One Twin Cities neighborhood paper closes, others fight to hang on

Twenty years ago, it would have been tough to find a spot in Minneapolis or St. Paul where you couldn't get at least one neighborhood newspaper.

In most places, they'd land on your doorstep, full of news about that new building going up down the block, the nearby high school's basketball record, and, in one case, a detailed report of the birds spotted in a local park. The small publications were everywhere: A 1993 Star Tribune article listed 33 neighborhood and community newspapers, 20 of them in Minneapolis and 13 in St. Paul.

Today, that list has been cut in half. The latest casualty: Minneapolis' Uptown Neighborhood News, which distributed its last issue in June.

Like many of the other neighborhood publications that have folded over the last several years, the Uptown newspaper found itself left behind at a time when so many other options are competing for attention from readers, advertisers and potential contributors to the paper. While some longtime Twin Cities neighborhood papers are still thriving, many haven't been able to adapt fast enough to stay alive.

"It's just tougher for all media, and with smaller papers, when you're running on a really tight budget, it's harder to keep going," said Jane McClure, a longtime contributor to several neighborhood newspapers and the managing editor of Access Press, a newspaper focused on people with disabilities.

Local support

The Uptown Neighborhood News began publishing in 2005, following the end of another longtime neighborhood publication, the East Calhoun News. Like several other community papers, it was launched with the backing of neighborhood organizations.

When he started with the paper in 2007, art director Bruce Cochran joined an editor, two assistant editors and a staff member who did layout work, plus advertising salespeople who worked on commission. By the paper's end, the staff was down to one editor and Cochran, who also wrote, edited, sold ads and helped with distribution.

The paper distributed more than 5,000 copies each month to homes and businesses in Uptown. But with more and more of those homes turning into apartments, Cochran said it was harder to ensure the papers actually got into residents' hands. And he said the neighborhood's young population seemed less interested in pitching in.

"The neighborhood that remembers the paper has been very positive and really wanted to try and volunteer and help out as best they can," he said. "But I think the younger residents aren't as compelled to do that."

Cochran is now betting that those younger residents will pay attention to news online; he's starting a news and weather venture called minnyapple.com.

Other struggles

Other papers that are run as nonprofits, or offshoots of neighborhood groups, have struggled as federal funding rules for nonprofit papers have shifted. Some ran into trouble when they published political letters or opinion pieces, which is prohibited for nonprofits, McClure said.

Many have seen advertisers' interest drop off as national chains replace independent businesses. Those big companies aren't interested in neighborhood papers, said Michael Mischke, publisher of the Villager, which circulates 60,000 copies in St. Paul and some southeast Minneapolis neighborhoods.

"We had a very good advertiser, a small independent pharmacy on Grand Avenue, at one time," he said. "CVS went in across the street, bought their prescription lists and they just folded. You don't see a lot of mom and pop businesses starting up and as chains move in those businesses are not so interested."

The Villager maintains a staff of nine and a roster of a couple of dozen freelancers, but business is not what it was about a decade ago, when business was at its peak. In April, the company stopped providing health insurance for its employees. At another St. Paul neighborhood paper, Mischke said, employees are now all working out of their homes, rather than an office.

Rough conditions

The Neighborhood and Community Press Association, a Twin Cities organization that once had dozens of members and an annual awards ceremony, has been defunct for a decade.

"Generally speaking, I know the state of neighborhood newspapers across the Twin Cities is pretty rough right now," Mischke said.

But several veterans of the business are holding on, even if they have to go it alone.

Urban neighborhood newspapers blossomed in the Twin Cities in the 1960s and 1970s as a way to help organize communities, often around social justice issues, McClure said. Decades later, some of the people who started them are still manning the fort.

Harvey Winje runs the Alley, a paper that has covered Minneapolis' Phillips neighborhood since the mid-1970s. It's now an all-volunteer operation.

"They call me the senior editor, and that's not because we have five junior editors in the newsroom," Winje said. "It's because I'm 74."

At one point, the paper raised enough money to do investigative reporting on crime, lead pollution and discrimination. These days, the reporting is more straightforward and focused on community events.

A crucial void

Winje said he hopes the Alley will one day be able to return to more aggressive news coverage, but he acknowledges there's no specific plan for when he stops leading the paper. He and others said neighborhood papers fill a crucial void that bigger news outlets don't have the time or the resources to fill.

"We need to be able to tell our own stories," he said.

Across town, publisher Margo Ashmore is looking to sell one of the two newspapers she's run for decades: NorthNews. She said business is good — particularly on her other publication, the Northeaster — but she's too busy to keep both papers running.

A handful of people have already expressed interest in buying NorthNews.

Ashmore said she's optimistic about the future of that paper and others. Often, she said, she'll be surprised to hear from young readers that the neighborhood paper is still a must-read, even in print.

"Even though they're online all day they come home and want to sit down with a muffin or a beer or the cat and page through their neighborhood paper and just bump into what's going on," she said. "Anything that serves that function and has the financial formula to do it with, they will survive."

Erin Golden • 612-673-4790