Welcome to your new Reporter/Met

Today — 2,000 years later — in less than one generation, information that was traditionally delivered by print newspaper became available online at work, then online at home, then through hand-held mobile devices and now through cell phones that also play music, download movies, surf the Web and provide real-time driving directions. 

While our core commitment to providing comprehensive and unparalleled local content is our highest priority, our greatest challenge is providing it in a manner that’s valuable to our readers and advertisers as well as economically viable for our company. How do we make a product that, at its essence, has not changed in 2,000 years relevant to the Internet age?

The short answer is change. 

We modify our publications to reflect changes in readership trends as well as changes in our reader, advertiser and community demographics. We modify our delivery methods to reflect both the awesome power of the Internet and the commercial realities of producing, printing and delivering thousands of newspapers to thousands of households throughout dozens of communities in the metropolitan Chicago area.

Sometimes these changes are simply operating adjustments made to address our escalating costs, and sometimes these changes are intended to take advantage of the almost limitless opportunities presented by technological advancements. 

Sometimes our changes do not work out quite as we intended. A few weeks ago, we altered the print content of the Reporter/Met to include news from surrounding communities. The format changes resulted in hundreds of calls and e-mails from our readers, with virtually all of these messages informing us — some in fairly blunt terms — that the reformatted Reporter/Met did not meet your standards for local news, sports and events coverage.  

On reflection, we think you were right. Starting today, we believe you will find the Reporter/Met more useful, relevant, enjoyable and — most importantly — decidedly, unapologetically local.  Our weekly print publication will offer in-depth, highly relevant local coverage and editorial content that you cannot get anywhere else.