What is this?
That's going to be the first question many Lac La Biche POST readers are thinking this week.
The new, regional Lakeland This Week is in stores and mailboxes this week — and yes, it is replacing the Lac La Biche POST ... for now, as our news and advertising business adapts and adjusts its business model so we can continue to provide news, information and promotion of our community as we all deal with extraordinary changes socially, financially and physically.
Yes, it's another change. Another change allowing us to keep you informed on local and regional news and promotion during a very unusual and unprecendented time in our neighbourhoods and around the globe.
From a business standpoint, the regional approach helps us keep the lights on and essential staff working. From a community standpoint, we want to continue to tell the stories of the residents. Are the stories in the new Lakeland This Week all going to be virus-related? No (we hope not). Are they all going to be from the Lac La Biche and Plamondon, Kikino or Conklin area? No. But they will be stories you can relate to, connect to. The pages will continue to be your access points the world you live in — your neighbours and neighbourhoods, your businesses and your lives. We're simply widening the target area and connecting our readers and residents to more people.
Please pick up your copy of the Lakeland Today at any gas station in Lac La Biche or Plamondon. The papers continue to be sold at IGA and Britton's Independent Grocer, Value Drug Mart, Cedar Pharmacy, Eddie's Mart, The Almac Motor Inn and the W.J. Cadzow Hospital.
Here's the editorial from this week's Lakeland This Week to give a bit more detail.
It's still us, just more of us
Hello.
It seems only polite and right to start with a greeting in this spot. This isn't a new publication you are reading today . . . well, it is - and it isn't. Let's say it's part of the 'new norm' for now.
Listed as an "Essential Service" during the COVID-19 pandemic by federal and provincial authorities, local media outlets are doing all we can to continue providing not only the wide-ranging news connections our local residents need, but also the hyper-local coverage that has linked our communities' residents for decades.
While doing all that, we remain a local business, and that's where it gets tricky these days.
Like many of our neighbours, the business models of community news organizations have changed significantly in the last few weeks. And like many of our local businesses, we were already coping with a declining general economy, and that's why we added the greeting to start this write-up.
Hello. Please allow us to re-introduce ourselves. We are the Lakeland THIS WEEK newspaper.
We are serving you with news, information and advertising from across the region — from Plamondon to Cold Lake and Conklin to Saddle Lake. We are your regional news and information newspaper, merging the 25,000-person readerships of the Lac La Biche POST, the Bonnyville Nouvelle, the St. Paul Journal and the Elk Point Review.
The idea of linking our region isn't new. The same news offices currently have more than 200,000 page views a month on the LakelandTODAY.ca regional website — and of course for centuries, beginning with the First People, our region has shared trading routes and familial ties.
Yes, this regional publication is also a cost-saving measure on our business side. It's an adaptation, a consolidation brought about by extraordinary events. We have seen staffing reductions and reduced salaries - just like millions of people around the world. But this isn't a hard-luck story. We aren't looking for pats on the back or sympathies. This is just the way it is, for now, and we want you to know how we are changing so we can continue to link our region to what matters - each other.
Sometimes the information in these pages might be about things you, as a reader, don't feel a direct connection to. "Why should I care about a virtual Easter-egg hunt in Elk Point?" a reader in Plamondon might say.
Well, as we are all encouraged to practice social distancing, isolation and quarantine, isn't it nice to 'connect' to someone or something outside of your new norm? We all need that connection. So please, if you have any story requests, ideas or want to draw regional customers to your products, reach out to us, and say hello.
