Adjusting to the changes around us

If you’re not pinching pennies, chances are you aren’t paying attention.

Anyone who runs a household or business knows the importance of making adjustments to accommodate for the changes happening around you, and unfortunately, the newspaper business is no stranger to that need for change.

But, the difference is when we make a change, thousands of people see that change — whether it be through our print subscribers or those who view our online content. At the beginning of the year we made the decision to cut back to three print days a week, and if you’ve checked out the website this week without an online or print subscription, you’ll notice we made the shift to a full paywall.

We don’t make these decisions lightly, but it boils down to the same overall budget guidelines we all follow in our own homes: You need to have more money flowing in than you have flowing out.

By giving away our online content for free, it correlates to a direct loss in revenue.

It’s no secret the news industry has been changing for a while now, starting with the shift to people reading their news online. In recent months the industry continued to see changes, sometimes at a national level, which is causing newsrooms around the country to readdress their finances.

Some of those hits include a tariff on Canadian newsprint as well as a tariff on steel and aluminum — the latter of which we use in the production of our papers to get the content from the computer to the press.

Then there is the postage rate increase and the fact we contribute to our community and employees.

It’s scary for us to see the stories across the country where newsrooms are being slashed, with the Denver Post cutting 30 jobs in March and a more recent cut of half the staff at the New York Daily News in July.

It may seem like comparing apples to oranges, with our three-person news staff and two-person sports department, but still those stories of staff reduction cause us to quiver a little.

Greene County is where we all live, work and play. We visit your businesses, we go to the same parks and our kids may even play together. We work hard to bring you important information and share stories about your neighbors. This is our home too.

So, we are making changes to ensure we are here for the long run. We aren’t going anywhere and will continue to bring you local news and sports. But, bear with us as we make sure your community newspaper is prepared to head into the future.