BY TINA L. SCOTT
EDITOR
Local community newspapers are important. They provide information about local politics, elections, city and county government, and newsworthy legal matters, and they let you know what is happening at a hyper local level that impacts YOU in the community. That might be good news, like a reduction in property taxes (we can all hope, right?) or the City of Merrill being recognized with a special honor, or it might be bad news, like an arrest, car accident, fire, or tornado.
But your local newspaper isn’t CNN. They aren’t just concerned with printing a long laundry list of every depressing thing they can find.
Local community newspapers, like the Merrill Foto News, also support the local community. They support local schools, community organizations, churches, businesses, non-profits, civic entities, and individuals. They share information and run stories on new businesses, people you should know, human interest pieces, high school sports, activities at local schools and churches, community events, local history, fundraisers, programs available to the public, how national news might be affecting the local community, and so very much more.
Everyone loves to see their child’s name and face in the local newspaper, whether that is because their child was on the Honor Roll or in the local school play. They like to read about their child’s sport’s team and their child’s individual accomplishments. They’re proud of their child and often clip these news items, along with sponsored features like Student of the Week, Athlete of the Week, Youth Optimist of the Month, and FFA Student of the Month, to go into scrapbooks or tuck away as a memento.
Churches love to see their congregation and its events featured. So do community organizations. And being featured in an article about business, or having a feature article done on your individual business is great free publicity! Everyone benefits from coverage in their local newspaper.
And … it’s a lot easier to save or clip and frame a photo or article from your local newspaper than it is to save a mention on social media.
Many community newspapers, like and including the Merrill Foto News, are mailed FREE to all the residents in their local areas.
Did you know that the Merrill Foto News is mailed FREE to nearly 14,500 homes EVERY week? These days, the distribution is done via U.S. Postal mail to ensure delivery to every household in the Merrill (54452), Athens/Hamburg (54411), Gleason (54435), and Irma (54442) areas. In addition, we have readers outside our area who pay to have the Foto News mailed to them each week.
The cost of paper has gone up (along with everything else) in the last year. But paper has gone up a lot. That’s increased the cost of producing the local newspaper.
Do you know who helps keep your local community newspaper coming to your mailbox each week at no cost to you? Well, the staff obviously, but also the advertisers who pay for the ads in that local newspaper.
At the Foto News, we really appreciate each and every business, organization, and individual that advertises in our newspaper. Truly. And we want you, the readers, to thank those advertisers, to shop and do business locally, and to help them get a good return on their investment by mentioning you saw their ad in the Merrill Foto News.
But because a local community newspaper is a service to the community, we also want to invite businesses, organizations, and individuals who don’t usually or frequently advertise in the Foto News to consider doing so. Not only will it increase awareness of your message within the community, but doing so actually helps support your community by ensuring your local community newspaper can continue to operate. And not just that, but increased advertisers means more pages to print all of these community news stories. That’s how we can grow the number of pages we’re able to produce each week. Which in turn means we can include more of your favorite features and more information about the things you want to know and see in print.
The number of pages in the paper each week is a balancing act based on advertising revenue for that week. More advertising equals more pages. More pages equals more community news, more features, more photos of your kids and grandkids in the paper, and even greater readership because there is more interesting stuff in the paper that you want to read! It’s a wonderful cycle that benefits everyone in the community.
We appreciate our advertisers and our readers! Thank you, Merrill, Athens/Hamburg, Gleason, Irma, and all of our loyal readers who pay to get the Foto News mailed to them out of the area, as well!