Change isn't the enemy. Complacency is.

If you read the above column from Teri Finneman, you're probably wondering why I published it in this newspaper. The answer is simple: while the Foster County Independent is the proving ground for saving local news, the New Rockford Transcript needs a reinvention just as much as the Independent does.

Change is not the enemy, complacency is. Something needs to change, and this newspaper’s publisher and staff will not be complacent.

As the publisher, I am fully invested in keeping this newspaper sustainable for decades to come, and I know that changes needs to happen now. Finneman knows firsthand what happens when a community loses its newspaper. In addition to her roles as professor and researcher, she is also a publisher. She is at the helm of a nationally recognized student-run news source called “The Eudora Times,” which she opened in 2019 after the community of Eudora, Kansas, had been without a newspaper for 10 years.

Through both research and lived experience, she discovered that community newspapers are one of the only industries in the country operating on a business model that hasn’t changed in 200 years.

The Foster County Independent is the only newspaper in North Dakota participating in this study, so we will write the playbook for sustainability that other community newspapers throughout the country can utilize.

On the other side of this experiment, I fully intend to make the New Rockford Transcript the second newspaper in North Dakota to implement this new business model. I'm the publisher of two community newspapers, each the official and only newspaper operating in their respective counties. It's going to stay that way, and through our work with Finneman I wholeheartedly believe that is possible.

The work begins this week, when Finneman will lead a focus group in Carrington and we'll begin gathering survey responses from Independent readers. Throughout the next six months, I will be writing about our experience in this space as we boldly go where no newspaper in North Dakota has gone before. I can't wait to see you all on the other side.