New look coming to locally produced newspaper

by Richard Lamb—Publisher, Presque Isle Newspapers, Inc.

Readers of the Onaway Outlook will notice a new look and unifying change in your newspaper next week. Your Outlook will merge with the Presque Isle County Advance beginning with the April 2 edition. After 40 years as a stand-alone publication, the Outlook will consolidate with the Advance into one robust countywide publication.

Most importantly, we plan on covering the same Onaway area events as we always have. You will still see stories about city government and school news in the Advance, just as we have done with the Outlook. Now Outlook readers will get to see more news about the rest of the county.

It is a necessary business decision made after much careful thought and consideration.

Content-wise, we plan to cover the events, news, sports, schools and people news of the entire county as best we can, just like we are doing now. That will not change. Covering the local news in Onaway, Rogers City, Posen and throughout the county is our mission.

There are many positives with the merger.

Advertisers will now have a bigger exposure for their advertisement. Merging the two community newspapers is another way to unify the county, similar to the shared city manager and city attorney who serve both Onaway and Rogers City.

The first thing you will notice is the Advance will have more pages of local news, averaging 16 to 20 pages where you had been seeing only 8 to 10 pages for the Outlook.

The new merged newspaper will come out Wednesday afternoon, dated Thursday. Local subscribers should get it in the mail a day earlier than you received your Outlook.

For those who subscribe to both the Advance and Outlook, we will be extending your subscription. Outlook subscribers will have their subscriptions honored with the new merged newspapers.

On the business side, this merger is designed to cut down on the huge expense of publishing and delivering two newspapers per week, trimming expenses without cutting service.

Many advertisers have encouraged this consolidation with some saying, “what took you so long.”

Our focus has always been and will remain local. We understand you get news from many sources, but know our specialty—local. We plan to remain local.

When my wife Riconda and I purchased Presque Isle Newspapers, which owns and operates both the Advance and the Outlook, in 1998, we brought local ownership back to the community weeklies. With your support, we plan to continue that tradition for many years to come.

As always, we encourage your story ideas, that may be sent to me at editor@piadvance.com.

 

Facts about Presque Isle Newspapers:

• The Presque Isle County Advance was founded by Frederic Denny Larke in 1878. Larke was responsible for many innovations in the county and served in several capacities in local government. He is widely considered as one of the founders of the county.

• Presque Isle Newspapers, Inc. (PIN) has nine full- and part-time employees.

• The Advance is printed in Alpena and will be delivered to newsstands Wednesday afternoon and evening. It should be on all newsstands by 7 p.m. Local mail subscribers should get their Advance Thursday via the mail.

• Peter Jakey, managing editor since 2001, and Angie Asam, a reporter since 2006, have been covering the Onaway area for the Outlook. Publisher Richard Lamb helps out with sports and news coverage. Jakey does a preview of the headlines in a radio show broadcast each Wednesday on WHAK-FM, 99.9 The Wave.

• PIN is locally owned by Richard and Riconda Lamb, who purchased the operation from Richard Milliman in 1998. Milliman, well-respected as a leader in the Michigan Press Association (MPA) and former press secretary for Gov. George Romney, purchased the newspaper from Harry Whiteley in 1985. The Whiteley family, Harry and his father Hal, had owned the operation since 1912. Milliman and Harry Whiteley still write columns for the Advance.

• The Advance has had four MPA presidents in its history. Both Harry and his father Hal served as president as did Richard and his son Dirk Milliman. Richard Lamb currently is a member of the MPA board of directors. He has been employed by PIN since 1988.

• The combined circulation will be around 4,500 per week, which is roughly the same number of visitors as our online version, PIAdvance.com gets in a week. From Nov. 1, 2014 to Jan. 31, 2015, PIAdvance.com welcomed 55,049 visitors from all 50 states and several cou

ntries.

• PIAdvance.com has been in operation since 1996.

• Composition of the newspapers is done in the Rogers City office on Macintosh computers. The Advance was one of the first weekly newspapers in Michigan to install a Mac system in 1985. The pages are done completely on the computer and sent as a PDF via the Internet to the Alpena News, our contracted printer since Nov. 1, 1990 when we switched from Central Printing in Gaylord.

• PIN also operates a Facebook page, with nearly 2,000 following it. Often videos are taken from a sporting event and posted directly to the Facebook page.

• PIN is a family-owned, locally operated 137-year-old newspaper operation that appreciates your support and patronage.