Please excuse the mess during our website overhaul- it’s worth the wait

By Brandi Makuski

Over the past four yours you’ve come to see some unexpected moves from the City Times. Certainly no one ever expected our cute little website to make it past the first few weeks in late 2010- including us.

Then came our daily rolling website in 2012; something many feared would burn out quickly. Our move to print in spring of 2014 was also pretty crazy; a move any business consultant or industry insider would have warned us against under the argument of print news fast becoming a dinosaur. To date, our band of faithful rebels has succeeded in each of its harebrained business moves- to include becoming the largest newspaper in Portage County.

Given that we’re also the youngest newspaper in Portage County, that’s pretty humbling.

But it’s also mighty scary. It is, after all, the youngest sibling who is blamed for the mess, regardless of who’s actually at fault.

Such was the case this past weekend, when complaints came pouring in via telephone and email about newspapers- stuffed in red bags- littering the streets of northern Stevens Point. Readers were so sure it was the Buyer’s Guide/City Times publication strewn about the streets, yards and gutters of the residential neighborhood. In almost all cases, though, the complaints were made by folks who didn’t even bother to look inside the bag before calling us.

On Sunday, City Times newsboys counted 115 red-bagged papers lying in the street along just one city block; we verified those papers were from the Stevens Point Journal. It’s really a shame so many residents were inconvenienced with the mess, and any error in execution diminishes- at least in part- the credibility of the work all journalists produce.

In the wake of the “red-bag blitz”, we’ve made some changes to the way our website looks. The overhaul is slick and designed mainly for your convenience, but also for additional advertising space (because we’ve got a growing staff to pay) as well as better graphics and video reporting.

Our local news reporters will continue to bring you the very best in local news- that remains unchanged. To report the news is to be a part of a long-standing and proud calling that each on our staff individually answers. It’s not a profession in which one becomes rich; nor is it a profession where one makes too many friends. It’s a profession filled with greater fools- but those long bets have paid off for us, and we have our readers alone to thank for it.

So pardon our dust while we complete our website conversion- but don’t ever hesitate to contact us with problems or complaints. The entire overhaul should be complete by Friday.

And as always, thanks for sticking with us.