Rod Schwartz asks, "If a majority of your subscribers were found to be in favor of receiving a single, combined newspaper, how would your company respond?"
I attempted to answer this question on our Facebook page earlier this week, but got lucky enough to have our publisher and editor, Nathan Alford, approach me about getting his thoughts out there - which was great, because I was really just spitballing at the time.
"It's a welcome question, and it's a common one," says Alford. "There are three primary reasons for why we haven't made that move."
The first reason, he says, is all about journalism.
Consolidating the Moscow-Pullman Daily News and Lewiston Tribune would mean fewer reporters pounding the streets looking to answer hard questions - many of which are not being provided through banal columns like this one.
"More reporters are better than fewer," Alford says, "and healthy competition between an independent newsroom in Moscow and an independent newsroom in Lewiston is appropriate and represents the public's right to know in good fashion. If we were to consolidate, our obligation to cover the communities would be diminished."
The Trib covers eight counties within Idaho and Washington. The Daily News covers two - Latah and Whitman counties. That's how it was always meant to be when the Alford family bought the paper back in the late '60s.
Community service is the second reason.
That means providing local reporting from me and my fellow journalists at the Daily News, coupled with an editorial section with local opinions. Alford says fewer reporters would limit our ability to get the news to you, adding that a free press is the only private business in this country mentioned in the U.S. Constitution as necessary to ensure a healthy democracy.
"We're doing our best to protect and grow that civic obligation we have to cover our communities," Alford says. "We want to be the exception in the industry. Invest back into the system. Because we believe good journalism is good business."
Business concerns are the third reason.
With one paper serving part of eastern Washington and the greater part of north central Idaho, that means higher rates being paid to advertise in the Tribune by businesses on the Palouse to help cover distribution costs in, say, Idaho County. Granted, some of the big boys place ads in both papers, but smaller local businesses can't always afford it.
"The Daily News is filling a niche, a need for small businesses to reach their consumers, their patrons," Alford says. "Without it, I mean the cost would just go up."
While I had him on the line, I went further with some other business practices we often get flak for, including our website's paywall.
Alford tells me we were one of the first to charge for online subscriptions, but that model could always change in the future. Currently, we don't generate enough advertising revenue to offset the losses we'd take from losing those online subscriptions, he says.
National papers have national advertisers who want a wide reach. We work with what we have here in the areas we cover. I also heard there was some sort of recession a while back.
Let's be honest, if you get it free online, what are the chances you'll keep your print subscription? If we can find a way to afford it, things would be different.
Doug Wood suggested we look at some kind of bundling system, such as paying a little extra for a print subscription to one paper to get access to the website for the other.
"We would be smart to look at those creative bundling ideas," Alford says, but he doesn't want to sacrifice the value the papers provide. "Unlike most newspapers, we believe in the value of what we provide and charge for it."
Brandon Macz can be reached at (208) 883-4631, or by email to bmacz@dnews.com.
