As you recently either read about or heard, The Tribune will be eliminating its Monday print edition starting on Sept. 17. The last Monday edition will be on Sept. 10.

I wanted to inform you that the decision was not easy, but was needed as we have, like many news organizations with a print heritage, faced enormous financial challenges.

We are not reducing our news department, as that represents our franchise. We are not raising any subscription or advertising rates. We are not going out of business. We are going to the future.

Our yearly subscription price of the printed newspaper, which has remained the same for many years while inflation has raised the cost of other goods and services, will be on special at 30 percent off or only $90.80 a year, if you purchase by the end of October. Print subscribers also get a digital subscription at a discounted rate of only $2 more per month.

Our e-edition, a replica of the daily print edition that can be viewed on any computer, smartphone or tablet has been hugely popular.

Elimination of the Monday edition will allow our staff to:

• Focus more precisely on producing a quality community print newspaper five days a week.

• Invest more time and energy into the development of our digital publishing products, which continue to grow rapidly. As readers have moved to the web for an increasing amount of their news consumption, we will match that demand by developing quality digital offerings like our daily email blast as well as our digital only subscriptions.

• Concentrate on our array of glossy magazine and guides like Tri-State Living magazine and Pigskin Preview.

Community newspapers such as ours are fortunate because we continue to have a healthy print newspaper audience, but reading habits have changed, too. We hope you understand that we must aim toward the future and develop our digital media options as well as our print. We are completely determined to remain the same in all of our principles— presenting complete, fair-minded reporting that emphasizes local news, opinion, and sports.

You will also notice that we will continue to be a community champion and hold more community forums in the political arena as well as on the community health front. We will be working hard to inform everyone about our opioid issues and how we can move forward to become a safer community.

Thank you for continued support.

 

Scott Schmeltzer is the publisher at The Tribune. To reach him, call 740-532-1441 ext. 16 or by email at scott.schmeltzer@irontontribune.com.