Thanks to you

When comes such an auspicious occasion as a 10-year anniversary for a newspaper, there is a flurry of thank yous to be passed around. It would be an arrogant newspaper indeed that believes it survives without the support of the community, and in a more specific sense, the readers.

Think about it. The reader drives the whole bus. The reader, at the very least, picks up the newspaper. That drives the numbers that helps the newspaper sell advertising to those in our community who want to reach out to the smartest, most involved members of the community, our readers.

Those picked-up newspapers also help determine what we’re going to put into the paper, or most precisely, on the cover of the paper. If an issue has a huge pickup ratio (the number removed from a rack compared to the number left on the rack for recycling), we tend to do more subjects relating to that topic.

There’s a funny little irony to this: When we have a cover, like the Devil Bush cover, that generates a lot of controversy, sometimes people will throw away the contents of an entire rack to prevent you, the reader, from getting your RN&R. You probably just go to another rack, but their meanness can increase our circulation numbers, sometimes by an entire percentage point. That means we’ll be more inclined to do stories like those the people are attempting to censor.

But that’s just the first way readers help the newspaper. The second is by telling us what you think. Letters to the editor, e-mails to writers of the stories you find interesting, tips for news stories, phone calls, all those methods you, the reader, use to communicate with us help us maintain and improve the quality of the newspaper you now hold in your hands.

Support of our advertisers, or advertising, for that matter, helps us to increase the breadth and depth of our editorial coverage of the community. It may not be plain to everyone, but when there is little advertising in the newspaper, there are fewer total pages; when there are a lot of pages, we can bring you a more exciting, informative and provocative mix of news, arts and entertainment.

Anyway, to all 98,000 of you out there who read the paper on a weekly basis, the editors of the newspaper would like to express our thanks. You are the ones who make this newspaper more than a voice in the desert; you’re the ones who take the information we impart and make this community a better place to live. Because of you, we’re working.

So, thanks, we appreciate it.