By Andrew WestDOVER — Readers, we appreciate your calls, emails and comments about the upcoming changes to the Delaware State News.
To review, our newspaper will publish five days a week, starting July 1. There will no longer be Saturday or Monday editions.
As Publisher Darel La Prade noted in an announcement last weekend, the rising costs of everything — especially gas and newsprint — have put extraordinary demands on our operation.
The decision to change our publishing schedule was reached after we concluded that advertising revenue and single-copy purchases were not supporting either Saturday or Monday.
Mr. La Prade noted in his column that a newspaper’s primary costs are paper and people.
Without the latter, we lose our ability to report the news that you need.
So in short, we want expenses centered on producing the news you need.
“As much as I’m going to miss your paper on Mondays and Saturdays, I think it’s probably a really good idea — especially with as hard as it has got to be with the cost of things,” said one reader in a hotline message.
“I appreciate the fairness I find in your newspaper, and I appreciate all that you guys do.”
It is often said that this is a newspaper “of, by and for” our community. When we hear comments like the one above, we recognize that we are in this together, and we greatly appreciate the support of our readers and advertisers.
For editors like myself, we have been on deadline seven days a week for decades, putting out one newspaper after another for you.
Heck, the Delaware State News has been on doorsteps seven days a week for 39 years — seven years before my arrival at the newspaper.
There is a disruption in our routine — yours and ours — that has an odd feel to it.
Our mind-set has never changed when you get to the heart of what we do. We want to tell important stories.
We now do that in print and online at BaytoBayNews.com.
Will it seem weird to have two days without a walk to the end of the drive to grab the newspaper? Yes, it will.
Does it seem weird to pick up the phone and read the latest headlines each day? No, not anymore.
(Or should I say, yes, it does — particularly when we stop and think about how our business has changed.)
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As we move to the five-day distribution plan, we will also have a change in format of the paper in the works.
Some years ago, you’ll remember a smaller format, pages that were 12 inches in depth. We are returning to that compact size, and we look forward to advantages that brings — particularly the increase in color available for local photography.
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We want to hear from you about the changes. What are your thoughts, concerns, needs?
You can call our special telephone hotline and leave a voicemail. The telephone number is 302-608-0062.
Or you can email us at dsnhotline@iniusa.org.
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Readers should note that there will not be a newspaper published Monday because of the holiday.
This has been done for other holiday weekends, notably around Christmas and New Year’s Day, for numerous reasons.
It gives our team a chance to rest and enjoy a holiday, but it also saves us considerable expense on a day when advertising and readership has been historically low.
Andrew West is executive editor of the Delaware State News.
