You want syndicated features

When we purchased the Del Norte Triplicate and the Curry Coastal Pilot on July 1, I hit the decks running. Making decisions like crazy, many of which had been long delayed.

From visiting with people in the community, it seemed clear their overwhelming preference was for strong news coverage of the local area, news they couldn’t get anywhere else. Knowing that, one decision I made was to focus our energy, resources and budget on just that – local stories.

But to do that, and still ensure our newspapers would be financially sustainable over the long run, we needed to stop running costly syndicated features – thousands of dollars a year - so we instead could hire a larger reporting staff and still keep the budget balanced. Plus, without those costly syndicated features taking up space, we could find some room for more local news.

Well, it turns out a significant number of our readers are willing to have less local news if it means they can continue to have a few comic strips, an advice column, maybe the word or number game they’d grown used to seeing.

Now that we understand that, instead of hiring additional reporting staff we’re shifting the budget so we can restore a limited number of the syndicated features we had discontinued. (But certainly not all of them.)

Here’s your chance to let us know your two or three favorites that we once provided. Send your suggestions by mail to The Pilot or The Triplicate, or email them to [email protected] . We’ll bring a few of the most popular back, beginning with the Nov. 5 issue.