We’re excited to introduce you to the Cottage Grove Journal

Paperboy and Publisher

Newspapers are dead.

We’ve been told that story many times.

Don’t you believe it! Not for one second. What you are holding in your hands is proof that statement is false. Some newspapers strayed from the formula that makes a great local newspaper. They tried to take you to their website and then pondered why their circulation was decreasing.

That doesn’t work. It’s a flawed model. Here’s what works: Good old-fashioned community journalism, and that’s what we’re going to bring you, week in and week out.

We’re a small company, but we’re answering the call. We started out across the river. The roots of our paper date back to 1855 in Prescott. This year, we expanded our little Prescott paper into a void left behind by corporate merger after corporate merger. The Pierce County Journal is now Wisconsin’s fastest-growing newspaper.

We seized upon opportunity on May 14, launching the Hastings Journal. We’re humbled by the response we’ve seen, as we’ve watched it grow from subscriber one to a press run approaching 3,000 copies in less than five months. The Hastings Journal is Minnesota’s fastest-growing newspaper.

There’s no real secret to our success. We just do journalism like we were taught to. I grew up in a local newspaper family. My father Jim McLoone was a native of Waseca, and my mother was raised in nearby Janesville. They embarked on a journey that brought them to southern Wisconsin, where my father built a burgeoning local newspaper chain. He sold it and retired. He passed away in April at the age of 91.

What happened to his former papers is what’s happened to most local papers when they’re snatched up by Corporate America. They’re pretty much gone.

The past is the past, and we’re excited for the future. Cottage Grove didn’t work for the previous newspaper publishing company. We guarantee it will work for us. We’re excited for the opportunities to tell your stories, to watch your kids play sports, to sit through hours after hours of community meetings, to play in your parks and to enjoy your festivals.

We’re here to help. That’s our mission statement. If there’s anything the Cottage Grove Journal can do, please let us know.

We promise to work hard to earn your subscription to the Cottage Grove Journal. Please let me know what you think!

Email me at [email protected] Call me at 651-347-1623.

Thank you Cottage Grove!