Change coming to The Chronicle

More change is coming to The Augusta Chronicle. I’ve written about changes to the newspaper before, so you might know that I understand many people don’t like change.

But as the pace of change in our world continues to increase, we all get a little more comfortable with change. Newspapers and newspaper readers must get more comfortable with it because in a supersonic world, newspapers tend to change at glacial speeds. That can be a recipe for disaster.  

We tend to do the same old things because that’s what we’ve always done, and they have been successful in the past. Newspaper people say we don’t change because we’re an institution and institutions shouldn’t change quickly. These days many institutions are changing quickly in order to survive.

We also are a business, and if businesses don’t change quickly they disappear. The first change you’ll see is our TV week section. If you want to continue receiving that section, you need to call us right away. This is the last week the section will be included in all of our papers, and the last week it will appear on Sunday.

Starting next weekend the section will be delivered on Saturday only to Augusta Chronicle subscribers who request it. It will not be included in copies sold in racks or stores. So if you use the section please call (706) 722-5620, or toll free at (866) 249-8223.  

Over the years, as the TV market has gotten more fragmented with hundreds of cable channels available, we have not been able to publish the listings for every channel. We do offer searchable listings on our website, at augustachronicle.com/television. Just enter your zip code and cable provider and you’ll get a complete schedule of channel and programming information. Some viewers use the electronic grids provided by the cable and satellite companies. 

We’re trying to cut costs without eliminating content that our readers want. That will allow us to put our resources to use covering things you think are important.  

We also will add seven channels to the grid and bring back summaries of movies in TV Week. We dropped the summaries some years ago when we expanded the grids. The prime time TV grid that appears in The Chronicle every day will get bigger and will appear seven days a week.  

To make room for the bigger grid, starting Monday, Sept. 3 we are dropping the horoscope and moving the bridge column to the weather page. We also are dropping five comics and two puzzles: Judge Parker, Pajama Diaries, Cow & Boy, One Big Happy, Flying McCoys, Scrabblegrams and Wordwarp. I will miss some of those features, and I know you will, too. But we’re trying to concentrate our resources on the things you tell us are important.

We have conducted readership surveys and talked to many customers to find out what you think is essential in The Chronicle. Every time we do this the overwhelming choice is local news.  

That is our franchise. Covering our community is what we do better than any other institution or business. That was driven home to me by the overwhelming success of our two most recent products: Your Business and North Augusta Today. Both take an extremely local look at a segment of our community.  

That doesn’t mean everything we do will focus on a small segment of our area, because the newspaper is still the most effective way to pull a larger community together. We still reach more people in our market than any other business or institution. We will look at everything we do in terms of how it helps the people in our area live their lives. 

We have succeeded in the past by trying to be all things to all people. I call it the cafeteria approach. We offered a wide variety of coverage topics, hoping to pick up a few readers with each item. As the cost of publishing a newspaper keeps going up, that approach becomes less effective. So we will try to find those areas that are essential to your lives and focus on those. 

We will continue to look at new ways of presenting and covering the news. We do all this to protect our core mission: covering local news that is of vital interest to you. We will continue to be there to tell the stories that affect your lives, to tell you about the interesting and inspiring people in our community and to tell you when scoundrels violate the public trust and are doing things that could harm you. 

The most important part of the equation that is a newspaper is the readers. Without you we are merely writing stories to amuse ourselves. So let us know what’s important to you. If you have a good story to tell, call me or one of the editors or reporters. As your hometown newspaper we want to be an essential part of your lives. 

If you want to discuss this or comment on the changes you can write me, call me, send email, or post a comment here.