WEHCO Media has announced the El Dorado News-Times will be adopting a digital format come August, and all subscribers will have the opportunity to claim an iPad with which to access the digital replica. The News-Times will also continue to have a Sunday print edition each week.
The News-Times has been presented to readers in both print and digital formats for several years. The News-Times utilizes a digital replica to present the daily paper digitally, giving readers the exact same product as the print edition, but digitally.
WEHCO Media Publisher Walter E. Hussman, Jr. said moving to a digital format is the only viable way to continue producing community journalism every day for Union County residents.
“I looked around the country and I was seeing most papers continue to cut their news staff and their news spaces. It really hit home in 2018 when I took a trip over to North Carolina: I read our paper (the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, another WEHCO paper) on the way over there. There were six sections and 36 pages. When I got on the plane to come home, I was looking at the Raleigh News & Observer; it was 20 pages and two sections,” he said. “We were charging $30 a month for a subscription and they were charging $50 a month. Now theirs is $108 a month. I thought, ‘That’s not going to work, giving people less and less and charging them more and more.’”
About the digital replica
With lowered production and distribution costs, the News-Times will be able to present even more local news to readers in every edition. Digital subscribers have already started to see this with the daily addition of four extra pages in our digital replica showing the status of COVID-19 in the state and nation.
The News-Times app, which is currently available for mobile devices, and our website, eldoradonews.com, both support the digital replica, allowing subscribers to read the paper from their phone, laptop, tablet, desktop or any other digital device that can access an internet browser.
Digital subscribers may have also noticed the addition of extra media, like videos and slideshows, to our digital replica. Without having to exit the app as you’re reading the daily paper, readers can watch videos for more context on news stories or see full photo galleries to get a better picture of what they’re reading about. (For Harry Potter fans, this is about as close to moving photographs as we can get at this time.)
The News-Times app, which is supported by the iPads that will be distributed to subscribers, offers even more features, like interactive puzzles and the ability to zoom in on text or photos. The app will even read articles to you.
Articles are shareable via email or through social media on the app, and digital reproduction of images is superior to print reproduction. Readers can access the digital edition of the paper anywhere they have an Internet connection and they can access 60 days of back editions from the app. Subscribers will also have free access to the News-Times archives, which date back to 2002.
“The other thing I think is important about trying to have a digital replica is that it will be archived. Those pages will be archived and 50 years from now, somebody will be able to go back and look at this,” Hussman said. “It’s a record of that day in history.”
The importance of local journalism
The Hussman family has a long history of providing news for south Arkansans; Walter Hussman Sr. was formerly the business manager for the News-Times and Hussman, Jr.’s first job was as a general assignment reporter for the News-Times. He covered civic covenant meetings, he said, along with writing features on residents in our community.
“I think our family bought the El Dorado paper, I think it was 1932. … We’ve owned the newspaper over 90 years,” Hussman said. “I learned everything there.”
Across the country, as advertising revenue has fallen dramatically — by 75% across the industry from 2006 to 2017 — ‘news deserts,’ communities without a daily newspaper, have emerged all over. A 2018 study from the University of North Carolina found that up to 3.2 million Americans have no local journalism in their communities. The consequences of not having a local watchdog — the daily newspaper — are many.
Who will cover a City Council or Quorum Court or School Board meeting with impartiality and a focus on the facts? Who will investigate corruption in local government? Who will tell the stories of the community’s residents to their friends, neighbors and a broad audience? Where will residents learn about events happening locally, their neighbors’ childrens’ achievements, new local trends?
“The value of a local newspaper really can’t be overstated. As a journalist, the thing I like best is meeting new people and hearing their stories. I learn something new every day,” News-Times Managing Editor Caitlan Butler said. “The News-Times tells important stories about our community, from covering local arts and childrens’ activities to crime in the area and misconduct by local officials and everything in between. We write for our readers — Union County residents.”
The watchdog role of the local newspaper is one of its most vital components, and with it comes the duty to report on events, and in particular those that relate to our democracy, one of the cornerstones of American life, with fairness and accuracy.
“If there’s not a newspaper, there’s going to be blogs, social media postings, but it’s important for there to be some organization that has journalistic ethics. Good journalistic standards and ethics have stood the test of time,” Hussman said. “It was 500 years ago when somebody came up with this new, radical idea to get to the truth was to discuss, debate, reason. That was Martin Luther. … The community is stronger for it.”
Innovation in a hard-pressed industry
Hussman first introduced the iPad program in 2019 at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Earlier this year, he was recognized with the Mega-Innovation Award at the Key Executives Mega-Conference, the “major newspaper industry conference of the year,” where more than 5,000 publishers gathered to discuss the industry.
“Walter Hussman, Jr. genuinely cares about our community and the importance of providing rich content in a daily newspaper. His innovative spirit drives us all to work harder to be the best we can be,” News-Times General Manager Rita Haldeman said. “This program is innovative. It is cutting edge in our industry and I’m proud to be a part of it. Like Mr. Hussman and the rest of our company, I believe strongly in what we do here, and the iPad program will allow us to continue to provide El Dorado and Union County with news and information that matters to the communities we serve.”
The Democrat-Gazette conversion was met with disappointment from the community, from Little Rock to the most outlying areas of the state, all of which the statewide paper serves. However, Hussman said, once subscribers began using the iPads provided to them to read the paper, readers found they liked the digital format, with some even saying they preferred it to the print editions.
“The most surprising thing about the digital replica to me was that I thought people would find it as a substitute to the print edition; what we found instead is that people generally don’t like the idea of it, but after they try it, they actually like it better,” Hussman said. “That’s been almost universal. It’s a better user experience. We’re hearing people say they spend more time with the digital replica than they did the print edition, and I think it may because it’s easier to read and there are all these other features.”
The News-Times has operated in the red for the past three years. In that time, journalists at the News-Times have been recognized with a multitude of awards for their reporting and photography and countless stories, from the big-name concerts at the Murphy Arts District to individual families’ and resident’s feelings on matters important to them, have been told.
How it’ll work
The News-Times will continue to print its regular Sunday edition each week, complete with circulars and special sections. A print edition for Thanksgiving, on Nov. 26, is also planned. The last print edition outside of that is scheduled to publish Monday, Aug. 10.
Between now and then, all home delivery subscribers who wish to continue their subscription will be able to have an iPad delivered to them; a WEHCO staff member will also be in touch to set up a time to connect with the subscriber to provide a walk-through of the News-Times app and all its features.
“One of the things we learned is that some subscribers don’t want our own — they’ve already got one of their own. At first, we thought ‘Great! We save on the cost of the iPads,’” Hussman said. “But then we saw that if we show them all the features, we retain them longer than the people we don’t. So even if they decide to use their own devices, we still want to show them all the features.”
With the COVID-19 pandemic ongoing, the health of our community is the News-Times’ top priority. We’ve rented out the El Dorado Conference Center, one of the largest public meeting spaces in the community, June 16th through 19th and again June 23rd through 26th to provide demonstrations of the News-Times app to subscribers in a space where social distancing guidelines can be adhered to.
Additionally, our iPad training staff will meet with subscribers who choose not to attend the public walkthrough at their homes, going door-to-door to offer app walkthroughs to readers.
“We’re converting in Northwest Arkansas (at the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette) right now, and up there we do it door-to-door,” Hussman said. “Some people don’t want to do it inside, and so we’ll do it outside, six feet apart. Some of our staff have even sat out in their cars and walked customers through on the phone from six feet away.”
Subscription prices must be raised to $28 for the program to succeed in Union County when considering the costs of the iPads and the continued staffing of the newsroom. Current subscribers that choose to continue their subscriptions will be able to phase in the rate-raise at $1 more per month until they reach $28. Subscribers won’t have to pay for the iPad, and will only have to return it if they end their subscriptions.
Those who choose to unsubscribe will continue to receive their print edition of the News-Times until Aug. 10; they’ll also be able to access the digital replica on their own mobile devices or computers.
“Either the newspaper is going to be supported by the community through subscriptions in order to continue to have a daily newspaper, or they’re not. It’s going to take a big investment on our part,” Hussman said. “The iPads alone are going to be over half a million dollars, and we estimate the training will be over $200,000 to train each and every subscriber. We’re not sure we’ll ever get the $700,000 back, but we wanted to try this for the El Dorado News-Times.”
“This is kind of a major national experiment to see if it will work, because typically, smaller town newspapers have had lower subscription prices, because they’re typically smaller newspapers,” he added. “I’m hopeful this will be successful and we’ll continue to have a seven-day-a-week newspaper in El Dorado.”
Hussman will speak at the El Dorado Rotary Club on June 22. The meeting will be held via Zoom.