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I cut my teeth in journalism with a stubby pencil and a pair of CCM Super Tacks skates.
Sophomore year at Cloquet High, varsity hockey sweater on my back, Cloquet Pine Knot deadline in my pocket. Fifteen cents an inch, paid in nickels and pride. That’s how I got my start.
While my teammates were sharpening their skates, I was sharpening sentences. My first piece wasn’t about me scoring or leading. It was about the new rink, da Barn, a wooden shoebox that doubled as an endurance test and a community shrine.
That was lesson one: the story is never about you. It’s about the barn you play in, the characters around you, the life that happens when the horn stops. I learned early that humility on the page would carry me farther than bragging in the locker room.
At Wisconsin–Superior, the campus paper had gone dark. Nobody cared. Nobody even noticed. Except me. Lesson two: if you’re waiting for somebody else to do the job, you’ll wait forever.
So I dragged the thing back to life, practically single-handed. Wrote it, shot it, laid it out, begged others to join once it was rolling. Most thought I was nuts. I thought I was the only one awake. Spoiler: I was right.
Then came Twin Ports People. A free monthly tabloid, my baby for 19 years. Built in a basement, laid out on grid sheets, pasted up with the help of a wheezing Macintosh that should’ve been in a museum. I sold the ads myself, shot the photos myself, wrote the stories myself. Positive news only, because everybody else was busy chasing fires and obits.
The sneers came quick and often — “It’s not serious journalism.” “It’s too fluffy.” “It’ll never last.” Lesson three: never let the gatekeepers define your worth. The sneers were worth less than the paper I printed on. Nineteen years of readers proved it.
Then came the Internet. Legacy editors and television and radio general managers treated it like a mosquito bite — annoying but ignorable. They thought their presses and broadcast stations would last forever.
I thought: why am I paying to print, gas up racks, and chase bundles when I can hit “send” and land in inboxes before coffee? Lesson four: listen to readers, not executives. I asked advertisers if they’d move online. They said yes. I asked readers if they’d rather read in their inbox. They said yes. It was that simple.
And so, the Howie Blog was born — the first actual power blog in Duluth. No Facebook. No Twitter. No hashtags. Just me, a list of inboxes, and an audience hungry for something the dailies weren’t giving them: immediacy. Legacy editors scoffed. They sneered again. “It’s not real journalism.” “It’s just email.” “It’s not sustainable.” Same sneers, new decade.
Lesson five: innovation is invisible to those guarding the gate. They’re too busy counting column inches to notice the walls crumbling around them.
Twenty-one years later, here I am: still one guy, still no staff, two or three columns a day, seven days a week, an audience locked in and loyal. Meanwhile, the legacy media? Hollowed out. Copy desks gone. Beats slashed. Printing plants mothballed. Newspapers thinner than a church bulletin.
TV stations leaning on interns and interns leaning on Google. Radio voices replaced by syndicated chatter from a thousand miles away. The same folks who sneered at me are now clinging to buyouts and pensions, hoping the presses and stations hold until their retirement date.
That’s the ultimate irony: their arrogance is what doomed them. They thought they were untouchable. They thought being the gatekeeper meant they’d always own the keys. But arrogance is a lousy business plan.
Readers, viewers and listeners never needed their permission. They needed their news. Legacy media didn’t lose because of the Internet. They lost because they were too busy protecting their pockets, their perks, their corner offices, and their self-importance. Pocket protectors of their own bumbling, stumbling mediums.
I’ve learned along the way that the sneers never stop — not when you’re first, not when you’re stubborn, not when you’re still standing. But I’ve also learned that sneers don’t sell papers, or entice more eyeballs and ears. Trust does. Readers and listeners do. Consistency does.
And here’s the kicker, the part that really makes the media gatekeepers choke on their stale newsroom donuts: I’m not done. The Howie Blog isn’t the end. There’s another frontier ahead — bigger than this, bolder than this, something they’ll never see until it’s too late.
While they shuffle into another “future of journalism” panel in some conference room at the DECC, sipping weak coffee and mumbling about “engagement metrics,” I’ll already be there. Launched. Live. Connecting with readers in ways they can’t even imagine.
By the time they notice, the puck will already be in the net, the horn already blaring, the fans already gone home. Game over.
Lesson six, the last one: the gatekeepers were never the story. The readers, viewers and listeners are. They always were. And I’ve been with them the whole time.
