Proprietor offers Minnesota paper free to new owner so he can fight in Ukraine

‘To put out a good newspaper, they have to do what I do … work seven days a week and never take time off,’ said Lee Zion, owner of Lafayette Nicollet Ledger. Photograph: Donald Pye/Alamy

For most newspapers, a subscription rate of 100% of the residents in their distribution area would be a success so huge as to be unimaginable. But Lee Zion, whose tiny Lafayette Nicollet Ledger reaches all 500 people in the tiny Minnesota town of Lafayette, says he is throwing in the towel – because he wants to fight for Ukraine.

Zion is offering to give away the weekly publication, which is profitable and free of debt, before he goes off to fight against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Zion, 54, bought the Ledger four years ago for $35,000, after working in journalism for decades.