Answering common questions ahead of print transition

As I walked into the Olympic Southside Theater on my way to Pints and Politics Thursday night, I wasn’t exactly sure what I was walking into. I knew the announcement which dominated most of the week — reducing print editions to Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays beginning Feb. 17 was bound to come up.

What I didn’t expect, however, were the number of folks who wanted to share their ideas about making the transition as smooth as possible. Ideas ran the gamut to digital subscription packages and access to making sure that residents knew about special internet and phone packages that could bring them online. There was also an idea to use flexible screen technology to deliver news in a way that tied to print readership. The passion and creativity about helping us through the transition was beyond heartening.

There are still plenty of questions folks have about the changes, so I wanted to take a stab at some of the most frequent questions we’ve been getting:

Will there be an edition of Green Gazette on days where there isn’t a print edition?

Yes. The Green Gazette will be released every day, even when there isn’t a print edition. On days where there is a print edition, the Green Gazette will be a replica of the print newspaper. On non-print edition days, we’ll produce an edition that presents important local and state news from the day before. We’re not going to change the delivery time of the Green Gazette, which typically is ready every morning at 4 a.m. The digital-only days may give us opportunities to do things we can’t do in print because of press limitations.

Will the print edition include stories that ran in the Green Gazette in between print editions?

There’s a lot of news and coverage that happens each day, so it’s not possible to put every story created on non-print days into the next print edition. Plus, the majority of the audience will have read the stories via the Green Gazette or thegazette.com between print editions. We’re not going to list scores of every game either. We are, however, working to find ways that we can take second-day looks at major events happening on non-print days. Major news and sporting events will find their way into second-day coverage, and we’re likely to have a summary of the major news events that we can share with our print-only readers. The exact ways we present this are still being worked out.

Why aren’t print subscription rates being reduced since there will be fewer papers?

There are many hard costs that aren’t changing with the change in print frequency. Covering news stories has real costs: from the staff time spent gathering and verifying information to the time that it takes to present it digitally or in print. Our priority is to maintain the journalism to the greatest extent possible. Additionally, news from sources like Associated Press, the comics and games we publish don’t go down in cost because there are fewer editions. The cost to distribute papers each day has also gone up. Current rates are necessary to be able to distribute print editions three days each week.

Will the deadlines be later on non-print days?

We’re still working on figuring this out. One of the benefits of not having to have a physical newspaper is that you don’t have to worry about the hours needed to print and deliver a paper. But we still have to manage staff work shifts and costs effectively. Our news and sports teams have been providing Green Gazette coverage of late Iowa Football, high school football and major news events like elections already. We’re working to figure out a way to be able to cover major stories that happen after our traditional deadline. We’re not in a place to make any promises, but it’s something we’re trying to work through.

I don’t have a printer or don’t know how to print out puzzles and games. Can’t you do something else?

The best answer is we think we can, but we’re still working on this. We’re looking at options to group some of the puzzles and games into the remaining print editions so that folks can save them and do them on other days of the week. We’re keenly aware of the value of the benefits of stretching the mind and doing puzzles each day, and this is something we’re trying to accommodate.

I’d again encourage every subscriber to activate your digital access. In addition, there are many newsletters and podcasts that we do each week. Additional details on the Green Gazette can be found here: https://www.thegazette.com/digital-edition-faq/

In coming weeks, we’ll provide additional details about some of the features of the Green Gazette and thegazette.com, including options for audio versions of articles. These will be helpful options for those who might not prefer reading news on a screen.

Our focus is to continue to do the highest-quality journalism we can while also serving our region and state with impactful and high-quality reporting. The change in print frequency was an essential step in making sure we’re around to keep doing that into the future.

Thanks for reading,

Zack Kucharski, Executive Editor