Local newspaper closing in International Falls

Another small Minnesota border town is about to lose its local newspaper.

The last edition of the International Falls Journal will be published June 24, according to a post on the paper's website. "Like many businesses this past year, the impact of the pandemic on the Journal and North Star Publishing has been dramatic," the statement said. "These challenges, when combined with other difficult economic trends, have forced us to make this difficult decision."

Messages to MediaNews Group, which bought the Journal in February 2020, were not immediately returned.

"It's disappointing," said Tricia Heibel, president of the International Falls Area Chamber of Commerce. The community has had a newspaper since 1903, she said.

As other small-town newspapers have closed over the last decade, Heibel knew her town's paper likely was on borrowed time. "But when it happens, it's still a bit shocking," she added.

In 2010, the paper went from publishing a print edition five days a week to two days. It dropped to once a week in the last year, Heibel said.

"This is another marker of the reality that our community, like other rural communities, is shrinking," Heibel said. International Falls, with a population that has dipped below 6,000, is trying to fire up economic development to combat its population loss, Heibel said.

Now she and other community leaders will try to figure out how to fill the void when the Journal stops publishing. The local paper is where residents turn to get news about their local government, schools and businesses. It's also the place they turn to learn about births, deaths and marriages as well as job postings and garage sales, Heibel said.

Along the Minnesota-Canada border, the Warroad Pioneer closed in 2019. The Roseau Times-Region still publishes under a local owner.

Mary Lynn Smith

The Willmar Area Community Foundation has awarded a $20,000 grant to Project Turnabout's addiction recovery center.

Under construction with completion expected in the fall, the center includes a 16-bed women's residence, an outpatient center and staff offices. Project Turnabout's Willmar campus also includes Cheri's Place, a sober-living home; the Alcove, a meditation space refurbished from the historical Gabbert House, and a townhouse complex for recovering women pursuing higher education or vocational training.

john Reinan