As of Wednesday, Oct. 30, your local newspaper, The News Courier, will reduce printing days from four to two, Wednesday and Saturday.
Although dire predictions of a media apocalypse are surely and understandably to come from our loyal and long-time subscribers, nothing could be farther from the truth. Your local newspaper is vibrant, healthy and here to stay to keep informing you of the news you need to make informed decisions about life in Limestone County. We’ve been doing that since 1892, when the weekly The Alabama Courier was the news source for what would become one of Alabama’s fastest growing counties, and we will continue serving our community, today.
The question of why, then, we are making this change is a fair one. The answer to that is multi-faceted, but essentially it comes down to our ability to better inform our community within local business and United States Postal Service resources.
We know that print newspapers are still a top means of communication for the majority of our subscribers, and for good reason. But we also are not immune to technological advances that allow us to communicate in some ways that are more immediate and, in some cases, more fully — that is, the pages at our website, enewscourier.com, are essentially infinite while we are limited to the news hole of a printed paper. Today, a combination of print and online newspapers allows us to better marshal our resources in publishing local news.
But our commitment to our readers is simple and binding: While you may be getting a frequency change in your print Aschedule, you will not be getting less news in your print newspapers each week. Further, this is a schedule that will allow us to more immediately and frequently publish local news on our website, in effect creating timely real-world news that more closely mirrors the pace of our lives, now.
As we make these changes, it’s also important to share that no staff reductions will be part of the process. Indeed, we have continued to boost our most valuable News Courier resource — our people — as we move forward.
It’s also important to know that print subscription rates will be adjusted to reflect the change.
More importantly, current subscribers will have their subscription accounts extended to match the number of issues they would have received under the current schedule. This will be done on our end, with no action needed from our readers.
As we move forward together we appreciate our advertisers and thousands of subscribers — both new to our community and those who grew up with their local newspaper — and more, we thank you for allowing us to serve you daily, both online in and in print.
With the news of the world affecting our community today, your local newspaper has never had a larger role in keeping you informed. We recognize this, and will continue to rise to the challenge.
Tom Mayer, editor