The Pagan Newswire Collective – Minnesota Bureau is two years old!  The Minnesota bureau first posted Community Notes from TCPagans on July 28^th, 2010.

So how have we done?

Here are some of the stats for our first two years. We have had over a quarter million page views, averaging 250/day or 4000 -10,000 a month. Twelve of the last 24 months averaged over 7000 readers. On our best day we had over 28,000 readers stop by. We have written 488 posts, an amazing number in two years! We have tripled direct subscribers to 223, added 1800 twitter subscribers and another 750 who follow our Facebook page for posting notices. All of our posts get a fair reading, especially over time. We learned the power of Facebook when one of our top posts went viral on Facebook and we had over 45,000 visits in just a few days. I have to credit Cara for covering many of those stories which skew our stats upward. She has a long background in finding compelling stories that interest Pagans! As the editorial editor, I am really satisfied that over 25 of our editorial articles and interviews have over 500 views. Our content is used as a resource for other news and religious writers across the internet.

Who are our readers?

They are mainly Pagans. We have also built a national readership presence. We have been linked from both national sites like Newsweek online, and popular religious sites like Patheos.com . Each week we have readers from at least 75 countries, Macedonia to Mongolia. The USA, Canada, UK, and Australia which have an active Pagan base usually predominate, but we are read world-wide. 1371 readers have been motivated enough to add their comments to our articles.

Many area Pagans were skeptical about the idea of a Pagan news bureau. I guess it is a good sign when our readers began complaining about our coverage, and now complain when we can’t cover every story! We have  a dedicated domain name,  http://pncminnesota.com , and have added two great features this year, our Sunday cartoon by Shea Thomas and “Follow The Moon” astrology by Teri Parsley Starnes. We continue to expand our list of occasional contributors each year, Diana Rajchel, Tasha-Rose , and Kari Tauring now also contribute. The important calendar/event information from TCPagans and JRob Zetelumen has been with us from our initial post.

Happy Birthday!

An immense thank you, Cara, for bringing your journalistic experience and calm, objective views to our news reporting. Cara is also now the managing editor of the PNC national so she has added responsibilities within our news network. I want to thank all our contributors, readers, and commentors, for making this bureau a community resource with a growing role to play in service to our community. PNC-MN is an all volunteer organization, and has done an amazing job of getting the information you need and want out to you. Our expanding readership following reflects that we are covering the important news, issues, and people who affect our community. Your support and readership makes it all worth it!

THANK YOU!

Nels Linde   Co-Editor PNC-Minnesota