Challenges force newspaper changes
Most, if not all, of you are aware of the challenges the newspaper industry has faced, particularly over the last 15 years.
The headwinds we face are relentless, and as a business we must adapt for our survival so we can continue to serve our readers and advertisers. Without local journalism, communities – particularly community governments – fall into disarray, get lazy and inevitably find themselves traipsing down unsavory paths of deceit and corruption.
To keep viable your best source of local journalism that is more than 30-second snippets and headlines, The Times-News will change its publishing frequency to Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday beginning with the Feb. 28 edition. Additionally, all delivery will convert to the U.S. mail, with virtually all of it same-day delivery, though some subscribers on the edges of our delivery area may experience occasional delays.
Our industry faced plenty of challenges prior to the pandemic. But once COVID-19 came along those challenges worsened and others surfaced. Most notably our expenses skyrocketed.
Newsprint, ink, press plates and, yes, labor (including insurance) costs have collectively increased well over 20%. We held the line as long as we could. We held off cutting more print days as long as we could.
But to continue to deliver a sustainable news product for the Alamance County community we had to face the reality that hundreds of newspapers across this country and around the world have faced in the past 10 years. We had to change our publishing frequency.
Your Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday editions of The Times-News will be the best of the content gathered in the days since the prior publication. That means there may be content on thetimesnews.com that doesn’t appear in print, so I encourage you to visit our website often.
For subscribers, there will be an adjustment in your existing subscription. All subscriptions will be extended beyond the current expiration date to compensate for the change in number of publishing days per week. When you renew, your rate – which will be much lower for many of you – will reflect the change.
No newspaper publisher ever wants to cut publishing days. Many of us have been in newspapering long enough to remember when "daily" meant seven editions a week. We long for those days, as do you.
But we have an obligation to our readers and our businesses, and we must adjust to meet those obligations within the confines of our economic realities. We will continue to make improvements in The Time-News and deliver the best product we can afford to deliver.
So, why the change to mail delivery for The Times-News? It’s a combination of costs and labor availability (often the two combine to present delivery issues) and our strong desire to have your newspaper delivered accurately.
Recruiting and retaining exemplary contract carriers is the toughest I’ve seen in 43 years in this business. For many carriers, a delivery job represents supplemental income. Today they have dozens – if not hundreds – of ways to make extra cash, and many of those pay far more than The Times-News can afford to pay without raising subscription prices to an unseemly level.
While postal delivery isn’t the perfect solution, we believe the U.S. Postal Service represents the best option for consistent delivery of your newspaper.
Thank you for your continued support of not just this newspaper but all local media. We pledge to continue to support you and the good things happening in this community.
Rick Thomason is the Triad regional publisher for Paxton Media Group and can be reached by email at rick.thomason@hpenews.com
This article originally appeared on The Dispatch: Challenges force newspaper changes
