Louise Oleson, DLJ editor
On Nov. 1 the Devils Lake Journal began its newest adventure with a brand new team of owners and a vision to provide the community with as much local news as is humanly possible given the present circumstances.
Most of the time I worked here at the Devils Lake Journal until my retirement in 2020 I worked for Gatehouse Media. During those years I made many friends among the Gatehouse Media staff and learned a great deal from them. I remember many times hearing that our little paper in Devils Lake, North Dakota was mentioned in their training sessions for other papers because we “did it right.” Our Devils Lake Journal and Country Peddler were successful local newspapers. With a little training we went from 10% to 100% in less than one month as they instituted the Inner Circle recognition of excellence in news.
The community we served had great affection, loyalty and trust in the newspaper because it was locally produced by people they knew and trusted. They could walk in any day and talk to one of us, call on the telephone to get their ad, wedding announcement or five generations photo in the paper. They would see us out in the community attending events, covering meetings and sports – you name it! This was our home, too, and it was our focus to chronicle the people and events of our time.
Here we are, full circle, after a number of years marked by a world-wide pandemic, different management styles and differing philosophical paths. It’s been a while since the Journal was locally owned and we celebrate that. Now we have an opportunity before us to make the Devils Lake Journal and The Country Peddler even better than ever. But we need your help to do that.
We are trying to increase staff to better serve the community, that includes writers, photographers and other staff members to help us in sales, circulation, customer service and business operations. We need you – your families, clubs, organizations and businesses – to send us press releases and photos that we can publish about all the good things that happen here in our community. We need you to buy ads in the Journal and Peddler. We need you to subscribe to the newspaper. The only way we will succeed at this venture – and I believe we can be even better than we were before – the only way we succeed is with your help!
For the time being we have limited hours that we are open to the public because there’s just a few of us here, but if you call, you will talk to someone here in our community who will do whatever they can to help take care of your request or question. Send your submissions to my e-mail loleson@cmpapers.com or call my cell number – yes, I have a cell number – 701-230-2651. Once we get the equipment we need to be fully operational – like telephones – the phone number here will remain the same – 701-662-2127 – and the address is 516 4th Street NE, Devils Lake, ND 58301. Keep all of that handy and help keep us informed of what’s going on around the whole Lake Region area and together we will accomplish what we’ve set out to do.
Copies of the newspaper will be for sale in the Journal lobby and in locations around the city as we can arrange with local businesses. We are publishing the Journal on Tuesdays and Thursdays with the Peddler coming out on Mondays. That’s about all we can handle right now. It’s going to look a little rough, at first, but it will improve, I guarantee that. We’ve done two papers already, Nov. 1 and Nov. 3. The second is a little better than the first and so it will be for all that come afterward as we get the people, resources and equipment we need.
Louise Oleson, editor, out of retirement for the time being and grateful for all your support and encouragement. Now, let’s get to work!
