Why isn't all news free?

The Sheridan Press, Oct. 19

As the Elk Fire continues to rage and the situation changes daily, if not hourly, you’ve likely spent some time on The Sheridan Press’ social media pages. During your time there, you’ve likely seen a recurring question, or even asked the question yourself: Why do we have to subscribe for this content? Why can’t it be available for free to the community?

The reason is simple: The Press fully functions as a private business like any other in downtown Sheridan. Our business has revenue and expenditures. We pay wages and taxes and property taxes and material costs and insurance premiums.

Calling out our budget line items may seem elementary, but the understanding of operations and what content should and shouldn’t be free during Elk Fire coverage has certainly been confusing for some.

That’s fair — why should we expect you to know and understand our business model if we don’t tell you about it?

From a newsroom perspective, The Sheridan Press employs three editors, four reporters and one photojournalist as full-time employees. Full time means 40 hours a week plus overtime wages plus insurance costs plus travel and other expenses reimbursed.

Tack on a contract designer and carriers, production staff and marketing specialists for the creation of the print edition, and you have yourself a full-blown business with expenses associated with providing a service to its customers.

The critical updates for the Elk Fire that impact public safety remain free of charge to everyone — including evacuations, information from incident command, road closures, health impacts and more.

Content that remains behind the paywall regarding the Elk Fire include those community stories of how things work, people who’ve helped and other stories documenting the history of this unfortunate event.

Content produced by The Sheridan Press staff is a blend of accountability, public safety and entertainment, all of which remain critical to a functioning community.

We believe the content produced by the eight journalists in the newsroom is exceptional and one of a kind, and must come at a cost.

We take seriously the role we play in disseminating critical information for the safety of our community. Although some consumers do not agree with the cost of business while simultaneously desiring to interact with the content, we know our ethical standards remain strong, and our commitment to reflecting the community we serve remains just as strong.

Finally and most importantly, thank you for reading our content, trusting us as a source. We appreciate your partnership and business.