Ramstad: This Minnesota newspaper only publishes good news. It’s growing.

GLENWOOD, Minn. — Minnesota is filled with terrific newspapers and local radio stations that bring their communities together, and one of my favorite things to do when I travel the state is to stop in on them, say hello and talk shop. My admiration for the people who work for them runs deep, especially because many labor under economic pressures — including shrinking populations, audiences and advertisers — that haven’t hit the Twin Cities as hard. But there is one newspaper whose audience keeps growing. Senior Perspective is an impossible-to-miss monthly distributed free in 3,200 gas stations, grocery stores, hospitals, senior apartment complexes and nursing homes outside the Twin Cities. The paper is thriving because of the huge baby boomer generation that has headed into retirement and because of a simple editorial choice: It’s all good news. Advertisement “We’ve heavily focused on human-interest stories. There’s no politics, and there’s nothing that’s going to ruffle feathers,” said Jim Palmer, the paper’s owner, publisher and editor. “Some of the stories are just tender, heartwarming pieces, and those get as big of a response as the lengthy features,” he said. That’s a big contrast to the sky-is-falling portrayal of the world that we all get from cable TV, talk radio, our smartphones and sometimes even the news organization that I work for. Most stories in Senior Perspective are about retirees who have interesting hobbies or are making a difference in their communities now. There’s a puzzle page, one or two pages of poems that readers submit and another page of readers’ photos.