My Sunday column

The upcoming year will hold some major changes at The Daily Citizen, as our company looks for ways to deliver more information to readers — and more readers to our advertisers.
Across the country newspaper circulation has dipped in recent years. However, our circulation numbers have remained solid. We haven’t experienced the declines in readership some newspapers have suffered, in part because our Web site, daltondailycitizen.com, has helped us attract new readers, as well as retain older readers who prefer to read the newspaper online. The Web site includes many — though not all — of the features that appear in the print edition, but we’ve also taken advantage of the essentially unlimited “news hole” the Internet offers, to run stories, announcements and other information not available in our print product.
A further refinement of this idea will be launched in the next week. A digital edition of the newspaper will be posted nightly, with the full content of the newspaper (and more) available to readers.
The digital edition will be an identical reproduction of the day’s newspaper.
For the first month, the digital Daily Citizen will be available to anyone who wants to see it free of charge. After 30 days, subscribers to our print product will continue to receive it for free. Non-subscribers will be encouraged to buy the digital edition — at a substantially discounted rate. As a bonus, readers of the digital version will have access to “extra” pages, more stories, photos and graphics put together specifically for them.
The cost of newsprint has exploded in recent years and the slow economy has made it tougher for us to print additional pages in the print version of the newspaper. By taking advantage of the boundless freer space offered by the Internet we will deliver more value to our readers.
Keep a close eye on The Daily Citizen in the next few days for an announcement of the debut of the digital edition.

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We plan to add even more content to our Web site in 2009 as well. Regular readers of the site already know that we post a range of material not available in The Daily Citizen. Some of it is too esoteric or too lengthy for the daily paper, but fits in nicely on the Web site. The appearance of the site is likely to change and we hope to make it more convenient and user friendly. One of my pet projects is to recruit some local writers for the Web site, so if you have an interest in writing on a topic regularly, please contact me at 706-272-7735. We’ll compare notes and see what makes sense.

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As of Monday, the look of our front page will change. The basic look of The Daily Citizen has been about the same for almost a decade. It’s time for a change. Hopefully the new look will freshen things up and help us get more information to readers quickly. Let us know what you think.

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I’m an old school newspaperman. I like the sound of a press and the feel of newsprint. But the future of community journalism cannot be limited to the traditional newspaper format. The printed edition of The Daily Citizen remains our core product and it will continue to receive the lion’s share of attention, but these alternative venues for delivering news and advertising to readers are enticing to even the most ink-stained of aging editors.
The newspaper industry has taken its share of lumps in recent years, with the rapidly changing nature of the business now combining with a bad economy to smack the business right in the nose. From The New York Times to the Hahira Gold Leaf, the industry is struggling.
But it’s also fighting back
Among the ways we do that is by trying new things. My boss, Daily Citizen Publisher William Bronson, pushes an agenda of change and though I don’t agree with every idea, I understand that if this newspaper sits still, it will wither.
We’re not going to let that happen
One thing that won’t change is our keen interest in what our customers think. If you like or don’t like something we’re doing, write or give me a call and we’ll talk about it.

Jimmy Espy is executive editor of The Daily Citizen. He can be reached at 706-272-7735 or by e-mail at jimmyespy@daltoncitizen.com