Rainy Lake Gazette is the start of something new!
“Were it left to me to decide if we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate to prefer the latter.â€Â
Thomas Jefferson
What is the Rainy Lake Gazette?
It is the start of a “brand new†newspaper servicing International Falls and Koochiching County. At least we at CherryRoad Media are hoping it turns out that way.
What you will be receiving in the upcoming weeks, maybe months, will be more of a shopper than a newspaper- but hopefully that will not last too long.
What we will need to do so, is ask for some help from you, the community.
What can you do? Please email information about vocational/college graduations, weddings, engagements, births, obituaries, church activities, birthdays, scouting, big fish pictures…community events. This is a community paper and as such, we need participation from community members to help start it off and succeed.
The goal is to grow a newspaper staff in International Falls, but until then, we will help from afar.
With that, we are asking for some patience. And we hope you are as excited as we are to create something new, a work that reflects your community, your area, and your values.
Best wishes always,
Brian Larsen,
Editor Cook County News-Herald
Please send all submissions to: ccnh@boreal.org
Who is CherryRoad Media Inc.?
Brian Larsen
About eight months ago CherryRoad Technologies purchased the Cook County News-Herald in Grand Marais. Just why a technology company located in New Jersey would buy a newspaper in northern Minnesota was a question myself and pretty much the rest of our community was interested in having answered.
In stepped Jeremy Gulban, CEO of CherryRoad Technologies to answer those questions and allay our fears that we were not being gobbled up to be devouredâ€â€sort of speak– by a large corporation.
“We made a decision late last year to look at the local newspaper industry because we felt there was a need for an infusion of technology from a supportive side as opposed to a competitive side.
“As a company, we have a lot of technology tools and platforms that we’ve built, and we want to bring them to the newspaper to improve the digital experience,” Gulban said.
One idea is to create an online marketplace managed by the newspapers.
That said, Gulban emphasized, “We want to keep printing the paper because we recognize that’s what makes it a newspaper. There are people who want to put their hands on it and read it.”
These comments were made recently to the Arkansas Press Association Publisher Weekly after CherryRoad Media acquired the Flippin Mountaineer Echo, the Marshall Mountain Wave, the Pocahontas Star Herald, and the Clay County Courier.
Gulban made the same promise to the Arkansas communities he made to the Cook County community, promising the papers would stay focused on local news, with local folks running the operations. With two local people already hired to work at the Rainy Lake Gazette in International Falls, Gulban is well on his way to fulfilling that same promise to your community that he has soundly fulfilled in Cook County.