Publisher's Note: Subscribe to support local news

2. You guarantee local news with relevant content no one else is covering.

3. You guarantee local news that at one time or another will affect the community you live in.

Our newspaper needs your support. A subscription to Columbia Gorge News tells us you support what we do every week, year after year. It assures advertisers — our only source of revenue — they are reaching readers with guaranteed support.

Inflation has affected newspapers. We have seen double-digit increases in printing costs, and mailing and distribution expenses have reached an all-time high that we don’t expect to decrease. Actually, we have seen an unprecedented increase of double-digit costs since 2020. We will continue to adjust where we can, with the goal of offering both a printed and online news source. You will notice a tightening of our print edition, where press releases and news stories are shortened, with longer versions offered online.

It’s important that subscribers understand they have access to both print and online content — you might miss some important news if you are relying on print only. Those stories a subscriber might find include local sports or a school board update, or perhaps about changes to your local taxes or housing costs. It might be a feature on someone you know by name but never really knew the extent of what they do in our community until you read about it in our publication. Whatever your reason for subscribing, we hope you will find a way to support our effort to survive as a small local business and newspaper outlet in the Gorge.

We remain one of only a handful of locally independent newspapers — a source that is not controlled by corporate interests but preserved by an owner who lives right here in the Gorge alongside you. We care personally about what we do. Some of us have raised our families here, some of us have grown up here, and some of us have done both. We volunteer, serve on nonprofit committees, and do all we can to make the Gorge a better place for all of us to live.

To take advantage of receiving $10 off a print/online new subscription, email subscribe@gorgenews.com. Are you able to help more? We will be starting an annual membership called Friends of the News. You can find  out more by contacting me, Chelsea Marr, owner and publisher of Columbia Gorge News, at 541-386-1234, ext. 100, or chelseam@gorgenews.com.

And thank you to our current subscribers — we appreciate you more than you’ll ever know.