Easy Reader returns to volunteer roots to continue publishing through coronavirus crisis
Photo by Evanna Shafferr (IG @evanna_shaffer)
The entire Easy Reader staff was laid off last Friday. Four reporters, two office managers, two advertising representatives, one art director, one bookkeeper, one associate publisher and one publisher. Since then, the former staff has written 30 stories on the coronavirus, maintained the website, fielded calls for obits and dba’s, and sold enough ads to produce this week’s 24 page print edition.
Google Analytics recorded over 147,000 EasyReaderNews.com page views in the last seven days. That’s as many page views as EasyReaderNews.com receives in a month during normal times. Page views don’t pay the rent but they validate Easy Reader’s efforts. For that we thank our readers.
Southwest Offset Printing, our printer, is making it possible for Easy Reader to continue printing 5,000 papers a week. They will be distributed on free newsstands and at whatever businesses are open. Home delivery will be suspended until the recovery.
This is not the first time since Easy Reader’s founding by a volunteer staff 50 years ago that the staff has been laid off. And it will not be the last time. The paper will come back, as we all will, only to be overwhelmed by a new, unforeseen challenge. And then to rise again.
Now is a hibernation period. We are conserving our resources until the weather warms, as it always does.
(Locations where the paper will be delivered each week are posted elsewhere on this site.)
— Kevin Cody, Publisher