Words I’ve been waiting to tell you

• Mike Creger

Mike Creger is the new editor of the News-Chronicle. Photo by Robin Washington

Talk about it

As much as I’ve enjoyed – love isn’t too strong a word, really – returning to the Chronicle as your interim editor the past few weeks, here are nine words I’ve been wanting to say:

The Lake County News-Chronicle has a new editor.

Mike Creger, who most recently served as editor of the Askov American and the Hinckley News, began on Oct. 12. He’s a solid journalist who also cut his teeth on daily newspapers, including the St. Cloud Times and Poughkeepsie (N.Y.) Journal. But he says he most appreciates the value, intimacy and immediacy that small-town newspapers bring to their communities.

“A local paper is important to the vitality of the community,” he said.

He ought to know. Mike’s first newspaper, the Summer Sentinel, had a circulation of 10 – all members of his large farming family in southern Minnesota. His idea was to sell copies to them (to raise money for a trip to exotic Duluth) by featuring important family news they couldn’t get anywhere else.

“We always had a feature on one of the animals, like a cat or a horse. The top story was always about what we did that week, baling hay or killing chickens.”

That got him hooked, and over the years, he said, “I’ve come to realize that a community paper is really a community conversation” — not unlike reporting news on your own family.

“Lake County is a beautiful place to be,” he continued. “It’s full of interesting people and things to do. I like to hike, go cross-country skiing and canoeing, and my plan has been to end up on the North Shore, so here I am.”

He plans a meet-the-staff night for readers in the near future – check for a notice in an upcoming edition.

But in the meantime, stop by the office on the almost-completed Waterfront Drive and meet him – to continue the community conversation.

Robin Washington is news director of the Duluth News Tribune and has spent a couple of stints guiding the News-Chronicle. He may be reached at 723-5301 or rwashington@duluthnews.com. Mike Creger may be reached at 834-2141 or mcreger@lcnewschronicle.com.