Things you didn't know about this "news enterprise"

There's still a lot of gnashing of teeth about the future of newspapers out there.

Explaining our emerging new modes of operation in my social gatherings, I find people terribly out of the loop on what newspapers are doing that's new.

That's partly, perhaps mostly, our own fault.

First let's re-describe ourselves as "news enterprises" as the "paper" part is becoming less and less significant.

As a news enterprise we now:

1. Can link you and get you to all manner of news via the website, including hourly weather forecasts for Mankato or a specific GPS location in Mankato. You want the weather forecast for Franklin Rogers Park, we can provide you the easy tool to find it.

2. Can connect you to friends and neighbors engaging in enlightening discussion through our forums or chatting on our FACEBOOK site. The Free Press now has 1200 Facebook fans, who post their ideas, and especially their storm photos. We can put those photos up on a rotating widget on our website.

3. Help you to influence city hall or county board in a number of ways. You don't like something city hall's doing, you can write a letter to the editor that will, at no cost to you, go out to 60,000 readers. We still are among the few news enterprises who actually accept letters to the editor and have them reviewed before they are published by a professional editor who, incidentally requires, letter writers to provide sources for facts not generally known. Find that service on a ragtag blog or website.

4. You can interact with some dozen or so Free Press staffers who regularly write about what they do, their hobbies or what they think through our blogs.

5. You can interact with those in power by pointing out civic problems that need correcting. A interactive pothole map we posted on our website this spring garnered some 300 participants pointing out the worst potholes to Mankato City Hall. City Hall officials monitored the site and fixed the potholes. Wow.

6. Want to know monthly crime statistics for Mankato? We've posted the regular report under our police logs category.

7. This news enterprise is currently producing two magazines that according to our readers are top notch and over the top. Mankato Magazine and Minnesota Valley Business Journal are keeping people having fun and in the loop.

8. Newspapers still hire skilled reporters who are critical thinkers and can question officials and hold them accountable. Those officials don't always like it and many threaten retribution, but we take the job seriously. Bloggers, number one, often don't have the credibility to get an official to call them back, and two, they don't have the power of publicity that comes with working for an organization able to print 20,000 editions at midnight and get them on the street by 6 a.m. 7 days a week, 364 days a year.

9. Newspapers can cast public shame and the spotlight on corrupt public officials. We can call them out and write editorials about their chicanery. It often works and works pretty well to get someone fired or defeated in an election

10. The news enterprises of today still attract honest people who want to help a democratic system work. It doesn't work without good information. It's one of the few industries that still attracts a lot of smart people who are not motivated by seeing how much money they can acquire.