New era for local newspapers begins June 19
By Chris Potter, Regional Editor
HORNELL / WELLSVILLE — On Sunday, the Hornell Public Library
will honor several businesses, civic organizations and churches that have
served the community for 100 years or more.
Among them is The Evening Tribune, which was founded as a
weekly paper, then known as the Hornellsville Tribune, in 1851.
A little over 25 miles to the southwest, The Wellsville
Daily Reporter has a similarly long, proud history. The Daily Reporter has
served Allegany County and northern Pennsylvania since 1880.
It’s been said that journalism is the first rough draft of
history. Whether it’s a fire or a flood, an election or a board meeting, the
opening day of Little League or the state finals, our journalists have been
writing the history of our hometowns for over 100 years.
Along the way, The Tribune and The Daily Reporter merged our
Sunday operations into The Spectator. This combined effort deepened our bench
and expanded our reach, providing unparalleled regional coverage for our
readers.
Now, that partnership is taking the next step.
Beginning June 19, The Evening Tribune and The Daily
Reporter will merge into one unified product, The Spectator, as we move forward
into a new era.
Your local news isn’t going anywhere. On the contrary, you
will notice more of it. More news, more sports, more features. Pooling our
resources into one edition presents synergies that will better serve our
readers. Our coverage areas, for example, overlap in a number of the
communities we serve. Some readers live in one county, but work and shop in
another. We’re bringing everyone under one tent.
The internet and social media have brought our communities
closer than ever before. This merger is a natural extension of that trend. Our
level of coverage in each community won’t change. A reader will open our pages
and get the full breadth of what’s happening across Steuben, Allegany and
southern Livingston counties.
To accommodate a wider coverage area, The Spectator will
offer a two-section edition during the week, similar to what readers have grown
accustomed to on Sundays. The Lifestyles section will still appear on Sundays.
As part of this process, the merged Spectator will print five days — two full
sections Tuesday through Friday, with the Sunday Spectator unaffected.
This decision was not made lightly, or in haste. As we
explored the best path forward over the winter and into the spring, it became
clear a merger presented the best available solution, one that allowed us to
continue serving our community at the high level it deserves and has come to
expect.
Newspapers don’t exist in a vacuum. Like any business, they
rely on the support of their communities. The financial challenges facing our
industry have been well documented. At the same time, newspapers remain vital
to our society. In an era when everyone has a platform and social media is
sometimes exploited by questionable actors, trusted news sources of record are
invaluable.
Our reporters will still be on scene at fires, documenting
the brave work of our first responders while informing public safety, at
meetings of local government, reporting the actions of our elected officials,
covering athletic contests, highlighting the triumphs and successes of our
youth, taking in the big festivals and community events, showing the world why
they should visit our hometowns, among a thousand other things that our role
entails.
That won’t change.
Because a large part of what we do in this business is ask
questions, we anticipated a few our readers might have concerning this process.
What about your websites and social media? Any changes
there?
Our websites, eveningtribune.com and wellsvilledaily.com. will
remain in place. Both will continue to tailor to each respective area. Our
social media platforms have developed large audiences on Facebook and Twitter,
with our combined likes and follows approaching 25,000 across all four
accounts. Those platforms will also continue to operate unchanged, driving
reader engagement with our content. The only change will be to our e-edition,
which will now be one product.
Should I expect any big changes to the look of my paper?
Our new masthead — that banner across the top of the front
page — will be quite similar to what readers are accustomed to on Sundays.
Rather than reading “Sunday Spectator” it will read “The Spectator.” Evening
Tribune and Wellsville Daily will still be represented in the masthead. This
was important to us. Combined, these local brands have well over 200 years of
equity in our communities. Plugs for the Evening Tribune and Wellsville Daily
websites and social media handles will appear together on Page A1.
Other than that, the general look and feel will be very
familiar to readers. With two teams working on one edition, readers can expect
engaging local and regional coverage from front to back. Although the Evening
Tribune will no longer print on Mondays, the remaining days will feature a
thicker product with more pages of content.
How will you determine what stories go where?
As we do with the Sunday Spectator, engaging stories from
both the Evening Tribune and Wellsville Daily coverage areas will be
represented on the front page and throughout the edition. Recent Sundays have
featured A1 centerpiece stories from Hornell Sports Night and Alfred State
students working on the Fassett Greenspace Project on Wellsville’s Main Street.
We will also continue to dive into larger topics that effect readers from all
communities. Recent examples include the challenges facing the dairy industry,
the potential for hemp production in New York state, and the impact of the
state’s Cancer Bill on volunteer firefighters.
It’s the same in Sports. Whether it’s the Hornell Invitational
or Wellsville Spring Day, to cite two recent examples, or a big matchup in
sport of the season, our team will be there providing coverage for readers. We
are also developing standardized approaches to daily features like upcoming
calendar items and the like. These changes will make our content more engaging
and easier to find. Stay tuned.
Does this change include any staffing cuts?
No jobs are being cut due to this consolidation. The move
allows us to keep our dedicated staff in place. Our newsrooms are filled with
award-winning reporters who have deep roots in the community. Many of them grew
up in the communities they now cover. The same can be said for our advertising
and composing teams, all the way down to the carriers who deliver your paper,
rain or shine (or snow).
What do I call my paper?
Call us the Spectator, the Spec, the Tribune, the Trib, the
Daily Reporter — we don’t mind what you call us as long as you’re engaged and
we’re providing content that’s relevant to our community.
Where do I go with questions?
Additional information will roll out over the next month. In
the meantime, don’t hesitate to reach out and contact our team.
