Forum Editorial: The ever-changing Forum
EDITORIAL MUG: Editorial art Vertical
For $40 a year, The Forum and Times-Tribune are delivered to your home or business each week and accessible 24/7 online. There aren’t many newspapers across the country, and especially across Missouri, that can say the same.
We know we have a little bit of a bias, but think for a moment about all the subscriptions you pay for each month. How many of them total up to $40 a year or less? And how many of them are specifically tailored to your community?
Try asking your friends in other towns how much their local newspaper charges. It’s a very, very small list of papers that rings up at less than a dollar per issue over a full year, and an even smaller one that provides the award-winning local coverage you find in the pages of this newspaper each week.
But since you’re reading this editorial, you probably already understand the value of your local newspaper. So why are we saying all this?
Let’s start with a change that begins tomorrow.
Paywall changes
As of Friday, Aug. 1, we’re eliminating the free articles that allow non-subscribers to read most of our stories.
Not everything will be behind the paywall: obituaries, emergency notices and photo galleries will remain free for everyone to access online.
This won’t change anything for those who already subscribe. But if you hear from your friends and neighbors about not being able to read The Forum or Times-Tribune stories anymore, please take some time to let them know our reasoning.
The decision was not an easy one, and wasn’t made quickly. It’s been an ongoing discussion and thought process for several years. More and more newspapers are moving to “hard” paywalls that don’t allow a certain number of free articles, partly because they’re so easy to circumvent. In principle, we wish we could provide everyone our news for free.
But we are still a business, and our product is news. We think it’s one of the most important products there is, but we understand we’ve all been conditioned since the rise of the internet to expect our news to be free. Unfortunately, it isn’t.
The good news is, the cost of subscribing is cheaper than just about anywhere else in the state. And this is your hometown. We think that’s worth paying $40 a year for.
Shrinking Forum
You’ve probably noticed that more and more frequently, The Forum and Times-Tribune that has been arriving in your mailbox has been a little slimmer. It doesn’t happen every week, but it has been more often than not, lately.
We assure you that it’s not because we’re bringing you less news. You still receive the same amount of original reporting as any other week, we promise.
Instead it’s because, as the staff of the local newspaper of record, we don’t provide all the value — only part of it. The rest comes from you.
Despite the enduring efficacy of print advertising, it’s one of the first to go when businesses tighten their belts. We’re a local small business, too — we understand. But if you want to reach customers and show support for your local community, advertising in your local newspaper remains the safest way to do it.
Slews of studies continue to show that print ads are far and away the most trusted, and, as is true of our readership, ends up in the hands of receptive audiences who will actually see your ad instead of ignore it.
Just as importantly, having your business in the pages of The Forum shows not just that you support the newspaper itself, but that you support the community. When big companies get bought out or decide they need to make more money, things like “community” suddenly take a back seat. Advertisers in The Forum show they care about reaching the people of Nodaway and Worth counties and supporting our communities.
But not all of it is about money. It’s also about services we provide that just don’t get utilized anymore. If you’re of a certain age, you probably remember reading announcements for births, engagements, weddings and more. These are free services that sadly, too many replace with closed-loop announcements to their friends on social media — ones that ultimately, will disappear.
To put something in your local newspaper is to make it a part of a living record that will exist long after an obituary appears in the very same pages. Even today, we field requests from genealogists, researchers and, maybe most frequently, just regular people who are looking for something to hold onto — proof of a moment that exists in tangible form, unable to be deleted or to disappear into the ether. The pages of The Forum are filled with the stories of the people who live in our community in this moment, not collected just for people you already know, but kept permanently to record who we are for all who come after.
We hope more people will take advantage of those services by calling Rita Piveral at 660-562-2424 or filling out a quick form online at maryvilleforum.com.
But all of that means we have to tighten our belt, too — and, sometimes, the page count.
Our mission, though, remains unchanged, and in each edition — no matter how many pages, whether physically or online — subscribers will continue to receive the award-winning coverage of our communities highlighting the people, places and faces important to you.
Not bad for 40 bucks.
