Something didn't sit right with Louis Hoglund. He slept on it, but when he woke the next morning, he was still troubled.
The managing editor of a weekly small-town newspaper in western Minnesota sat down to write a tongue-in-cheek column: "With deep regret, the staff and management of the Pelican Rapids Press feel obligated to report that the local newspaper is 'Anti-American.' " Several graphs later, he wrote: "True ... because Facebook said so."
Two weeks earlier, the paper — which has just four staff members — published photos from Pelican Rapids High School's commencement ceremony on its Facebook page. In a city with a Jennie-O turkey plant that for decades has drawn large numbers of immigrant workers, it was not unusual that the images featured several Somali students donning hijabs beneath their graduation caps.
A few days later, one of Hoglund's staffers showed him a racist comment left on the Facebook post attacking the paper for sharing the photos of the graduates and calling its coverage "anti-Americanism."
The Press removed the comment, and Hoglund chided its author in his column. At the end of the piece, Hoglund invited the Facebook commenter to write a letter to the editor and made a plug for Pelican Rapids' annual Friendship Festival on June 22.
When Hoglund's column was published online, it received nearly 100 comments in less than a day.
"Pride is probably the most frequent comment that I saw on Facebook," Hoglund said. "They're really proud of the community and how it's accepting."
Readers extolled the diversity of their small town of about 2,500, where residents embrace a melting pot of cultures.
