Morris newspaper on seeming life support?

I have a journalism compatriot from Central Minnesota, who is what deceased radio personality Steve Cannon would call an "ink-stained wretch." He puts out a newspaper product. An ever more daunting task, it seems. But my friend rolls up his sleeves and waxes determined and optimistic. His philosophy is the polar opposite of the corporate "chain" newspaper. Ahem, that's what we have here in Morris MN.
Our paper is owned by the Forum out of Fargo ND. My compatriot calls this outfit the "Fargo Fool'Em" (based on "Fargo Forum," rimshot). The Forum unsuccessfully tried getting Jeff Johnson elected our governor last fall. I didn't see the official endorsement piece in the Morris print paper. I pay some attention to the paper, mostly at our wonderful library, but I don't make a passion out of it. I wouldn't want to take the trouble.
The Morris paper is in the rear view mirror in my life. I worked there 27 years including a stint of 15 with the Hancock paper. Truly this was the heyday of print. I drove the van. I even mowed the grass east of the building. I did that the way Howard Moser once did: shirtless and with a bandana.
 
Typical slump, and then what?
We expect the Morris paper to be thinner after the holidays. That expectation was met in spades this past Saturday. We got the tiny Morris paper and tiny Canary. So each year we wonder to what extent our community papers can actually rebound after the holidays. What would the rebound to normality look like now? I mean, the norm is so much smaller now than when I was a fixture in print here.
Holy mackerel, the Morris paper is once a week not two, the free Ad-Viser is gone, and the Hancock Record has assumed room temperature.
We reminisce. I can hardly believe how hard I once worked. If I were to produce the standard two sports pages for the Hancock Record today, collecting the information as with phone interviews, writing the articles, going to one or two games for photos and doing the layout and proofreading, it would knock me out. I can hardly conceive of it. And to think this project would have been just part of my weekly work routine.
You might see me around town dropping off paper bundles Wednesday night. I'd be out and around on Thursday doing newsstand collections with my clipboard. I remember friend Phil Drown, now in Alexandria (OK, part of the exodus to "Alec") saying at the time of my departure from the paper, it'd be a shock to the community not seeing me out and around anymore. Indeed I'm sure there was an adjustment. It has now been 12 years.
Many newcomers to Morris like with UMM cannot conceive of me being a sweaty workaholic type at all, rather their image of me gravitates to the opposite. I float around with little seeming purpose, other than I have been fortunate enough to contribute a generous amount of money to UMM music. Perhaps with more to come. So, I'm just a benefactor?
I do miss the days when my resilience in the workplace was my personal template. Oh, and I'd shovel snow in front of the Sun Tribune at its old location. I often worked so late into the night or into the next morning, such behavior would get me dubbed nuts today. But today, the paper has shrunken so drastically, no one would need to knock themselves out getting it done, n'est-ce pas? Well, I did. Museum, take note.
Killing the Hancock Record was not something the "Fargo Fool'Em" had to do. My Central Minnesota friend/compatriot informs me that the last circulation figure reported for the Hancock paper was 784. "Remember that for posterity," he told me, "as I don't know if Hancock will ever have its own newspaper again." He continued: "At the same time, the Morris Sun Tribune had reported circulation of 2,946."
Let's weigh the numbers. The Morris and Hancock papers merged. It's the "Stevens County Times" although I'm sure "Sun Tribune" keeps on just like "the Villa" for the nursing home. It's a small town trait: sticking to old terms. Can we assume that a good portion of the 750-plus Hancock Record subscribers were not subscribing to the Morris paper near the end of the Record's life?
"So, they managed to merge 784 subscribers and 2,946 subscribers (approximate, as those numbers each also include newsstand sales), and as of 2018 their circulation average was hovering under 2,100?"
More: "I would not be surprised if they are mailing out well below 2,000 every Saturday."
My friend asserts that the Morris paper has not reported its October 2018 audited USPS circulation figure. "That, my friend, is the definition of a newspaper that is literally imploding upon itself," he says. (I'm withholding his name to protect the innocent, LOL.)
"They are in big trouble," he asserts. "I just don't see how the Fargo Fool'Em outfit can justify keeping even half of their current staff in Morris."
 
A personal bump in road
The wellspring of my work at the paper was never circulation or profits, though if I had my life to live over, I'd pay more heed. I attended a state college in the mid-1970s, a weird time when it seemed we felt we had to apologize for living in a capitalist nation. I exaggerate not at all.
I got caught up in the passion of journalists doing exposes and revealing wrongdoing, an outgrowth of the Watergate cancer in our nation. That cancer was probably begat by the Vietnam war which begat a whole sewer of "malaise," as Jimmy Carter would say. (I guess that was an interpretation and he never actually said it? A paraphrase as it were?)
Lest you be skeptical, let me point out that around the year 1980, a sportswriter had to wrestle with his conscience over whether to refer to a facility like Target Center as "Target Center," because that was a plug! A plug for a private business! Lordy! Patrick Reusse of the Star Tribune has reflected on those times in our craft.
It is fine to embrace capitalism and the profit motive vis-a-vis fundamental ethics, of course. We came to our senses for a new age. But let's not forget the earlier, quite cynical phase which got imbued in many of us for a time. It took lots of cynicism to peel through the layers of deceit and criminality that Richard Nixon and his tribe foisted on us. My father always said he got comments about how he resembled Spiro Agnew. An unfortunate similarity as it turned out.
I did not see a Morris newspaper staff photo as a Christmas greeting, not in the (tiny) Christmas greeting edition or in the regular paper. I wondered if this is a sign of something drastic coming. But maybe it wouldn't be such a shock for the Morris paper to just disappear. In some ways this would come as a relief. No more worry for us "getting our name in the paper" for getting a minor traffic citation. We could just take care of those fines without worry of getting harassed or teased like at church. Ah, there's a million stories in the naked city.
The old Sun Tribune building came to be occupied by Morris Community Church, which then bit the dust. And, Prairie Pioneer Days as we've known it has bitten the dust. Why hasn't there been more development along the new service road on the north end of town? What are the odds of such development in this age where there is a rapid retreat from bricks and mortar businesses?
Why can't Morris get another restaurant? Why don't we have a nice standard main street diner? What is to become of us out here on the prairie? Will we all just have to depend on the Apostolics? It used to be UMM, now it's the Apostolics.
A circulation figure for the Willmar paper from several years ago, exact year not certain, sorry, is 16,516. Today it's 9,132. The "Fargo Fool'Em" canceled Willmar's Monday print edition and blamed President Trump's tariffs.
A wrap-up thought from my Central MN compatriot, received after I completed the draft for this post:
 
Hear that sound? That's the sound of death coming to more newspapers. I say that as a newspaper owner myself who knows that nothing is promised to me. Someday I may be publishing out of our home's basement if I have to shed costs and close my main street office building. Who knows?
 
The image to sock away
I don't think the image of me mowing shirtless and with bandana is consistent with the kind of image the Apostolics want. Close your eyes and imagine the days when you'd see yours truly out and about, indefatigable. Yes, indefatigable. Gone with the wind.
My Central Minnesota friend concluded a recent email to me: "Keep up the marvelous blogging on your end!" Yes I am still a relevant journalist. I can do it in my pajamas.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com