The Constitution makes us do it

“Our press was protected by the First Amendment — the only business in America specifically protected by the Constitution — not primarily to amuse and entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply “give the public what it wants” — but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold, educate and sometimes even anger public opinion.”

~~ John F. Kennedy

Our regular readers will not be surprised to hear that we hang our hat on this quote, and take very seriously the responsibility given to us in the United States Constitution to “put democracy on display” by engaging and informing the public, even if it means that we have to trigger government officials and anger their most ardent supporters to do it.

But we also acknowledge the need for local journalism to serve other purposes for its community, and we believe nobody has done a better job of promoting Weston County’s positives, especially when it comes to the unique and talented who make this a truly special place.

We also think that it is important in this modern age to amuse and entertain our consumers, and when it doesn’t conflict with our Constitutional duties, we absolutely love giving the public what it wants!

We were excited to combine our traditional expertise with an embrace of modern technology last weekend to bring our readers same-day reports from both the Wyoming State Wrestling Tournament in Casper and the 1A East Regional Basketball Tournament in Upton. People seemed to like it, so we are going to do more of the same this week when we bring you same-day reporting from the 1A/2A State Basketball Tournament in Casper and the 3A East Regional Hoops Tourney in Glenrock.

We will also be keeping track of the Wyoming Cowboys’ and Cowgirls’ final regular season games and getting you set for next week’s Mountain West Conference Tournaments in Las Vegas, and you will be able to track your favorite teams through tourney time under the Sports Tab on newslj.com. You can also find pictures from our local teams in the Photo Galleries on our website.

It felt good to give the public what they wanted last weekend, and we are excited to do it again, but such efforts do consume this newspaper’s limited resources, and we humbly ask that you support our efforts to bring you comprehensive and cutting-edge coverage of your Weston County sports teams and the Wyoming Cowboys financially.

We invite you to subscribe to our website and believe that you will more than get your money’s worth — yes, in hard-hitting and informative news, but also quite a bit of the “trivial and sentimental” when you are in that kind of mood.

This subscription gives you full access to our expanding menu of great online features — local news, Wyoming news, photos, videos, sports, interactive games, our new community calendar and so much more — but it also allows you to do your part to support local journalism and help preserve Weston County’s identity and sense of community.

The NLJ has expanded what we offer online in spite of the fact that the volume of advertising that allowed this newspaper to be a profitable venture for so many decades has decreased by more than half in the past 15 years. That has necessitated a decrease in the number of pages we can print and mail each week, and we are asking our dearest and most loyal customers — our print subscribers — to understand the reason for this change. We hope you will display a willingness to purchase a $10 digital upgrade to go along with your weekly newspaper subscription so you can access anything we don’t have room for in the paper each week, and get to experience some of the incredible bonus content we offer to our online readers.

In addition to more instantaneous and comprehensive sports coverage, we have upgraded our puzzles and offer interactive versions online and we also have an expanded community calendar on the website that allows you to submit your own non-commercial events for publication and promotion. We offer a wealth of statewide news shared with us through the Wyoming News Exchange, and are able to share a much higher volume of photos, op/ed’s, and submitted content than we can afford to in the printed newspaper.

Our website also offers a Good to Know section that contains many government press releases and submissions from a variety of consumers, and we have reserved a portion of the website for people of faith to connect with their Creator on a daily basis in Dean’s Bible Blog.

We also maintain the most engaging social media in Weston County, offer a podcast that goes in-depth on local issues and reveals the manner in which media approaches those issues, and send out an email newsletter each Monday to catch subscribers up on the top stories from the previous week and prepare them for the week to come.

While additional subscriptions will go a long way towards helping this newspaper maintain the level of excellence you have come to expect, we honestly will need to begin replacing the lost advertising revenue and we ask that our families, organizations and businesses consider purchasing sponsorships that will allow us to continue covering the community the way we think you deserve to be covered.

There are a number of ways you can contribute for less than $15-$20 a week — support our local sports coverage by becoming a Varsity Club member, stand up and reveal your faith by being listed on our Faith Page and Bible Blog, sponsor some of our Facebook Reels or photo galleries or stick up for free speech by putting your name — and a little money — behind our online opinion page so we can continue to provide a variety of
viewpoints.

And if you do own or operate a business, we would like to encourage you to consider making a marketing investment in the News Letter Journal — or increasing the amount of investment you’re already making. We think a lot of local businesses have suffered since the arrival of the Internet and social media because they thought they could handle advertising on their own, but the NLJ is the most potent and powerful media tool available in Weston County and we would love to talk to you about how we can help brand your business and create a marketing plan that helps it grow.

Please contact us by stopping by our office at 14 West Main St. in Newcastle, or calling 307-746-2777 to subscribe or sign up for a sponsorship today. We also encourage you to email Publisher Bob Bonnar at editor@newslj.com to learn how sponsorships and professional advertising campaigns that combine the power of print and digital can boost your business today!

Thank you for supporting the First Amendment and your independent local press.