Residents Get Strong Response to New, Non-Profit Newspaper

By: While charges of U.S.-sanctioned torture and riots in Paris led newspapers around the country during the second week of November, folks in Atwater were reading about a $450 school levy hike and a friendly reminder about winter street parking regulations.

Small potatoes, maybe -- but a refreshing change after a decade with no local newspaper.

At a time when the newspaper industry is struggling for relevance in a digital age, a group of Atwater residents went in a different direction -- launching a nonprofit newspaper staffed mostly with volunteers.

"This past year has been an act of faith," said Connie Feig, a nurse and the chairwoman of the new paper's board of directors. "It's all come down to faith and belief in the community, and what it will support."

The Atwater Sunfish Gazette -- the name was picked in a contest -- published its first six-page edition on Oct. 12, and has put out two biweekly issues since. It's mailed free to the 1,100 residents of the 56209 zip code, bringing them the latest on a proposed sewer line, a local FFA Organization award winner and the Atwater Falcons football squad.

The town's last paper, the Atwater Herald, folded in the mid-'90s. The nearest daily, Willmar's West Central Tribune, is about 15 miles west on Highway 12 in west-central Minnesota, but it only covers the big stuff in this slowly declining farm town.

"It was really hard to get information about the school, about sports," said Laverne Pickle, a retiree and 50-year resident.

"What we had was posters on bulletin boards and announcements in the church bulletin and notes sent home with kids," Feig said. "That's how you got news around town. People were missing things unless the grapevine brought it to them."

The project started in the fall of 2004. A group of residents made lists of what was needed, gauged the support of local businesses and talked to industry professionals. None had any newspaper experience.

"We were really learning the business one step at a time," said Donna Detlefsen, another board member and an employee of a local grain dealer.

So far, the group has raised about $13,000; each issue has cost about $1,800 to produce. Office space was donated.

The only paid employee is editor Sandy Grussing, hired in September, who had edited weekly newspapers in nearby Renville and Olivia.

"I had always wanted to start my own newspaper, but I wasn't financially equipped," Grussing said. "This was the chance of a lifetime."

Board members and other residents write stories, sell ads, run errands and make coffee. Feig writes a health column. Margaret Weigelt, the local librarian, takes pictures. Other volunteers help proofread, paste up pages and design ads. The result of their labors goes to a printer 40 miles away in Hutchinson.

Board members said community response so far has been overwhelming and donations rose after the first issue. "It really makes us want to keep going," Detlefsen said.

After two issues of six pages each, the Nov. 9 edition had eight pages. Grussing hopes to go weekly in January, and plans are afoot for a second paid staffer.

Rick Edmonds, a newspaper business analyst at the Poynter Institute, said small weekly newspapers have been financially healthy in recent years even as their larger counterparts have suffered. He said he was intrigued by the nonprofit, community approach, perhaps something of a country cousin to the "citizen journalism" being practiced online by bloggers.

"There's always going to be a desire for that kind of micro-level news about your community," Edmonds said.

One question that's occurred to the Sunfish Gazette's board of directors is whether a newspaper that's a collective enterprise of a community can cover that community fairly.

Grussing said she doesn't feel constrained in what she can print -- but neither will she go out of her way to dig up dirt.

"We'll print the good along with the bad, without sensationalizing it," Grussing said.

In any event, small-town papers typically don't carry much investigative or in-depth reporting, Edmonds said.

"I suppose you might say a paper without hard-hitting news is better than no paper at all," Edmonds said.