The NLJ Skyline is changing too!

Weston County certainly hasn’t escaped the impact of the global pandemic that has been a part of our lives for most of 2020, but you really couldn’t tell by looking around here.
We can’t help but marvel yet again at our community this week because we’re awed by the fact that there have been so many significant steps towards progress here at a time when much of the country has been crippled or shutdown by the pandemic (and countless other calamities) for more than six months.
During that same time frame, Newcastle has been transformed - from the opening of the new Decker’s Market and the ongoing construction of the travel center at the east end of town to the instantaneous change on our western skyline when the refinery tower was slowly lowered
on Tuesday.
There are countless other signs of positive change in our community, and the News Letter Journal is proud to have been able to undertake our own facelift at such an exciting and historic time. We hope the wall mural that is rapidly coming into form at the top of Main Street will offer a welcome change of scenery and join the list of other improvements that will make 2020 mean something a little different - and more positive - to folks around here than it does in other parts of the world.
While the mural may be our most obvious and visible change, the News Letter Journal has been quietly undergoing a much more significant transformation in our operation over the course of the past year. 
Like these other Newcastle businesses, we have decided to “go big or go home” by making significant investments in our operation with an eye towards serving this community well into the future.
It is no secret that the nation has lost a number of newspapers in the past decade as the internet has grown in popularity, and while the NLJ has remained strong through this media transition, we hope to grow even stronger in the future by  recently embracing the internet much more than we ever have before. 
We have taken big strides with our website, newslj.com, in the past six months and our social media presence is unrivaled by any other news and information outlets in our region. The changes we have made allow us to provide Weston County with a credible local news source that uses modern technology to engage with readers and deliver the news they need on a whole new level. 
If you haven’t done so yet, we invite you to join the nearly 2,500 people who now follow us on Facebook (News Letter Journal), or jump on our new Twitter feed (@NewcastleNLJ) to keep up with the news that impacts you from Weston County - and across the state and
the world.
Of course, our best online product is the News Letter Journal’s award winning website, newslj.com, and we urge you to check out everything it has to offer - from our local news and photos to the biggest headlines from across the state. You’ll quickly see why we’re averaging well over a million hits per month since the beginning of this year!
Most of all, we hope you keep picking up or subscribing to the print edition of the News Letter Journal, which will also be undergoing some changes as we move forward over the course of the next year. The paper copy of the NLJ is still our flagship product, and will continue to be until the people of Weston County tell us they are ready to move on and get all of their news online. Until then, the newspaper will continue to provide Weston County with a vibrant and effective voice, while making it an even greater reflection of the community we serve. 
But it is now safe to say that the News Letter Journal is no longer just a newspaper. We are a newspaper media company, and we will do our best to produce a high quality of online products to meet the growing demand for digital news delivery in our world today.
We are excited that so many of you are embracing our efforts to provide news online so you can access it anywhere and anytime, and we hope we can count on you to support these efforts by purchasing print and online subscriptions. We will be offering other promotions to our readers in the weeks and months to come that will provide additional opportunities for you to support local journalism financially through sponsorships, and humbly ask that you consider those requests as well.
It is no secret to news consumers that the advertiser-supported business model that finances most newspapers - including this one - is changing significantly. The newspapers who hope to survive and succeed in the modern world will have to generate financial support in other ways, and we are excited to announce that we plan to unveil a number of community-supported packages and campaigns in the weeks to come - both in print
and online!
This newspaper has grown to become one of the finest in Wyoming and the nation as a whole over the course of the past 130 years, and we owe that to the partnership we enjoy with not only our readers, but also our business and civic partners. 
Thanks to your trust and loyal support, we are confident that the News Letter Journal will continue to be yet another source of pride for a community that is blessed with so many of them already.