auditor found no illegal action but criticized Dill’s campaign for sloppy bookkeeping and the appearance of conflict of interest. The clerk sued the city of Orr and won a $98,000 settlement in March 2006.

“A couple times he crossed the line,” Arthur said of Helmberger. “But it’s blown over.”

Arthur still professes admiration for the Timberjay and insists the Sentinel is not out to steal advertising from the other papers. “I think it’s great we have three different points of view,” he said.

Ely Echo

Ely often has supported two newspapers. The Echo was the upstart in 1972, competing with the now-defunct Ely Miner. It folded in 1986 after publishing for 91 years. The Timberjay expanded into Ely in 1996.

“There are very few of them left,” Echo co-owner Anne Swenson said of family-owned newspapers. “Everyone has to work hard. That’s life.”

The other owner of the Echo is her son Nick Wognum, who also publishes the Babbitt Weekly News with silent partner James Zupancich.

Besides the Timberjay, Wognum lists the Ely Shopper, Manney’s Shopper, Mesabi Daily News, WELY-AM/FM and Duluth radio stations among Echo competitors. It also has its own shopper, the North Country Saver. Like the Cook News Herald, the Echo also operates a printing business that helps pay the bills.

Digby, the UMD journalism instructor, said the Echo has “a strong connection with the part of the audience that doesn’t like the Timberjay. Reader loyalty is important.”

Unlike the Cook News Herald, the Echo is not the conservative yin to the Timberjay’s liberal yang. “Up here traditional political slants go out the window,” Wognum said.

An example: Widely-read outdoor columnist “Jackpine” Bob Cary — with the Echo since its beginning — walked out in 2003, angry with other members of the paper supporting an Ely city council resolution against the Iraq War. Cary returned the next year and continued writing until his death in June at age 84.

Gilbert Herald/Eveleth Scene

Two Iron Range town weeklies are owned by father and son team James and Nathan Krause. James, age 71, received a 50-year award from the Minnesota Newspaper Association last June. Actually he’s been at it longer: He started at age 8, when his father owned the paper.

He said the paper hasn’t changed much over the years, other than finally converting to computer layout earlier this year. “I went through hot metal to Compugraphics machines to this,” Krause said.

He said advertising revenues are shrinking with competition from the Daily News in nearby Virginia. The papers have responded with special promotions, such as back to school and fire prevention week. The papers are still delivered in the traditional method, door to door by carriers.

Krause won three first place state Newspaper Association awards for investigative journalism in the 1970s. Today the content is what Krause describes as “non-hostile” features. “We decided it was more about faces and kids,” he said.

(Richard Thomas was a staff writer for the Timberjay 1992-93.)