If you haven’t heard already, the Hollister Free Lance has reduced its publication from five days a week to two days a week, with the newspaper now coming out on Tuesdays and Fridays.
On the surface, it seems like a huge deal – like Blue Whale huge.
So huge, in fact, that I was considering contracting James Earl Jones – with his deep, baritone voice – to say, “Welcome to the new Hollister Free Lance,” every time someone called the sports phone. It would have been pretty cool, believe me.
But the thing is, relatively few things are changing here on the sports pages of the Free Lance.
Granted, you’ll have fewer rolled up newspapers to use as fly swatters during the week, so we ask that you try to conserve. But aside from that, we’re seeking a seamless change.
You’re probably wondering, what with the new publication dates and all, how this is all gonna go down, right? How, exactly, will I be receiving my sports info? Just where will I need to go to quench my Haybaler thirst? Or what will I need to do to meet my Hawk fix?
Well, with the paper coming out only twice a week instead of five, there will be some changes, of course. However, we’ll try to keep the “cycle” as close to a daily newspaper as possible, if not better, with a little help from a thing called the Internet.
We’ll seek to mimic our usual five-days-a-week style by publishing game stories throughout the day on the Web.
For instance, games taking place on Tuesday night will be reported and placed on to the Free Lance Web site (www.freelancenews.com) by either that night or the next day. With photos!
Likewise for any breaking news.
When the next paper rolls around on Friday, those game stories from Tuesday will be published, but likely in a reduced format. It will be the same situation for games on Wednesday, while Thursday games will receive more “ink” in Friday’s edition.
If you’re the type that can go a couple of days without reading a newspaper, and/or killing flies, you should be fine. If you’re not, just log on to our Web site if you’re jonesing for a sports fix, and buy yourself a fly swatter.
With that said, we’ll be looking to have more feature stories and profiles from the high school and professional ranks, while we’ll be offering our take more often with columns on pretty much anything and everything, including the coolness factor of Mr. James Earl Jones.
Since this is a rather new process to us all, we’d certainly like to hear from you, the reader. Feel free to drop us a line, shoot us an e-mail, or call us up on the Green Phone.
Don’t worry, we have thick skin.
