Six months ago RealStoriesNorth.com started as a place for regional reporters and journalists to find a different perspective on stories in the Northland. We noticed that the public was always being spoon-fed milk toast variety stories and wanted to give them access to the other side of the story – even if it isn’t as palatable, because our communities deserve to know what is really happening in our area.
We quickly learned that journalists don’t want to – or more likely can’t – report on the topics we were covering because their bottom lines are padded with advertising dollars from businesses and organizations that only wanted the fluff reported.
So our mission adapted: We decided we would cover stories that concern our readers and all those that live in Northeastern MN. Most of our stories come from suggestions by followers, business and property owners, residents, and community advocates that want others to be aware of what is actually happening in Duluth and beyond.
And it’s being well-received. We are blown away by the readership of our page so far – last month we saw over 20,000 pageviews.
We will continue to bring you REAL stories about the region and offer them for free on our website.
To help us with our mission we would like to ask a few things from you.
- If you find a story that you agree with, please share it through social and email channels.
- If you find a story that should be told, please send it to our website. You can write the story yourself as a community submission, or just send us details and/or photos and we’ll do the digging and write a story if we can find enough information.
- If you are able, support our page through Patreon. You probably noticed the new Patreon links on our website. Through Patreon, you can pledge a monthly donation that will help us fund the website, write more stories, gain access to more photos and videos, and advertise our site to expand the reach of our articles. (Find the Patreon link below! Recurring donations can be cancelled at any time.)
The vision of RealStoriesNorth.com is not just to provide real stories about what is happening in our region, but to inspire action in communities, as well as in local government, to make positive changes.
We are so appreciative of those who have sent articles, photos, and ideas – keep up the great work! And a huge thank you to all who have supported us so far by sharing our stories. Watch for more to come!