The Star-Telegram will be digital only on Saturdays. Here’s what you need to know
During college in the 1980s, I did internships at two newspapers where I wrote stories using an electric typewriter.
We typed on scanner paper, and heaven forbid you made a typo. Let’s just say the fix was far from simply pressing the backspace key.
By the time I took my first full-time job at one of those papers, the transition had been fully made to computers.
That’s just one of the transitions I’ve seen in my 30-plus years in this business, some behind the scenes and some more obvious to readers.
Black and white to color photos. Snail mail to email. Film to digital cameras. Print to digital news platforms. I could go on.
That print-to-digital transformation has played out over the last 20 years. But it has accelerated in the last decade, as more and more advertisers and readers have opted for digital spaces.
For instance, each month star-telegram.com has about 3.3 million unique visitors. Those are individual devices — phones, tablets, laptops, desktops — that are used to access our website, and each device is only counted once during the month.
These readership trends bring us to another key point in the transformation: Our move to a digital-only Saturday newspaper.
Our last printed Saturday newspaper was published yesterday. Next Saturday, we will publish only our digital e-edition, an expanded electronic facsimile of the printed newspaper.
The Star-Telegram is not alone in this strategy. Our parent company, McClatchy, first ended Saturday print publication at one of its newspapers last spring and is now doing so at all 30 of its properties.
I would note that this has nothing to do with news last week that McClatchy has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to restructure its debt and pension obligations. You may remember that we announced the move to digital Saturdays last fall.
I realize this is an uncomfortable transition, particularly for those who prefer to hold the newspaper in their hands and physically turn the pages. We appreciate our print readers, many of whom have been with us for decades.
One thing print subscribers can do to prepare for this change, if you haven’t already, is activate your digital accounts and begin to explore the e-edition (which contains extra nation, world, politics, business, sports coverage and more every day). Doing so will allow you to not only supplement your print reading with the e-edition, but to access all the other content available on star-telegram.com, including videos, breaking news and late sports results.
To activate your digital account, simply go to www.star-telegram.com/activate. No additional fees are required.
For those who prefer to stay in the print world, we are expanding the Friday and Sunday print editions. Some of the popular content once found in the Saturday print edition will move to either Friday or Sunday.
So, what does all that look like, you ask? Here are the details:
Neal Sperry’s gardening column will move from Life & Arts on Saturdays to the Weekend section on Fridays.
The Saturday Drive section — including Ed Wallace, Woman at the Wheel and On the Road — will be folded into the Friday Weekend section. The Cruisin’ Through the Month car show calendar and Car Talk column that normally appear on the back page of the sports section on Fridays will also move into the Weekend section on Fridays.
The TV grid normally published on Saturdays will be published along with Friday’s TV grid in the Weekend section on Fridays.
The A section on Fridays will be bolstered by four pages of content called “Uplift,” filled with positive news stories and features and a new full page of puzzles.
The comics and puzzles found on Saturdays will move to Sundays in print, giving you a double dose of that content on Sundays. E-edition readers will still find that content in their Saturday paper.
The Car Talk column published on Saturdays will move to the Jobs, Autos & Classified section on Sundays.
The printed newspaper and our print readers and advertisers remain an important part of what we do. But our opportunity for growth is on the digital front, where we have seen strong increases in digital-only subscriptions.
If you’d like to subscribe, go to www.star-telegram.com/subscribe.
Though the digital transformation has changed how we do business and how you consume news, it has not altered our core journalistic mission.
We are more committed than ever to be your watchdog over government agencies, to provide news and information that is relevant to your life in Fort Worth and Tarrant County and to share the compelling stories of your neighbors.
Just this month, we added two investigative reporters to our newsroom who joined an existing staffer to form a three-person investigative team. Last year, we added a full-time reporter in Austin to track state government news as it relates to Fort Worth and Tarrant County.
In June, we’ll add two reporters through the Report for America program, one to cover Arlington and the other to write about environmental issues surrounding growth.
Your subscription and readership — be it online or in print — are vital in helping us continue our work. On behalf of everyone at the Star-Telegram, I would like to thank you for your support of local journalism.
If you have any questions, comments, or concerns related to the new delivery method, please give us a call at 800-776-7827 or email us at customerservice@star-telegram.com. We will do everything possible to ensure your satisfaction.
