When is an asset also a liability?
In the case of the Deseret News, it's when you have a popular supplement like the Church News and it is not available in our market area separate from the newspaper.Judging by the continuing stream of complaints that come to my office every day, we have a problem with the Church News.
The problem is not with the quality of the product - the Church News is a wonderful publication, and gets better every week. The problem seems to be that people want it, and don't want to take the daily newspaper to get it.
We further complicate the problem by allowing people outside our market area to subscribe to the Church News on a weekly basis without the newspaper.
So I am asked almost daily, either by letter or telephone, why do we discriminate against people in Utah who want the Church News and not the Deseret News?
The answer is simple: Survival!
The Church News supplement that appears as part of our Saturday newspaper is a great asset. It began as a small section of our paper in 1931 and has grown steadily since that time to be a major feature section.
Though it is devoted entirely to news of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it is not an official church publication. It is, and always has been, an integral part of our newspaper, and we are responsible for its content.
The Church News draws many subscribers to our newspaper, and though it is only one of many excellent features found in the Deseret News, it is a significant factor in maintaining our circulation.
Newspapers need circulation to survive. We also need advertising, but you can't get the advertising without the circulation.
We have taken one of our most popular sections - the Church News - and have consciously eliminated advertising from its columns. We'd like to keep it that way, and we can if we have a strong daily newspaper producing enough revenue that allows us to support the large staff necessary to produce the weekly Church News.
So, in those areas where the Deseret News is available either by home delivery, or by single copy purchase, we require that it be available as part of the whole newspaper. Frankly, our survival depends on it.
But beyond our market area - mainly outside the state of Utah - we do make the Church News available for a minimal charge. We do this as a service to LDS Church members away form the headquarters of the church, and we have a large number of subscribers. But they do not support the budget of the Church News of the Deseret News since we have to contract with someone else to do the work of subscription fulfillment and delivery, and almost all of the subscription cost goes to them and the Postal Service.
We wish everyone who has an interest in the Church News would automatically have the same interest in the daily Deseret News. Our lives, and theirs as well, would be much better if that were the case. But it seems otherwise, so we have tried wherever we can to make single copies of the Saturday paper available in racks and convenience stores. Some find it difficult to locate a rack or a store on Saturday, or seem to get there after all the copies are sold, so this is not a total answer.
We still feel, honestly, that the best means is to subscribe to the daily newspaper and enjoy all of its features, including the Church News.
We have a great newspaper, and like the Church News, it is also getting better and better. Our staff is working hard to keep Utah's oldest newspaper its best newspaper.
Our peers in the Society of Professional Journalists told us in their recent awards ceremonies that we are the best, and we will continue to work hard to justify that outside judgment.
We hope you will enjoy our whole newspaper, including the Church News.