International Falls Journal, 111-year-old paper, to shut down
The trend of vanishing newspapers continues in northern Minnesota.
The International Falls Journal, which has served the border town since 1911, will cease publication this month.
According to an announcement on its website, the paper and "will close all its operations at the end of June, with the last edition of The Journal published on June 24."
The COVID-19 pandemic played a major role in the decision, the announcement says:
Like many businesses this past year, the impact of the pandemic on The Journal and North Star Publishing has been dramatic. These challenges, when combined with other difficult economic trends, have forced us to make this difficult decision.
As CBS Duluth notes, the International Falls Journal is one of the only news outlets in the area.
Minnesota has lost other newspapers since the pandemic hit, including most recently the Southwest Journal, which closed down at the end of 2020 after serving south Minneapolis for 30 years.
Before that, Growler Magazine published its last print issue in August. In June 2020, two Iron Range newspapers merged into one, and the month before, the Duluth News Tribune trimmed its publishing days.
Other Minnesota papers to shut down last year at the height of the pandemic include the Hastings Star Gazette and the Bulletin of Woodbury and Cottage Grove, Lakeshore Weekly News and Eden Prairie News.
However, the coronavirus outbreak isn't entirely to blame for the closings — which has been a trend the past few decades. About 1,800 newspapers in the United States have closed since 2004, according to Penny Abernathy's research on news deserts.
