Chelsea Marr, Publisher and owner, Columbia Gorge News
Just like the personal goals of taking better care of ourselves — striving to exercise and eat well in the new year — businesses must do the same. With the roar of the holiday season at an end, the streets are quiet, but the businesses making up our beautiful and thriving commercial districts continue to rely on our business.
This coming year will be one of change for Columbia Gorge News. We will begin printing our weekly news at a new location in mid-February, which will require us to modify our deadlines. We are making the change for the first time in the history of this paper. The goal of the move is to save on our printing costs.
In addition, we are rolling out some changes to our way of doing business, including our rates. Our costs have gone up a lot over the years, but we’ve been hesitant to pass this on to you, our customers. However, we cannot continue to absorb these increases. Subscriptions and advertising rates will increase as we adjust to cover our rising expenses. In addition, we are going to be much stricter on past due accounts, including interest and fees. We rely on timely payments to pay our bills. Sometimes, I think people forget that we too are a small business trying to make ends meet. We hope you understand that in order to continue to provide news coverage of our Gorge communities in 2025 and beyond, we need to make these changes.
This has been a financially difficult year for Columbia Gorge News, and I regret that I was unable to donate to local nonprofits, as well as provide any financial bonuses to my incredible staff this year. Rising costs and inflation have taken their toll on the costs of doing daily business, thus resulting in the inability to pay it forward. I hope that the implementation of these changes will help keep our newspaper financially sustainable.
I am thankful to our community and loyal supporters, our great businesses and nonprofits, and our amazing Columbia Gorge News staff. I have always said the newspaper profession should be viewed as a well-paid professional career. It is an important and difficult job. I hope you appreciate Columbia Gorge News and the staff who works tirelessly to keep you informed.
We will strive in our mission to continue to bring you a strong community newspaper 52 weeks a year, delivered both to your door in print and online. Our coverage will continue as we learn to do more with less.
If there is one thing you learn in this business, it’s the ability to pivot, because nothing stays the same.
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