Fifty years ago — Aug. 1, 1965 — the DNT reports of a gambling raid in Superior that was “one of the largest mass gambling arrests in Superior that detectives could recall.” Another article, at the mid-right of the page, will raise eyebrows for its racially offensive headline, though such a thing was sadly common at the time. It is a story out of Americus, Ga., by the way, and not Duluth.
A while back, Harbor City International School Mathematics Teacher Jenny Ahern passed along to me a bound edition of Duluth News Tribune’s from August of 1965. Somehow the book made its way to the school, and the school didn’t have a practical use for it. Since we are now 50 years removed from the ol’ “Summer of ’65,” I’ll be posting some clips each day for the next month. Prepare for nostalgia.
Don’t worry, the Duluth News Tribune is still a thriving enterprise and the sign on the back of the building is holding strong. The visibility of the sign, however, is slowing diminishing as the future Maurices headquarters climbs skyward.
Close readers of the Duluth News Tribune’s online edition may have noticed that the site no longer allows commenting under any stories, and I think that’s been the case for several days. I’m not privy to the reasons behind the decision, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the comments they were getting didn’t add any value to the site. Quite the opposite, in my opinion.
The DNT isn’t alone in this struggle. Personally, I’ve never seen intelligent comments on a news organization’s website. I think it’s probably better for them to just stick to content creation and allow people to link to the content via Facebook or some other social site, and discuss the content there.
What do you think? Do you miss the comments or do you applaud the decision?
Author and former Duluth News-Tribune reporter Laurie Hertzel will be signing copies of her new book News to Me: Adventures of an Accidental Journalist at Northern Lights Books & Gifts on Friday, Nov. 26, from 1-2 pm.
The recent DNT endorsement of Chip Cravaack, a conservative Republican who enjoys a lot of Tea Party support, made me want to tap the PDD community for information and discussion of the DNT endorsements over the years. The Fargo-based, private company Forum Communications became owner of the DNT in 2006. Since then, the DNT and the many other Forum newspapers overwhelmingly tend to endorse conservatives and Republicans as a bloc.
What happened?
The News Tribune laid off two employees today, including education reporter Sarah Horner.
Why?
It’s a long story. And I’ll preface it by saying that while this comes from someone on the union side of the fence, what follows are facts that I don’t believe the company would protest.
Two more high-ranking executives in local media are out of work. Duluth News Tribune Executive Editor Rob Karwath and Circulation Manager Tim McLoughlin were laid off today. This follows the firing on Monday of Julie Moravchik, who was news director at Fox 21 News.
Duluth News Tribune Publisher Ken Browell released this statement:
Effective today the company has restructured management within the Editorial and Circulation Departments, resulting in the elimination of two management positions at the News Tribune. Executive Editor Rob Karwath and Circulation Manager Tim McLoughlin have been laid off. Both of these individuals have made significant contributions to the News Tribune during their careers. These were difficult business decisions. I will miss Rob and Tim both personally and professionally.
Just when PDD had gone a full month without a post specifically targeting the local daily newspaper, Business North coughs this up for us to share:
The Duluth News Tribune is seeing its readers migrate to the Internet faster than ever before. Paid distribution of its Monday through Saturday print editions dropped 15.8 percent from Fall 2008 to Fall 2009.
The Sunday edition saw a 13 percent drop during the same period.
Source: Duluth News Tribune Statements of Ownership, Management and Circulation
