OPINION: From the Publisher: Public involvement will make newspaper better, more relevant

February 3rd 10:39 am | Jason Evans    

This feels like déjà vu, at least for us it certainly seems like it. Here we are resurrecting a newspaper that stopped printing last August. The new and combined newspaper of The Bristol Bay Times and The Dutch Harbor Fisherman come back into print this week. We brought the Arctic Sounder back to print after about a month long hiatus, hence the déjà vu.

Six months ago my wife Kiana Peacock and I purchased these newspapers along with The Arctic Sounder from the now defunct chain Alaska Newspapers Inc. (ANI), a subsidiary of Calista Corporation. Last August we decided we needed to bring only one paper to print at a time, as we learned the ropes of the newspaper business. We knew that we were leaving two important regions without a critical community newspaper — temporarily. It was always our goal to bring these papers back to print in a sustainable way. We have been successfully printing The Arctic Sounder now for six months and we feel we can now successfully print The Bristol Bay Times and The Dutch Harbor Fisherman. We are very happy to have finally reached this milestone.

Publishing a community newspaper is very rewarding. We hear from people throughout the regions about what is important to them and what they want to share with others. We see the stories unfold day by day and week by week.

We receive great photos that announce weddings and births, or from proud parents wanting to highlight their child's most recent game or first successful hunt.

We get messages from people who liked a story we covered. And sometimes we make someone upset for not doing or saying something as well. But our commitment is to do the best we can, and we rely on you, to help us along the way.

Our goal is to make these papers more local then they may have been these past few years and highlight more of what is going on in the regions. We want more pictures of kids on our front page than the big daily newspapers will ever have. We want to hear more from the coaches saying how proud they are of their teams and from the principals about what is going on in the schools. This works best if we connect and engage with you in the community. You will make us better at what we do.

Thank you to all those who have continued to ask when are The Bristol Bay Times and The Dutch Harbor Fisherman coming back to print. We needed you to push us to not stop at The Arctic Sounder.

Thank you to all those who have said they are pleased with The Arctic Sounder. We have never owned a paper before and needed the feedback to make this all happen, successfully and sustainably.

Thank you to all those who have assisted in getting the paper to print by providing your time, talent and financial commitments.

But your involvement doesn't stop now that they are printing. We need you more than ever to keep these papers a success.

We are working at making this newspaper more relevant and more important to you than it has been recently. If we can do that, we hope you will look forward each week to receiving the next issue. After all, this new start is about Your News and Your Stories and Your Life.

Keep us in your thoughts and send them to us at: jevans@reportalaska.com.