Daily World begins temporary plan to publish twice weekly

In response to the ongoing and rapid spread of coronavirus and the disease it causes, COVID-19, in Greene County and worldwide, The Greene County Daily World and other Rust Communications publications in Indiana will be temporarily cutting back to two production days per week, Tuesday and Friday, beginning April 7.

These are uncertain times for all businesses, including newspapers, and the Rust Indiana family of publications -- which also includes the Greencastle Banner-Graphic and the Brazil Times -- is taking the necessary steps to ensure that we can continue to serve the public through the current health crisis and beyond.

The management team wishes to ensure our readers that even with the reduction in publication days, our editorial department will remain at full staffing levels, continuing to update www.gcdailyworld.com several times daily.

“We are going to re-evaluate the business situation at the end of every month,” said Rust Indiana General Manager Jeanne Burris. “We are in the same boat as other small businesses and we are trying to get to the other side of this, financially.”

A major reason for the need to scale back publication days is the loss of grocery store inserts, which we understand to be a necessary step for our partners in the grocery business, given the unprecedented amount of business they have seen in recent weeks.

“It’s understandable for grocery stores to take this step when they can’t guarantee the items in their inserts will be on the shelves,” Burris said. “Likewise, plenty of mom and pop stores have had to cut services or close altogether.”

Like these and so many other businesses, the management of the Greene County Daily World is making choices that are not easy in order to ensure the paper’s continued viability.

“We have to make tough choices, but we are committed to continuing to gather the news on COVID-19 and other matters important to you,” Burris added.

With that in mind, the Greene County Daily World will continue to make stories related to the COVID-19 pandemic available free of charge to everyone, not only subscribers, at www.gcdailyworld.com. These free stories cover not only daily updates on the spread of the virus, but also stories of how local businesses, nonprofits, governments, schools and other organizations are responding to the challenges of these unique times.

It’s one important step the GCDW team feels it can take in partnering with the rest of the community as we face these challenges together.

We are committed during these unprecedented times not to raise our subscription rates. Your subscription will continue to provide you with 24/7 online news and two print editions per week.

“We are all in this together,” Burris said. “Our commitment to our communities remains the same.”