Note: Howie's daily column is powered by Lyric Kitchen & Bar.
The best journalism does not begin in a newsroom. It begins with trust. Trust is earned long before a reporter receives a press credential or a byline in a major newspaper. It is earned in conversations. It is earned by listening more than talking. It is earned by telling people what happened instead of what they hope happened. It is earned by treating friends and strangers exactly the same. That lesson has guided every column, feature and game story I have written for more than five decades. It was also the first lesson I learned as a 15-year-old sophomore at Cloquet High School.
My newspaper career officially began in 1971 at the former Cloquet Pine Knot, a weekly newspaper that gave an awkward teenager something priceless: an opportunity.
Editor Harry Lawrence hired me after my English teacher, Gus Gillespie, put in a good word on my behalf. I have never forgotten either man. Harry was willing to trust a kid with real assignments, and Mr. Gillespie believed enough in my writing to recommend me. Looking back now, I realize they were investing in someone they hoped would take journalism seriously. I wanted desperately to prove they were right.
Every week I wrote a local column and at least two sports stories. Those assignments became my classroom. There were deadlines to meet, facts to verify and coaches to interview. There were games to cover, practices to attend and notebooks to fill. I wasn't pretending to be a reporter. I was one.
The unusual part was that I also played on many of the teams I covered.
Today that might raise a few eyebrows, but in a small-town weekly newspaper more than a half-century ago, everyone understood the circumstances. Even then, though, I established one rule that I never broke. I never wrote about myself.
I certainly could have. If I scored a goal, got a hit or played well, nobody else was there to write the story. But it never felt right. The newspaper wasn't about me. It was about my teammates, our coaches and the community that packed the stands every week.
That decision probably shaped the rest of my career more than I realized at the time. The locker rooms became some of the most entertaining newsrooms I have ever worked in. My teammates never let me forget I was carrying a reporter's notebook.
"If I scored twice, am I making the paper?" someone would ask with a grin.
"You'll get some ink when you score a hat trick or go 5-for-5," I'd shoot back. The teasing never stopped, and neither did the laughs.
On bus rides home after road games, I often interviewed teammates while everyone else replayed the biggest moments of the night. Other interviews happened in our home locker room after victories and tough losses alike. The coaches were always generous with their time, understanding that even a high school kid was trying to tell the story accurately.
Those conversations taught me something journalism schools cannot fully teach. People open up when they know they can trust you.
They trust you to quote them accurately. They trust you to be fair after a heartbreaking loss. They trust you not to embarrass them with things that belong in the locker room instead of the newspaper. Like every reporter, I heard stories and witnessed moments that never appeared in print because they had no business being there.
Journalism is built as much on knowing what not to publish as it is on knowing what to publish.
That philosophy has stayed with me through every stop in my career, from newspapers and magazines to television work, college athletics, blogging and now HowieHanson.com.
Some people ask whether I miss the old newspaper days. The honest answer is no. I treasure them because they gave me my foundation. But I also believe this is the most exciting chapter of my career.
Every morning I wake up with complete editorial independence. I decide what deserves coverage. I write about the communities and people I believe matter. My daily newsletter now reaches a loyal audience that continues to grow, and the HowieHanson.com landing page has become the busiest front porch I have ever owned as a journalist.
After more than 50 years, I still feel the same excitement I felt walking into the Pine Knot office as a teenager carrying a notebook that was probably bigger than my confidence.
The technology has changed beyond anything Harry Lawrence or Gus Gillespie could have imagined. Deadlines are constant instead of weekly. Stories travel around the world in seconds instead of days. Readers consume news on phones instead of front porches.
One thing, however, has not changed. Readers still know the difference between journalism they can trust and journalism they cannot.
That is why I have never worried much about trends, algorithms or social media. Those things come and go. Credibility lasts. Accuracy lasts. Fairness lasts. Those values mattered in 1971, and they matter even more today.
Everything I have accomplished since then traces back to one editor who took a chance on a high school sophomore and one English teacher who believed that kid deserved the opportunity. I have tried every day since to justify their confidence.
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.
