The newspaper industry has changed

The 118 year-old Wrangell Sentinel has seen a lot of change during its existence.

Due to our coverage of a small and compact community and the ongoing trust of our readers, we have fared better than many in the industry.

Larger metropolitan size papers can survive on subscription revenue, and in some cases, significant income from the sale of corporate assets like multi-acre sized printing facilities.

Smaller papers continue to require a mixture of advertising revenue from retailers and subscription income from readers.

In the case of the Sentinel, our page count has dropped by 100 since 2011 when we printed 648 pages. Since page counts are determined by ad placements, not news, the reduction causes us great concern.

To reverse the trend, we are working to return our page count to 2011 levels.

That means we will be soliciting numerous advertisers to sign up for a portion of one-full-page of advertising, per week.

It's a workable proposition particularly if older established businesses join with numerous smaller businesses to reverse the downward trend of our ad revenue.

The Sentinel, like all community newspapers serves a purpose in maintaining the quality of life in their hometowns.

Nearly one in five newspapers, 1,800, closed in the last 15 years according to the Journalism and Media Economics at the University of North Carolina.

These closures reduced public service reporting that enabled journalists to hold their government accountable. That helps keep borrowing costs low, ultimately saving local taxpayers money.

For towns like Wrangell it's the potential loss of an information source. Banks sometimes look to the obituary columns to protect customers from fraud, when someone tries to empty a deceased person's bank account. Insurance companies are alerted to clients with DUIs that are published in police and court reports. For others, our coverage highlights the accomplishments of local kids from pre-school through high school as well as the day to day accomplishments of individuals and businesses that are a part of this community.

The Sentinel is not broke. We still pay our bills. But we want to keep it that way so the paper will be around for the next generation of readers.