In August 2022 I was appointed the publisher of a group of three community newspapers, collectively known in Forum Communications Co. as the "Lakes Group." I hadn't been a full-time publisher in a number of years, but I saw an opportunity to return to working in the community newspaper space. And while the gig only lasted 10 months before an eventual company restructuring, it was one of the most rewarding professional stints I've ever had. Hats off the the staffs at the Detroit Lakes Tribune, Perham Focus and Wadena Pioneer Journal for welcoming this old newspaper hack for a great run!
April 5, 2023
By Devlyn Brooks
Newspapering can be a humbling affair.
Sometimes in this line of work you make the day of a proud parent who sees a photo of their child scoring the winning bucket on the sports page. Other times you give a new business owner a clipping to be framed and hung forever on the wall of their new shop. And, then there are the times that you publish a beautifully crafted obituary of a family patriarch or matriarch that family members will share all over their social media.
Those are the times you go home at night knowing why this career is so important and means so much.
And then there are the times that you look like a goat.
You flub up something, and there it is in print for everyone to see for all of eternity. Because, after all, the printed newspaper can’t be taken down and edited like the web version can be.
Times like when you transpose the names of two folks in a story, and magically transport one man to the southern climes for a winter getaway and drag the other one home from a southern vacation to accept an award at the Chamber Community Appreciation banquet.
If you aren’t aware by now, most recently that guy would be me. I am the one that made the goof in last week’s Pioneer Journal in a story about the Chamber banquet when I inadvertently placed Luther Nervig in Wadena holding a life-sized photo of Ron Greiman, instead of the other way around.
That lighter moment was one of the many highlights of the Chamber banquet night, and Greiman drew a large, collective guffaw from the 90-plus attendees. It was a hoot! He even completed the moment by asking emcee Brad Williams to help him roll out the photo stand-in of Nervig.
The two of them, and Dan Sartell jointly received the “Community Service” award on the night for their annual efforts to light up the Burlington Northern Park with Christmas lights.
It should have been a highlight for readers too who couldn’t attend. But then in writing the story in the heat of the moment, and trying to make the deadline the next day, I committed my flub. When I filed the story I thought it captured the excitement of the evening, and I was pleased with it. Until the next day when I was made aware of the error. Then I just felt silly.
As I said, newspapering can be a humbling affair.
In this day and age, we are lucky that with a few strokes on the keyboard, we can fix such errors on our website. And we did so quickly. But those errors will forever live on in the printed Pioneer Journal archive. It comes with the territory.
While I don’t have a lot of these such gaffs in a 30-year newspaper career, there are a handful of ones that stick out in my mind.
Thankfully, the readers of my previous publications have been gracious, and they’ve understood that we newspaper folks are humans. We make mistakes in the heat of the moment, in the effort to make a deadline.
I’m hoping that the fine readers of the Pioneer Journal will extend me the same grace.
Here’s a nod to Greiman for a great gag that deserved to be correctly recorded in the community’s annals of time!
Also here’s a salute to Greiman, Nervig, Sartell and all of the very worthy recipients of the Chamber’s Community Appreciation awards during the banquet. What an awesome display of community spirit!
Devlyn Brooks is the publisher of the Detroit Lakes Tribune, Perham Focus and Wadena Pioneer Journal, and their associated websites. He can be reached at dbrooks@dlnewspapers.com or at 218-844-1451.
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