Saturday print edition of Daily Telegram going away, but reporting will continue online

Several years ago, I was covering the Tecumseh school board as it interviewed superintendent candidates, and one of the candidates talked about creating an atmosphere in which the staff was willing to try new things.

Todd Bingaman acknowledged the difficulty of that with a line that has stayed with me all these years later: "Only a wet baby embraces change.”

Starting this Saturday, March 5, I’m hoping that Daily Telegram readers will be willing to embrace changes being made to their paper.

The biggest change will be that there won’t be a print edition on Saturdays any more. There won’t be home delivery, and papers won’t be available at stores on Saturdays. This change is being made at Gannett papers across the country that have had editions seven days a week. The Telegram is among the first group that will drop the Saturday print edition.

More: Telegram Saturday editions to be online-only starting March 5

However, that does not mean there won’t be a Saturday paper. Instead of being in print, subscribers have access to the e-edition, which is basically an online replica of the printed paper. Unlike our lenconnect.com website, the e-edition looks like the newspaper. You can click on each story and read it as it would look in print or in plain text, you can save and email “clippings” of stories, and you can even save entire pages as PDF files.

Reporters won’t be working fewer hours or days because of this change. We just won’t be putting our stories and photos in print on Saturdays.

To get to the e-edition, on a computer you can go to our website, lenconnect.com, and look for the e-edition link in the menu bar across the top of the page. Click that, and the e-edition will open. It probably will ask you to log in, even if you’re already logged in to our website. On a phone or tablet, you also can go to our website, tap the three lines in one of the upper corners to open the menu and tap “E-Edition.” On a mobile device, you have the option of viewing the e-edition as a website or downloading an app to read it.

There are several items in the e-edition that we don’t put on the website, such as most news briefs, syndicated columnists, and sports standings and box scores. The e-edition is also a way for us to provide more up-to-date and in-depth coverage of national, world and sports news. The Nation & World Extra section is already included each morning with the e-edition, and Sports Extra launches Saturday.

The comics are all in the e-edition, too, as are the puzzles.

Our main website is not changing. It's still there with stories, additional photos and videos that don't or can't appear online, and way more comics, puzzles and games than we can fit in print.

There are some changes coming to the puzzles that I think readers will like. Monday through Saturday, the comics and puzzles will now be in what is being called an “entertainment center” in the B section. We’re keeping all of the same comics, but now they’ll be packaged with the crossword, sudoku and other puzzles and the bridge column. Rearranging everything created space for a couple of new puzzles, too.

Sunday will see a new layout for the crossword puzzle page. From what we’ve been shown, the Sunday crossword layout will go back to how we used to do it, where it won’t fall across the fold of the page. It’s something we asked our Design Center to do a long time ago, and now it’s being implemented nationwide.

Speaking of puzzles and not having a Saturday paper, you might wonder where you’ll find answers to the puzzles in the Friday paper. Those will be in the Saturday e-edition, but puzzle answers any day will be online at answers.usatoday.com.

There are some other benefits that subscribers have. Not only do subscribers get access to the Telegram’s e-editions for the past month, but they also can read any Gannett newspaper’s e-edition, including USA TODAY and the Detroit Free Press, for the past month.

Subscribers also can share their subscription with a friend or family member. They will receive their own login and can access it as long as you remain a subscriber. Go to account.lenconnect.com and make sure you are logged in — in the top, right corner, you should see a button labeled "Hi *your name*” if you are already logged in. If not, click on the button for “Sign In.” Next, select your name and go to “Manage Account." In the left-hand menu, look for “Share digital subscription." Click on that and enter in the name and e-mail address of the person to share access. An e-mail will be sent to their inbox with further instructions on setting up their own credentials.

Should anyone have questions about accessing the e-edition or about how this affects your subscription, please call our customer service number, 888-775-2853.

I know a lot of people in Lenawee County don’t have access to a good internet connection, so these changes aren’t something they can do, even if they like the idea of them. To those readers, all I can say is I’m sorry and I hope that an internet service provider will step up and offer a good connection so that you can stay connected with us 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

David Panian is The Daily Telegram’s news editor. Contact him at dpanian@lenconnect.com.

This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Daily Telegram ending Saturday print edition in favor of e-edition