The newspaper that started it all
More than five decades later, I am still chasing the same goal I had as a 15-year-old sports reporter in Cloquet. Earn the reader's trust. Everything else is just ink.
Howie
The AI detector economy is chasing the wrong story
Each innovation sparked debate. Each was accused, at one time or another, of making journalism less authentic. Yet journalism endured because the profession was never about the equipment. It was about the work.
Howie: Downtown Duluth's next chapter will be built with trust.
The first step is honesty. Residents already know homelessness, addiction and mental illness exist. They also know downtown remains home to exceptional restaurants, successful small businesses, major employers, recognized attractions, a spectacular Lake Superior shoreline and people who work there.
Don Ness and the reinvention of Duluth
Ness convinced Duluth to stop speaking about itself like a city waiting for the next economic funeral and start speaking about itself like a place with a future worth competing for nationally. Not perfectly. Not without backlash. Not without legitimate criticism. But undeniably.
Duluth's civic theatre at 6 and 10 p.m.
Unfortunately, the new currency of leadership is visibility. You’re judged not by budgets balanced or streets repaired, but by how many times your face appears on a feed. The ribbon-cutting is no longer the celebration of work done; it is the work.
Howie: Duluth needs summer more than ever
Duluth residents simply need this summer emotionally. They need concerts at Bayfront and families along the Lakewalk. They need baseball games, festivals and tourists asking directions. They need reminders that life cannot become an endless cycle of bills, politics, inflation, anxiety and survival.
Howie: Bayfront still may be Duluth’s best idea
Bayfront remains one of the few places where the city still functions the way a healthy city is supposed to function: as a shared public space where people continue gathering together because they genuinely want to be there. Every summer, Duluth remembers that again.
Howie: Jim Oberstar understood Washington better than anyone
Oberstar approached Congress differently. He understood it as machinery requiring relationships, technical credibility, negotiation and committee leverage rather than ideological performance.
Howie: The hardest truth after George Floyd
History will remember George Floyd’s murder for many reasons. Protest. Rage. Reform. Politics. Division. Reckoning. But the enduring question may be simpler. Did America merely react to what it saw? Or did it finally learn to tell itself the truth?
Howie: What Glen Taylor understood about newspapers that Wall Street didn’t
The question is no longer whether newspapers are dying. The real question now is which institutions survive the transition from industrial-age newspapers into modern digital civic platforms. And whether Minnesota’s largest news organization fully understands what it must become next.
Howie: John Fedo turned Duluth toward the lake
Modern Duluth continues wrestling with the same tensions Mayor Fedo governed through decades ago. Tourism success created new economic pressures. Summer weekends increasingly made portions of Canal Park feel disconnected from the working-class identity that shaped Duluth for generations.
Howie: Trump’s China strategy is not diplomacy. It’s negotiation.
America still holds enormous leverage over China precisely because the American consumer economy remains the most important marketplace on Earth. That is why this board concept could matter.
Howie: Why independent voices are winning local media
Readers today follow trusted voices first and institutions second. That is the modern reality of local media whether legacy newsrooms fully enjoy admitting it or not. The old ecosystem was built around control of distribution. The new ecosystem revolves around control of attention.
Howie: FOX 21 delivers a masterpiece inside Maurices
The feature arrived at an important moment for Downtown Duluth. Public discussion surrounding the downtown district in recent years has often centered on vacancy concerns, economic anxiety and uncertainty about the future of the urban core.
Howie: Reinert has failed Downtown Duluth
The library debate generated plenty of noise and no resolution. Skywalk conversations took up oxygen without producing a clear direction. The broader Imagine Downtown Duluth effort exists, but still feels like a $300,000 plan waiting for a moment when it becomes real in ways people can’t miss.
Howie: Arena Football One reports surge in early-season digital viewership
AF1 is a professional arena football league, the circuit of the Minnesota Monsters, focused on high-scoring gameplay and fan accessibility. Games are streamed live each weekend on the league’s official website, with additional content available across its social media platforms.