Our View: Local news is worth it

It’s never fun to talk about money, but we must.

After three years, the Pine Knot News has overhauled its subscription rates, making them simpler and, yes, a little pricier.

Rising postal rates and inflation bear some of the blame. Growing pains are also part of it. We’ve gone from a minimum of 16 pages to a minimum of 20 pages per week. There are more and better stories and local advertising in the paper. Our small army of freelance writers and part-time employees is growing too.

As an independent, locally owned newspaper, we are a rare breed. We enjoy that independence, but it also means we don’t fill our pages with recycled stories from a stable of papers across the state or country. That means we create unique content for you, our neighbors and readers, every single week. And we are grateful we can earn a living doing that, but it’s time we put a more appropriate price on our product.

At $60 a year — anywhere in the U.S.A. — and $48 a year for seniors age 60 and older, it’s a bargain. It’s also less than half the price of the competition. All that unique local news, entertainment, commentary, sports and information delivered to your mailbox each week for the equivalent of $5 (or $4) a month?

Finally, we also think our employees deserve a fair wage. Don’t we all? One day it would be nice to be able to provide them with additional benefits, too.

We appreciate our subscribers, and we hope you appreciate us. And if you will struggle to pay the increase, please give us a call at 218-878-9332. We’ll work something out if we can.

Thank you for your support.