Technology stands as the new powerbroker of the newspaper industry. A century ago, it was a man named William Randolph Hearst. Hearst controlled dozens of newspapers, ran in political circles and was credited, or blamed, for starting the Spanish American War.

He whipped up hysteria among the masses with the relatively new technology of the web press, a machine that could churn out thousands of newspapers per hour. America has always been about the masses, so if you can reach them, incite them, you’re likely to be influential, not to mention profitable.

Today’s web press is the Web — the Internet. Never before have newspapers been able to reach so many people at so little cost. The difference is, you don’t need millions of dollars to purchase a web press to reach the masses.

Fortunately, as a mass communicator, you still have to be relevant and interesting or both to have any influence. And if you’re not, there will be plenty of competitors out there trying to take your market, your audience, from you.

News on the Web

Technology has driven a lot of the changes we’ve made at The Free Press this year. In the early part of the year, we greatly increased the amount of news we put on our Internet site. As a result, our audience on the Web has grown by roughly 40 percent. Our Web site is now drawing 1.1 million page views per month.

We’ve done a number of things to accomplish this. We’ve put most, if not all, of our “breaking news” on the Web site before it appears in the print edition. If there is a standoff in your neighborhood between police and somebody wielding a shotgun, we will have something on the Web as soon as we know about it. That is usually within minutes of when we hear about it on our police scanner.

We continue to put just short versions of the stories on the Web, directing people to get the full story with the print edition. That’s in part by design, but also by market demand. We know people look to the Web site for quick information. We also want them to know about the great print product we continue to produce.

As a result, we’ve grown both our Web presence and our print copy circulation, a feat not easily accomplished.

We’ve used the technology of the Web to give our readers an audience more than we can fit in print. For example, it would be impractical to print the entire police log of calls for the Mankato area in the newspaper every day. They are, however, on our Web site in a format you can search.

If you want to find out if there was a police call on your street last night, you can just open the file, type in your street name under find, and voila, you’ll be shown the calls or lack thereof.

More photos

We’re putting more photos, in the form of slideshows, on our Web site. We’re adding pictures, video and sound. This year, one of our reporters, Dan Nienaber, produced a multi-media story from his trip down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. Our longtime award-winning photographer John Cross produced a mini-web profile of sound and pictures of a longtime St. Peter barber who was retiring. It’s a great picture story and you can still pull it up at www.mankatofreepress.com under Multimedia.

You can see the great photography of our award-winning photographers Cross and Pat Christman on the Web in numerous photo galleries.

Weather, Currents changes

The year brought a host of other changes, some noticeable, others not. The Free Press expanded its weather coverage and map to a full half page every day, color coded, with information on everything from local river readings, regional town forecasts and the best times to hunt and fish.

We restructured our Currents section starting in August, expanding the number of news and entertainment items on the front cover, re-focusing the content to entertainment, fashion, and other topics that may be more appealing to younger readers. We’ve taken some risk with the design of the section, and aim to surprise our readers from time to time with bold and sometimes edgy art and graphics.

Obituaries/regional

We’ve partnered with Legacy group to allow readers to leave online condolences and good memories to families of the deceased listed in our obituaries. It’s been enlightening to see how many friends and family share their messages online. These dispatches clearly add to the life stories of the deceased, written by people who knew them best.

Those messages are connected to our everyday obituary notices. As a result, obituaries continue to be the top viewed item on our Web site, garnering 40,000 page views a week, about 15 percent of the total.

As Mankato becomes a regional center, we’ve increased our coverage of the greater Mankato region, designated reporting resources to coverage of Waseca and Le Sueur counties. Our corps of correspondents provide us the news and features from Faribault, Brown, Watonwan, Martin and Sibley counties.

More world, more fun

We’ve expanded our reach into the rest of the country and world by subscribing to The Christian Science Monitor News Service, a well-respected journal reporting in-depth on world events and their meaning. We’ve also added Midwest regional stories from the McClatchy News Service.

We’ll continually be updating our Web site. Coming soon will be a “data center” where we will provide easy access to numerous public records sites for everything from federal spending by county to the most prevalent causes of death in each county. We’ll be developing in the year ahead our “Go Out Guide,” a comprehensive guide to restaurants, clubs, entertainment and eating in the Mankato region.

We look forward to going into the New Year as your partner to navigate a world more and more flooded with information. We aim to make it relevant to the citizens of the Greater Mankato Region, helping them discover the great place they live and helping them influence the world around them. Thank you for subscribing. You’ve made a good choice.



Joe Spear is the managing editor of The Free Press. Contact him at 344-6382 or jspear@mankatofreepress.com.