The Metro Weekly

The Valley Midweek Marketplace is a free weekly shopper published in affiliation with the Fargo Forum.

Contact Information

Email:	vmm@forumcomm.com
Postal Address:	Valley Midweek Marketplace 101 5th St N Fargo, ND 58102
Phone:	701-241-5632 or 701-241-5539
Fax:	701-241-5497

Ancestry

The Valley Midweek Marketplace directly originated from the Midweek Eagle, a tabloid-sized free shopper published by Pioneer Press in West Fargo, North Dakota.

First printed in 1971 as the Midweek, it became the Midweek Eagle in 1972 when the namesake bird was added to the masthead. In 1979, the Midweek Eagle was joined by the Midweek Plus (the 'plus' being television listings, if I remember correctly), making the "midweek" a twice-weekly shopper. On 4 January 2000, the two papers were reconsolidated back into the Midweek, whose distribution date was moved to Friday, still not-quite living up to its name.

Affiliation with Forum Communications

In 2005 the Midweek was purchased, along with other Pioneer Press assets, by Forum Communications. After the purchase, the Midweek continued to be published and distributed without much change until the summer of 2006.

Integration with the Fargo Forum

In May or June 2006 the Midweek was revised from a tabloid to a broadsheet size, included the same Classified categories as the Fargo Forum, and the advertisements had cross-over possibility from the Forum's classifieds.

Editorial Control

The editor of the Valley Midweek Marketplace was originally Alicia Strnad, who wrote a column for the VMM and mirrored it column at her blog, the Blog Concierge. For part of 2007, however, there did not appear to be any editorial column or byline in the VMM, and the sparse masthead listed no employees in any sort of control of the VMM's content. As of August, 2007, Carney Joyce and Laura Stoneburner are listed as contacts for the VMM, but neither are identified specifically as an editor.

Opinion: Poor Internet Integration

While Strnad's columns once appeared as blog articles on AreaVoices.com, her column was apparently pulled sometime in April, 2007. Unlike most free shoppers -- which depend on the community's support and knowledge to survive -- the Valley Midweek Marketplace has no internet presence whatsoever. This Infomercantile page, and an article I wrote a year ago, are the only results in Google directly related to the VMM. Other original content, such as the front-page 'splash' articles, do not appear on the Forum's website or elsewhere within the company's sites. The Fargo Forum's classified rate page does not include any documentation on the Valley Midweek Marketplace. This poor show of support would indicate that the Fargo Forum provides little financial support to the free shopper beyond what the advertising brings in.

Strnad's connection with both AreaVoices.com and the Valley Midweek Marketplace would indicate an ideal source of free content to republish under the guise of amateur journalism. In rare cases, such as another article I wrote in the spring of 2006, AreaVoices.com blog content has been republished in the Valley Midweek Marketplace, but much of the paper's content appears to be purchased or copied from outside content sources. For example, the 8 August 2007 issue of the Valley Midweek Marketplace included a short article about the Fargo Walk Of Fame -- whose text was credited to roadsideamerica.com, not anyone affiliated with the paper itself. The neglectful lack of locally-written content, even on local subjects, is a significant yet correctable detriment to the VMM's value to the community.

While it would seem counterintuitive to publish an article available today online in next week's Marketplace, the audience that picks up and reads a free shopper is somewhat different than those who read blogs, exposing a wider variety of content to a larger audience than either shopper or blogging site can reach on its own.

In summary:

• Free content pulled from a pool of local writers, the majority of whom address local issues;
• Self-supporting advertising revenue that makes up the majority of the paper's content;
• The work of one or two editors, and a small number of advertising sales representatives;
• Integration of both newspaper readers and internet readers, who will use each part as it fits their needs;
• Backed by the resources of a large regional newspaper (printing, distribution, etc.);

Holds significant potential for a profitable combination of website and newspaper. It's too bad that Forum Communications ignores all of the above.

Disclaimer

I delivered the Midweek Eagle in the mid-1980s.