
Kyle G. Horst, Managing Editor, Watertown Current
The Watertown Current is a groundbreaking endeavor: the city hasn’t had two newspapers run concurrently for decades, but we are strapped in and voraciously running around the county covering everything we can get our hands on.
In the last week, we published continuing coverage of Watertown High School’s homecoming and their win over the Mitchell Kernels, new drainage projects around town, a school bullying incident in Henry, new proposed flood maps around Lake Kampeska (and the city as a whole), along with our first civil servant spotlight.
We also solidified our first press date—for those that have subscribed to our print product, the inaugural edition will arrive in your mailbox on Friday, Oct. 11 (for local residents). The newspaper will be printed in Aberdeen, and the staff of the Current will be on site for the first press run and in turn, we’ll post photos and video of the process upon its completion.
Looking ahead, we hired our first county news reporter, JT Fey, to cover county commissioner meetings, elections, and other pertinent county news. We are also in the process of adding a few new facets to our coverage: editorials, real estate transfers, and crime logs will be added to our folio over the next few weeks.
On another note, beginning today, more and more of our articles will be behind paywalls. This is a calculated move, but not one against our readers. A free press isn’t free, it takes subscribers, supporters, and community dollars to fund our work to pay local journalists to do local work. Every member of our staff is a Watertown resident and we dedicate every working hour to serving our community in order to create a better informed resident. We give our gratitude to Office Peeps, the Watertown Community Foundation, Turbak Law, the Chamber of Commerce, Lake Area Technical College, the Goss Opera House, Professional Hearing Services, and Prairie Lakes Healthcare System for being early supporters and getting us off the ground.
But don’t fret, even though our online daily news products will be paywalled, the print edition will be available for free at high traffic areas around town like the library, schools, Prairie Lakes Ice Arena, Watertown Brewing Company, and of course our physical office off Kemp in downtown Watertown.
We encourage you to jump on board with us and support our cause as we look behind walls, draw closer, and to ultimately find each other and to feel. That is the purpose of the Current, to find not necessarily what is popular, but to find the unknown…the good in our community, and let it be known.