Things are changing here at Triad City Beat as we think more about our mission and the evolving business of local news.
Our newsroom is growing — more on that soon! — and we’re exploring new ways to bring in enough revenue to deliver the news our communities deserve.
Part of this is our decision to drop our print run from weekly to every other week, beginning next month.
Our final weekly issue will come out on Aug. 10. We’ll skip Aug. 17, and then come back on Aug. 24, Sept. 7, Sept. 21, etc.
This does a few things.
It cuts in half our biggest expense: printing and distribution of our paper, as well as reducing design expenses. By eliminating two or three production days a month, Sayaka and I will have more time to do our jobs. And with the savings in revenue, we can actually publish more stories on our website than before.
I have mixed feelings about this. Like all journalists of a certain age, I feel attached to the print product, the weekly production grind, the rustle of newsprint in my hands.
And I think about our print readers, too. Print is the Great Democratizer — you don’t need a phone or laptop to access it, or pay for a data signal to read our work. It is totally and absolutely free. That’s important to us.
But times are changing; so are we. And it’s my job to make sure the news keeps coming from TCB. This will help a whole lot.
Join the First Amendment Society, a membership that goes directly to funding TCB‘s newsroom.
We believe that reporting can save the world.
The TCB First Amendment Society recognizes the vital role of a free, unfettered press with a bundling of local experiences designed to build community, and unique engagements with our newsroom that will help you understand, and shape, local journalism’s critical role in uplifting the people in our cities.
All revenue goes directly into the newsroom as reporters’ salaries and freelance commissions.
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