Because I am the editor, I have a pretty good idea of what is in my morning Columbian before I walk out to the driveway to fetch it. But that doesn’t stop me from enjoying the paper, usually with a second cup of coffee, before I head into the newsroom.
So I’ve really missed my Monday morning paper. Our decision to suspend its publication last January was one of the first crummy things that happened in a crummy year.
But now I am (almost) looking forward to Monday mornings again. This Monday, Jan. 11, we are launching two new products.
The first is a Monday digital edition of our newspaper. This digital edition, which around here we also call an e-edition or e-paper, will look and read just like a home-delivered newspaper. But, it won’t be printed and thrown on your driveway. You’ll need to go online at epaper.columbian.com to read it.
If you have never read our e-edition, check it out today. For several years now, we’ve been posting these faithful digital replicas of the daily newspaper. They look great, and you can read them with almost any digital device including smartphones, tablets or computers. Using the navigation bar, it’s easy to flip through the pages. Tap or click on an article, photo or advertisement to enlarge, print or clip it. And you can get back issues, too.
I particularly like to read the e-edition when I’m on vacation or otherwise away from home. And, although my carrier does his best, I’ve had a couple of wet newspapers this winter. On those mornings, I’ve just grabbed my phone and read the e-edition instead.
Access to the e-edition is included with your home delivery subscription. You just need to activate your digital account. If you haven’t yet, visit www.columbian.com/digital. If you have trouble registering for any of these products, call us at 360-694-2312 or email circulation@columbian.com.
Why do a Monday e-edition? There are several reasons. The most important, of course, is that it better serves customers like me who still go out on the driveway on Monday mornings and hunt for a paper that isn’t there. We newspaper readers are creatures of habit, and we want the Sunday news on Mondays, not on Tuesdays.
Some readers will still wish for a Monday printed newspaper, but that would cost too much money. We can produce a digital paper with only a little bit of extra cost. And, frankly, we realize that younger consumers want their news digitally, and not on newsprint. So we are trying to reach a wider audience by creating and promoting digital products.
Newsletter strategies
That leads us to our second new product, an afternoon newsletter. If you are a really longtime Columbian reader, you’ll remember that we used to be published in the afternoons. We changed to mornings in July 2000, following trends in the newspaper industry.
Now we are following the trend again, as many newspapers (news organizations? media outlets?) have begun offering both morning and afternoon newsletters.
At first, I was skeptical that Clark County has enough news to warrant an afternoon newsletter, but we kept track for a week or two and decided there was plenty. We’ll try to include stock market closings every day, and, at least for a while, the latest local COVID-19 case counts, along with selected news of the day, potentially including a smidgen of regional and national news.
Like our other newsletters, Afternoon Briefing is free to anyone who wishes to subscribe. Visit columbian.com/newsletters to sign up for it, or our other newsletters. You’ll notice that each newsletter story contains a link to a full story on our website. As our subscriber, you have full unlimited access to these stories, so be sure to tap and read everything that interests you. Just be sure you’ve activated your digital account.
We’ll be fine-tuning both of these new products over the coming weeks, so try them, then send me an email to let me know what you think. Thanks for being our customer, and remember to read us on Mondays!
