Publisher's Pen

It has been an exciting couple of months for all of us here at the Mountain Home News. With the process of outsourcing the printing of the Mountain Home News and the Patriot, we have had some big changes in a short amount of time. What I am most proud of is the fact that we did not have any external disruptions caused by this and it did not in any way affect our publication times. Our readers continued to receive their papers on the same timeline and no adjustments were needed.

With that being said, I could not be prouder of my staff, taking all the change in stride and learning all the "newness" that came along with these changes. Nothing has or will change for us in the production of our publications. We will continue to cover the news and provide the advertising specials in the papers themselves including the inserts that you find in your weekly publication. Everything in-house as far as the gathering of information and the deadlines associated with producing your weekly publications remains the same. Previously we would put the papers together and uploaded the pages digitally to negative for the pressroom so they could complete the printing of the papers, and that is where we have the change. We now upload our product to another press room and they do the printing for us and return the printed product to us where we again proceed with the normal distribution of the papers. This is the internal changes we have been getting used to with deadlines that reached beyond our walls. Again, the staff has been amazing and continues to conquer all the new requirements requested. I have allowed my editor to address the questions and provide the updates as they come along through her weekly posting and was holding off to take this opportunity to comment we are at the threshold of just getting settled into our new routine and most importantly to thank my staff again for their ability to adapt quickly. Great Job everyone. As a small business employer I could not be more grateful for the team of dedicated employees I have. They work and live in this community and take their jobs so very seriously and personally.

I have seen comments and received calls where things were simply miscommunications on what was actually happening by someone that thought they knew what was going on and had not read the entire story or even asked one of us and I am happy to say we managed to nip those rumors in the bud. I apologize if anyone was confused. Please never hesitate to pick up the phone or stop by and ask the questions and I will be happy to visit with you. We learned that headlines most certainly get attention but the explanation is in the story. We are not going anywhere; we have a printed product and digital product as we have for many years. We had discovered by talking to people that in most cases they were just getting incorrect information by word of mouth or again did not read the entire story that was explaining the different steps along the way. I think our history piece that Stephanie did talking about the paper going digital had caused some to believe we were going only digital which is not the case. It was a history piece on the paper going digital back in the day, which in that case involved manual paste up to a grid sheet and taking a picture of the page to provide to the press room vs. us putting the paper together on a computer.

On the side of change that can cause some problems on its own we discovered that nothing is insurmountable. We did it. We have partnered with another amazing team that has been at our fingertips to guide and help all along this procedure. It was a business decision for me but we gained some new "newspaper family" friends that we continue to learn from. They have the technology to allow us to make upgrades and new options available.

As we continue to grow more relaxed and we keep moving forward you might see something new yet. That would be in the design and visual presentation of the paper. I have challenged the staff to step outside the box and see what we can come up with.

I cannot thank our advertisers and readership for all the positive comments we have received in the new look of the paper to date. Some have called, emailed and even stopped by to visit. That is what we all love about our community. We are proud to be the provider of your local news, events and advertising specials. It could not happen without any of those contributing factors. We sell advertising and our paper and we thank you all for your support and shopping local.

This is a great community to live and work in and we are blessed, thankful and looking to partner with those that have post-event activities that you would like to share. We simply cannot cover everything and be everywhere and we already have great partners but we know we could have missed something. Before your paid events we have great advertising options for you to choose from to make your event a success. Anything that is a free activity to our readers please submits well in advance and we will try to get something out there for you. All these free submissions are space available but our record is pretty good and we are happy to give you the shout out when possible.

I wish everyone a Happy Fall as we have the change in weather. In the short time have a great week and I/we looked forward to hearing from you.

Brenda M Fincher

Publisher

Mountain Home News