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There’s a moment, if you stay in this business long enough, when the questions start to turn back on you. Not the ones you ask city hall, or the school board, or the coach who just blew a two-goal lead on a Tuesday night in January. Those have always come easy.
I’m talking about the quieter question. The one that sits there after the story is filed, after the traffic numbers roll in, after the emails slow to a trickle: What, exactly, do the readers want now?
For more than 50 years, I’ve made a living — and, truth be told, a life — out of not asking that question directly. You write. You observe. You show up. You write what matters and trust that the audience will follow if you’re honest enough and stubborn enough to keep going.
That approach built something here. It carried me through decades of box scores and breaking news, of school board agendas and small-town press releases that most people skipped but someone, somewhere, needed to see in print. It was never glamorous work, but it was necessary work. And necessary work has a way of finding its audience over time.
In those early years, the mission was simple: cover everything. If it happened in the community — a Friday night football game, a city council vote, a nonprofit fundraiser — it had a place. Not because it would drive clicks, but because it mattered to someone. That was enough.
Then something shifted.
Maybe it was the growth of the site. Maybe it was timing. Maybe it was a readership that didn’t just expand but multiplied — tenfold, at least — bringing in new eyes, new expectations, and, frankly, new pressure.
And somewhere in that stretch, I started to lean into something I had mostly kept in the background for decades: opinion.
Not hot takes. Not cheap shots. But perspective. Context. The kind of writing that doesn’t just tell you what happened, but what it might mean — and why it should matter.
Those columns found an audience, too. A strong one. Sometimes louder. Sometimes more divided. But engaged in a way that straight reporting rarely is anymore.
Which brings me back to that question. For the first time in a career that has stretched across five decades, I’m asking it out loud: What do you want more of?
Do you want the sports columns — the game stories, the features, the kind of coverage that treats a high school rink or field like it still matters, because it does? The kind of writing that understands that in Minnesota, sports aren’t just games. They’re community glue.
Do you want more opinion — more columns that step back and take a harder look at where things are headed, whether it’s downtown Duluth, local schools, or the way decisions get made when nobody’s paying close attention?
Or do you want a balance? A little of both, the way this space has always lived — one foot in the press box, the other in the middle of the public square.
I’ve spent most of my career deciding that mix myself. Some weeks heavier on sports. Some weeks driven by news. Occasionally, when something demanded it, a column that pushed a little harder than usual.
But the truth is, this isn’t a one-way street anymore. The rapid readership growth of this platform — and the loyalty that’s come with it — has changed the equation. You’re not just readers. You’re participants in what this has become.
So I’m asking. Not because I don’t have opinions. Not because I don’t know how to cover a game or chase a story. But because after 50 years, the only thing that still matters is whether the work connects. And the best way to make sure it does is to listen — even now. Especially now.
Send a note (email me). Leave a comment. Tell me what you’re reading, what you’re skipping, what you want more of and what you’ve had enough of.
I’ll still do the job the same way I always have — showing up, paying attention, and writing it straight.
But this time, I’m handing you the chalk for a moment. What should the next 20 years look like?
