Grand Forks Herald

[rep]

Word on the street is Forum Communications has purchased the Grand Forks Herald, along with Duluth's newspaper.

[point/center]

as you know. done deal. Aberdeen was sold today too, but not to Forum Comm

[rep]

i feel it only appropriate to que up the music from star wars when Vader enters a scene...MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[ndfan]

So will their be any changes made at the herald? Is this a good thing? Bad thing?

[rep]

http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/news/14764621.htm

Forum buys Grand Forks, Duluth newspapers
DALE WETZEL
Associated Press
BISMARCK, N.D. - Forum Communications Co. has acquired the Grand Forks Herald, a North Dakota rival, and the Duluth News Tribune in Minnesota, its president said Wednesday.

The Fargo company, which owns The Forum newspaper and other papers in the Dakotas, Minnesota and Wisconsin, announced it bought the former Knight Ridder papers from the McClatchy Co. of Sacramento, Calif.

The Grand Forks and Duluth papers "are each great newspapers, with a strong heritage of committed journalism," William C. Marcil, president and chief executive officer of Forum Communications, said in a statement. "They will fit well within our diverse group of integrated media properties."

Terms of the sale were not disclosed. Marcil and executives at the company did not return telephone messages left for comment Wednesday. Marcil met Wednesday with employees in Duluth, and planned to visit Grand Forks Thursday.

The Forum and the Herald are North Dakota's two largest newspapers. The Forum's daily circulation is 51,000, while the Herald's daily circulation is 31,000.

Mike Jacobs, the Herald's publisher and editor, called Forum Communications "a great newspaper company" and said he believed the new ownership would be "very, very interesting and quite a lot of fun."

"Part of me says it would have been better if we had had a separate ownership for these two newspapers," Jacobs said. "You've got to think that having separate business interests ... would have sharpened the competition. But there can be competition within companies."

Steven Johnson, a Fargo attorney for Forum Communications, declined to comment on whether the sale raised any antitrust questions.

Marti Buscaglia, publisher of the Duluth News Tribune, said she believed Forum Communications was "the best match for our company and our employees."

"It feels very local, and I think that's good for the community," Buscaglia said.

Sam Cook, a News Tribune outdoors reporter and columnist, said Marcil was upbeat at a meeting with employees there Wednesday, talking about the importance of a good newspaper and the need to invest in it.

"We were eager to hear that," Cook said. "There was no talk about any big changes in management." Buscaglia said she had been invited to stay on as publisher, and that she intended to accept the offer.

The Grand Forks Herald traces its Knight Ridder roots back to 1929. Ridder Publications Inc. bought the News Tribune in 1936.

Forum Communications owns 29 daily and weekly newspapers in four states, including the Jamestown Sun and the Dickinson Press in North Dakota, as well as television stations in Grand Forks and Fargo, a Fargo radio station, commercial printing businesses in North Dakota and Minnesota, an Internet service provider, and a Web site publisher.

The News Tribune and the Herald will be the second- and third-largest papers owned by Forum Communications, Marcil's statement said.

The sale includes a number of smaller businesses affiliated with the Herald and the News Tribune, including Agweek, a Herald agribusiness publication, and newspapers in Superior, Wis., Two Harbors, Minn., and Cloquet, Minn.

McClatchy recently bought Knight Ridder Inc., the former owner of the Grand Forks and Duluth newspapers. The company is keeping 20 Knight Ridder papers and selling the remaining 12. Grand Forks and Duluth were among the 12.

McClatchy owns the Star Tribune of Minneapolis, and owns newspapers in California, North and South Carolina, Washington and Alaska.

Jacobs and Buscaglia said the process of courting buyers, and waiting for a decision by McClatchy, had been nerve-wracking. Jacobs said he got little sleep Tuesday night, and called the process "difficult, and at times, excruciating."

Buscaglia said she and the newspaper's employees were frequently asked about their future.

"You're caught in a state of limbo. Everywhere you go in the community, people ask, 'Oh, what's going to happen to you?'" she said. "After a while, you almost feel like, 'Why does everybody think that something is going to happen to me?'"

[rep]

does anyone really care or have any concerns about the purchase? are there things that people think will improve with the purchase? is anyone worried about forum communications running the entire red river valley when it comes to daily print media?

personally i'm curious to see what happens. i'm guessing there will be quite a bit of sharing when it comes to records and scores and such things as there is no longer any competition between the two initially (gf and fargo), but i'm not sure if that will mean in the long run for competition between the two papers.

thoughts?

[ndfan]

Yeah I like the way the Herald covers sports around the area whether it be Pro, College, or High school preps they do a good job and hopefully it stays that way. Not much of a FF reader.

[rep]

personally, i think devillers is the best sports writer in the state. an absolute stud when it comes to dissecting games and putting together a story while properly balancing history with current events.

on top of that, he is a really nice guy.

[ndfan]

Speaking of DeViller I was just reading sioux sports a bit ago and his son Brian has meningitis. I think he played ball for UND. Here is the thread on more about it. Just keep Brian and his family in prayer.

http://siouxsports.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=6455

[rep]

i think it was brian that played in an amateur baseball tournament last summer at jack brown. big ol lefty slugger. he deposited one ball over the short porch in right at one of the games i saw.

hard to imagine a big strong kid like that in a coma...just doesn't seem right.  pretty scary stuff.

best of luck to him and his family.

[point/center]

In all honesty I can't figure it out. A school board meeting in West Fargo will be covered by the West Fargo Pioneer and the Forum reporters.

I know when Forum Comm towns such as Jamestown, Dickinson and Fargo need coverage at State Tourney--Minot--they'll each send a scribe. Does that make sound business sense? not at all.

Yes for the teams, players and fans its better to have your beat reporter covering the teams BUT it just doesnt make sense.


The arguement could be made that ND has too many newspapers. Similar to excessive universities, and government. A state population roughly half of Mpls St Paul but with all these daily newspapers. Does Valley City, Jamestown, Wahpeton, Devils Lake, Dickinson, Williston have the resources to put out a solid daily newspaper?

check out some of those and it's filled with AP and news release info. The actual local coverage is lacking. And that's what people need. How many people in Jamestown also get the Forum or Bismarck Tribune?

[rep]

I kind of took this out of order, and that is why i didn't just quote it...also, i have this really bad tendency to ramble when i'm trying to make a point and that point usually gets lost. this is long and if you need to use the bathroom, going now might be good for your long-term health.

--------------------------------------------------------------

I know when Forum Comm towns such as Jamestown, Dickinson and Fargo need coverage at State Tourney--Minot--they'll each send a scribe. Does that make sound business sense? not at all.

Yes for the teams, players and fans its better to have your beat reporter covering the teams BUT it just doesnt make sense.

i think that because its better for the teams, players and fans, that makes it a better business decision. if one reporter was sent to state and was responsible for covering stories for fargo, jamestown and dickinson, he/she would have to basically write three stories, more than likely on deadline. while that is possible, it doesn't mean that the stories will be any more than an extended roundup. also, there is a pretty good chance that if a paper didn't follow its local kids, parents from that area team would never forgive the paper and let them never forget it. and if someone is being sent to cover something for the forum, there is always the chance that person would do only as much as possible to get by and the story would contain as little work as possible.

In all honesty I can't figure it out. A school board meeting in West Fargo will be covered by the West Fargo Pioneer and the Forum reporters.

I don't understand the pioneer/forum thing. to me it seems like west fargo has a really strange complex about 'not being fargo' and i don't know anyone else in the area/state that cares. if i had to guess the pioneer probably has a good readership base or else they couldn't exist.

The arguement could be made that ND has too many newspapers. Similar to excessive universities, and government. A state population roughly half of Mpls St Paul but with all these daily newspapers. Does Valley City, Jamestown, Wahpeton, Devils Lake, Dickinson, Williston have the resources to put out a solid daily newspaper?

i can't speak for any papers besides jamestown and dickinson, but here goes. jamestown and dickinson both have a readership base of somewhere around 8,000. personally i think that would be a higher number if the papers weren't giving away area class b sports coverage, but apparently that is a misguided idea, because no one else buys into it.

i think that news coverage in a lot of smaller newspapers is dead, and the only thing driving readership is sports coverage. but it is something that needs to exist, because without some sort of checks and balance, i shudder at what police, city/county government or school boards would be like without having to answer to someone publically. but, i think that in smaller towns like a valley city, these groups probably don't have to answer to a newspaper. a vast majority of people (even in the business) don't understand the difference between journalism and public relations and i think that there has been a movement away from the former and towards the latter because of either laziness or because it creates less waves.

at the sun we have three sports writers (one for the college, class a and class b, and we all lay out pages) while in our news department there is four reporters, a managing editor, an assistant editor, a couple of part-time paginators and a couple of part timers that type of the death/birth notices and stuff like that. in our sports department, i think three people is a must. not only to break up the three areas of sports that we cover the most, but if somebody takes a vacation or heaven forbid takes a sick day in january, we still have two guys (well, probably one guy going to a game or something and one guy laying out pages) that can cover things.

in the end, a newspaper is like every other business and i always figured that if they weren't making enough money, cuts would be made so they would start making it. a newspaper like the herald has made repeated cuts to its staff throughout the last five years in order to make sure their stockholders are seeing the right amount of cash return. personally if i worked for a company where i was constantly concerned about coming in one day and being 'let go' i would go out in a ball of fire of explatives and throwing things as i explained to the superiers that i wasn't a good fit for a corporate environment.

check out some of those and it's filled with AP and news release info. The actual local coverage is lacking. And that's what people need. How many people in Jamestown also get the Forum or Bismarck Tribune?

taking my previous paragraph into consideration, the one thing that was hardest for me to accept is how much money does drive the newspaper world. how many pages are in a newspaper is often a direct result of ad sales and so i think that most times there are probably more ads than news in a smaller town. gets back to the money thing.

local versus national news has always been my biggest gripe about papers the size of the dickinson press and the jamestown sun. especially in sports. if a team is horrible (as has been known to happen in both towns) i would think that it only natural that kids from that team aren't going to get blow out coverage. but an awful lot of sports parents have become extremely entitled and demand it. some papers/people give into it, others don't. when pbk was going to state this year, i got emails talking about how i needed to make a bigger deal out of their team than other area class b teams because they were the closest team to jamestown. also, i was criticisized for not blowing up the fact that they were undefeated going into the district/regional tournaments. the worst part about it is that one or two morons often get lumped into the vast majority of people that don't irritate me. but the fact remains that a lot of newspapers will often write crap about a team that is taking away from a legitamate good state/national story and it will get play because 'it is local' regardless of its content. not a good thing in my mind, but something that happens every day. in our sports department we try to shoot for having something local on the front every day. this time of the year it is kind of hard to do, but we also have times during the year where there are four local stories on the front and we have one or two inside. the argument for uber local coverage is that people can go elsewhere for national stories, but they can't go anywhere else for the local stuff. true i suppose, but my experience is that only a small percentage will actually go out and seek that national kind of stuff and so essentially you end up slighting your reading base and turning them into less knowledgeable readers.  

at the same time, would the trib have cared that the central prairie girls basketball team nearly beat the maple valley team in the regular season when cp was struggling to stay at .500 and maple valley was making a push at an undefeated season? would fargo have cared that lamoure won its consolation semifinal game and then lost the consolation championship at the state baseball tournament, even though it was the team's first year of having a high school baseball team/going to state?

i don't know how many people get the forum or the trib in jamestown...if i had to guess there is a bunch on sundays. i can't figure out why the sun doesn't have a sunday edition...personally it irritates me. my days off tend to be saturdays and wednesday. but anymore...tell me a sport that doesn't utilize saturdays for regular season, district, regional and state games. personally i think it would make more sense to have a sunday paper and not a monday one (dickinson is set up that way). at the same time, i think jamestown's saturday paper is kind of the rest of the world's sunday. so if they can sell a lot of saturday papers and then people are buying the sunday forum...in a roundabout way i guess everyone is a winner.

anyway, i'm sure that if you have gotten this far, you like me, need a tall glass of water or something, so i'll shut up now. i can't even say if this makes any sense to me anymore, so i hope some of it can be used to make a point for someone else.

[point/center]

i'll agree it might not be best for fans. but reality check. i think its a long over due self correction.

rep:
i'll tackle some of your insight later.

fun dialogue. it is all good dialogue, even if we dont agree

[point/center]

I kind of took this out of order, and that is why i didn't just quote it...also, i have this really bad tendency to ramble when i'm trying to make a point and that point usually gets lost. this is long and if you need to use the bathroom, going now might be good for your long-term health.

--------------------------------------------------------------

I know when Forum Comm towns such as Jamestown, Dickinson and Fargo need coverage at State Tourney--Minot--they'll each send a scribe. Does that make sound business sense? not at all.

Yes for the teams, players and fans its better to have your beat reporter covering the teams BUT it just doesnt make sense.

i think that because its better for the teams, players and fans, that makes it a better business decision. if one reporter was sent to state and was responsible for covering stories for fargo, jamestown and dickinson, he/she would have to basically write three stories, more than likely on deadline. while that is possible, it doesn't mean that the stories will be any more than an extended roundup. also, there is a pretty good chance that if a paper didn't follow its local kids, parents from that area team would never forgive the paper and let them never forget it. and if someone is being sent to cover something for the forum, there is always the chance that person would do only as much as possible to get by and the story would contain as little work as possible.

______________________

My first thought on this. isn't journalism writing the facts? why should it matter if David Selvig wrote the story about Jamestown vs South for the Sun or Eric Peterson? should it matter?
In all honesty for the first round game of the EDC tourney how many of the 50k subscribers of the Forum even care? subtract MN, many WF, Fargo North, class b subscribers etc. It would seem the Forum or any other Forum Comm paper would be pandering to the vocal minority when the 'not enough coverage' complaints come in.

2nd on this topic:
Fans that care that much about the coverage were probably at the game.

I

[rep]

My first thought on this. isn't journalism writing the facts? why should it matter if David Selvig wrote the story about Jamestown vs South for the Sun or Eric Peterson? should it matter?
In all honesty for the first round game of the EDC tourney how many of the 50k subscribers of the Forum even care? subtract MN, many WF, Fargo North, class b subscribers etc. It would seem the Forum or any other Forum Comm paper would be pandering to the vocal minority when the 'not enough coverage' complaints come in.

I thought that journalism was writing the facts until the first time i wrote that some kid on the baseball team made an error. then you would have thought the world was coming to an end and i had caused it. i think it would matter if selvig or e wrote the story, because it will depend on the slant (the italics of this means nothing really, but doesn't the word slant look funny slanted?) of it. maybe selvig would play up that schoeneberg was tough on righties in the game where as e would look towards the next game more.

really, there isn't a wrong way to write a story, i think, because unless you are reading two person's stories, i don't think you are going to really realize what you are missing (or if you really start breaking down a story and even i don't have enough free time in the day to do that)

[rep]

there is a larger question here too, i think. what are facts? a kid/team may struggle, but am i going to say that in a story. eh...no. i don't feel like fighting that battle. but at the same time, then i'm not writing facts. it is a slippery slope.

[point/center]

but 'struggle' would be subjective. just write that little johnny had 3 erros in the first inning. the reader can then decide that little johnny indeed does 'struggle'
______________________________________

i love this game don't you?

[point/center]

In all honesty I can't figure it out. A school board meeting in West Fargo will be covered by the West Fargo Pioneer and the Forum reporters.

I

don't understand the pioneer/forum thing. to me it seems like west fargo has a really strange complex about 'not being fargo' and i don't know anyone else in the area/state that cares. if i had to guess the pioneer probably has a good readership base or else they couldn't exist.

THING ABOUT THAT IS WEST FARGO IS A FORUM COMM NEWSPAPER. BEYOND THE SUN AND DICKINSON PRESS. I DOUBT MANY SUBSCRIBERS GET JUST THE PIONEER. MY POINT IS GOOD BUSINESS WOULD BE SHUTTING DOWN THE PIONEER. NOT SENDING A REPORTER FROM THE FORUM AND THE PIONEER TO COVER THE WF VS FARGO SOUTH BB GAME. I'M NOT YELLING IN MY TYPING, JUST TRYING TO MAKE SURE YOU CAN SEE THE DIFFERENT RESPONES.

[rep]

i'm curious what the reasoning for the west fargo paper is, actually. i saw it once...they are more of a tabloid publication now versus the normal longsheet (which i actually prefer...easier to take with you places) and they can do a little bit different with layout in the way of it being more like a magazine (which i think actually looks better when you can combine text and photos a bit more) than the boring old newspaper columns and boxes.

change always seems to really make people mad. maybe it is like most things...the times changed and they didn't.

maybe there was more of a need for it when west fargo was seperated from the main fargo? i guess i don't even know how seperate west fargo is from fargo...do they have different mayors and city councils and stuff? or is west fargo basically just a 'technicality' for lack of a better word?

[point/center]

west fargo is as different as jamestown and valley city. mayors, police, fire everything.

the bizaree stuff is Forum still having offices in West Fargo for the Pioneer and Fargo's Forum Comm.

when you talk about business sense, NOT shutting downt the Pioneer is bad business

[rep]

unless they are making money...not a clue if they are or not. but i have to believe they are...i think it would be too easy to shut shut them down and perhaps absoarb their people if they were losing cash

[point/center]

One BIG difference in the past purchases that I just became evident is the Farmers Forum and GF Heralds AgWeek. Agweek actually has employees that live in Fargo. Why would Forum Comm. keep that? Would not make one bit of sense.

Just in the past week Forum Comm. KILLED the WF Pioneers old Midweek. Replaced it with the HUB. So any "no changes" mantra should be taken with a grain of salt.

[flatlander]

There are two ways the Herald will not change. First, the GFH will still read like a UND newsletter. Second, they'll stand firmly behind their editorial positions that both NDSU and Fargo are Great Satans. Heck, that's their whole schtick. I don't see why Forum Communications would want it any other way - folks who get the Herald eat that stuff up.

I can see two things changing for the better. One, they should get a better website. Two, if Marcil has any say, the GFH will start sounding a little more like the Forum in regards to economic development (the Forum reads like a newsletter for the Fargo-Moorhead Chamber of Commerce).

Marcil is a big booster of local businesses and the private sector. The GFH? Their stand on economic development is three-fold. First, they want more tax dollars flowing into Grand Forks. MORE! MORE! MORE! It doesn't matter what it'd be used for, GF needs more tax money! Now! Two, they want a Starbucks or Krispy Kreme or whatever chain the newsroom guys saw in their last trip to a city. Three, they want to transform Grand Forks into a tourist mecca.

Sure, Fargo is kinda the same way, but the Forum is a big booster of the private sector. Grand Forks desperately needs a private sector that generates wealth instead of private sector that merely serves a bunch of government-paid employees. However, the Herald has never shown any interest beyond, "Fantastic! Krispy Kreme! We're just like Minneapolis now!"

If Grand Forks doesn't want to continue shrinking, they've got to change that whole mindset - and the Herald would do well to do their part. Bah! Tourist destination? You know where tourists come from? Places with private sectors, that's where. Would you rather live someplace where you have a good job and take vacations or live in a place where the powers that be want you to work as a paid servant to people with real jobs?

Thus endeth the rant :) 

[deere]

Brian DeVillers is my cousin and hes doing better now. Slurs his words a little but other then that hes doing well. They say its gonna take 6-9 months for a total recovery from having bacterial menigitis. Hes been keeping himself occupied watching the college world series and many other baseball games. 

[flatlander]

Man, that is FANTASTIC news! Bacterial meningitis is a scary deal.