A new era at Today Newspapers

Thursday, March 19, is the start of a new era for Today Newspapers.
Regular readers in Cedar Hill, DeSoto, Duncanville and Lancaster will notice stories from other cities in this issue, similar to what we have done in the past over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.
The four separate issues of Today have been combined into one.
This is not an easily undertaken step.
But, it’s one Today saw as necessary.
In an editorial page column three weeks ago, I mentioned that one of the single biggest items of overhead for newspapers, including Today, was the cost of newsprint paper.
Combining the separate editions from the four Best Southwest cities we serve will let us achieve definite economies of scale.
We do know that, in the past some readers in each of those four cities have commented strongly about seeing news from other cities alongside that of their own in our combined editions.
At the same time, we know that the interconnectedness of the four Best Southwest cities, from having a special joint Best Southwest Chamber of Commerce, through many businesses being members of all four individual cities’ chambers of commerce, has increased over the past several years. Along with that, many of those businesses have advertised in all four separate Best Southwest editions of Today in the past.
That, then, has led to several other joint projects by the four Best Southwest cities, such as the annual Juneteenth event and Best Southwest Bookfest.
Also, three of our cities have a common emergency dispatch agency and a common animal shelter.
We also know that civic leaders from one community regularly keep tabs on another city’s activities. One example of this could be from last fall, when both the Cedar Hill and Duncanville school districts asked voters to consider school tax increases.
Sports is another example. Although DeSoto is not currently in the same athletic district as Duncanville and Cedar Hill, it usually has been in the past. And, when Lancaster gets to 5A status, it would most likely join the same district.
We hope to make this transition as smooth as possible. That includes both the news and the advertising sides. It won’t go perfectly, of course; on the news side, we will do our best to juggle each city’s amount of news, front page placement and so forth; we will have some advertising details that will be adjusted on the fly, too.
But, we believe this can and will work, and thank you for staying along with us on the ride.