Editor’s note: Find the latest Wrangler News film featuring a discussion about the impacts of social media at the bottom of this page.
Commentary by Joyce Coronel
Some of my earliest and best memories involve the pleasure of reading. My parents read aloud to us and filled our home with good books, periodicals and a prized set of Funk and Wagnall Encyclopedias, the hardback, leather-bound version with gold embossed covers. (“Don’t take those out of the house!” my mother would remind us if we ever got the notion.)
We lived within biking distance of the public library in our town and made frequent trips there where we loaded up on Trixie Belden and other mystery series books to get us through scorching summer afternoons. Breakfast was eaten mostly in silence as each one of us perused the pages of the morning newspaper that was delivered to our driveway each day. (We were also subscribers to an afternoon newspaper, something many Americans today have never even heard of.) My parents didn’t belong to the same political party, so the dinner table sometimes included lively debate over the issue of the day they had read about in the newspaper.
The news business—and family life—has undergone dramatic change since my sun-drenched childhood growing up in small-town Arizona. How could we have known back in the 1970s that people would one day read news stories on telephones carried in their pockets or purses?
As the big daily newspapers continue to feel the squeeze of waning readership and shrinking revenue, Wrangler News is uniquely poised to grow, improve and reach new heights. With our community focus and dedication to serving the needs of individuals and families, businesses, churches and schools in our area, people increasingly turn to us for information. If they want to read about the latest homicide or scandal de jour, they can Google it. Those kinds of stories are not Wrangler territory.
We regularly receive calls from people who tell us they’ve been reading Wrangler for years and it’s their favorite newspaper. We’d like to think that hometown news told with a flair, plus great photography and strong features, are what keep people coming back to us again and again for nearly three decades.
We’ve responded by continuing to publish a print edition twice monthly plus a weekly eEdition that is reaching a burgeoning readership. (Shameless promo: Sign up for our free eEdition at WranglerNews.com.) Our Facebook and Twitter pages are also a great way for Wrangler fans to tune into local news that’s specially formatted for a digital platform. You always have your phone with you, right? Next time you’re stuck in line, check out our Wrangler News website or social media pages.
Venturing into video
Now we embark upon a new adventure: video news features. Alex Beaver, a Marcos de Niza alum and graduate of Tempe’s University of Advancing Technology, will be contributing at least one short video each month focused on news in our area. The videos will be posted on our Wrangler News website as well as our Facebook and Twitter pages.
Of course, we know that people will still read the hard copy of Wrangler News delivered to their driveway (and continue to drop by our offices and racks around town for copies) but we also know that at a time of videos gone viral, adding this additional component to our regular offerings is one more way we can help bring you the stories that matter about the people, businesses, churches and schools in our community.
Thank you for being a Wrangler reader and please do let us know what you think of our new video series being unveiled in this issue.
WATCH: Students at Kyrene Middle School listen as Collin Kartchner of Save the Kids discusses the impact of social media. – Film by Alex Beaver
