The Idaho Statesman marked its 159th birthday in July, and while the newspaper has seen countless changes, two of the biggest were announced to readers August 4, 2023.
The updates include a major shift in how many times the Statesman will have a print edition each week; plus how those print editions will be delivered will be very different.
Statesman Editor Chadd Cripe visited with Morning Edition host George Prentice soon after the announcement went public.
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Read the full transcript below:
GEORGE PRENTICE: On a Friday. It's Morning Edition. Good morning. I'm George Prentice. There's a story in this morning's Idaho Statesman about the Idaho Statesman, Idaho's paper of record, first published in the 1860s. So let's let's bring in Chad Cripe. He's the editor at the Statesman,Chad, good morning.
CHADD CRIPE: Morning, George. Thanks for having me.
PRENTICE: You bet, Chad, just for the record, how long have you been at the Statesman?
CRIPE: I've been here for 27 years. I started in 1996 as a 20-year-old intern, and I've been here ever since.
PRENTICE: Okay, so let's not bury the headline here. Why don't you share the news it affects us as consumers, right? Readers are mostly affected by this.
CRIPE: Yeah. So we announced two pretty significant changes today. They take effect the week of October 9th. So one is that we're going to three days a week of print. So we will publish print editions on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Currently, we're at six days a week. And the other one is that our the paper will be delivered by the U.S. Postal Service. And so the Wednesday and Friday papers will arrive with your usual Wednesday and Friday mail delivery, whenever that is. For the vast majority of people, there might be a few people that get it late, but the vast majority of people that will happen. And then the Sunday paper actually will be delivered on Saturday because that's when the postal service delivers. So that one will actually show up early.
PRENTICE: I guess I understand the Sunday, but how do you decide which days?
CRIPE: Those are for readership and advertising. Those are sort of the three key days of the week. So that's why those three days.
PRENTICE: There must be some data that bears this out, but can I assume that there is a generational divide on those who like a printed copy and those who are just more, it goes to their phone, it goes to their tablet?
CRIPE: Yeah. I mean, you know, and it's interesting because there are people in our community who are 70 years old and tell me that they read the e-edition every day and don't read print. But there are also people who are 50 years old who tell me they just really love to read it in the paper. And so there is, but it's also still there's some blurriness to it. That's one thing I should have mentioned, we will still have an e-edition seven days a week. So, that is not changing. So the people who want a newspaper-like experience, that will still be there seven days a week, it's just, we're just cutting back the print part of it.
PRENTICE: I am certain that the postal service loves this deal, but this is pretty unique. Does this impact your deadlines then, for getting that to them for delivery?
CRIPE: It doesn't it doesn't affect our deadline at all on for the Wednesday and Friday editions. So the Sunday edition, the deadline will be earlier because it's going to show up on Saturday. I don't think because the Sunday edition, you know, a big chunk of that is sort of, you know, bigger, more in-depth stories that we do. Those stories will generally still be there, we'll just have to arrange things on our end to get them done a little bit earlier. Not, not a ton earlier, but a little bit earlier so, I don't think you'll, you'll see a huge difference in the Sunday paper, other than you know, we are going to dress it up a little bit and make it look a little nicer on Sundays, so that'll be cool and then in terms of the postal service arrangement, this is actually so within our company, McClatchy, we have papers across the country and we are the first one doing this three days a week of print model but, the mail delivery, we're, I forget now fifth or sixth or something and so it's been done in a few of our markets already and it's been really successful. It's been working out very well. Readers have been happy with it to this point.
PRENTICE: Can you take us into the newsroom? I am certain that if someone says we everybody get together, we have to have a meeting. You know, your heart skips a beat and you're a little nervous. So I didn't hear anything about staff changes. Is can I assume there are no impacts to staff?
CRIPE: Yes, there is no impact to our newsroom, at all. Yeah,we still have all the same journalists who will be, you know, our coverage will be at the same level that it has been. And in fact, we're adding a reporter on Monday, which I'm excited about. So, so, yeah, there was no impact there, it's always weird and hard, you know, had to send out an email and be like, hey, we're making an announcement today. And, um, yeah, the good news for us is that we had some heads, we had some warning this was coming. This has been an ongoing conversation in our company for quite some time about what is the next step down the digital path. Is it going to digital only? Is it going to two days of print, one day of print, three days of print? You know, we've been talking about this internally for for quite a while. And so, you know, don't think it was a surprise to anybody on our staff that that this happened.
PRENTICE: This is a cost saving measure. Yes?
CRIPE: It's interesting. There's some cost savings, but there's also some revenue we're giving up to do it. So is it a net cost savings? I don't know. I think it's possible that it goes that way, but it's also possible that it that it goes the other way. And that's part of the challenge with figuring this out with the transition to digital is, at some point you're giving up. Print is still a profitable model today, that won't be the case forever. And so at some point you're giving that up to try to make the transition while you still have some print customers to transition to digital, Right? So, yeah, it's not, it was not done as a cost savings. It was done as a we've got to continue this transition to digital and we want to do it while we control the timing of it and we control how we do it versus being, you know, in a situation where all of a sudden, you're not profitable doing it and you don't have any choice and you're just doing what you have to do. In this case, we're doing what what we feel like is the right thing strategically for the long term. And and Boise was selected in large part because we have one of the best digital-only subscriber bases in the company. And, you know, our market has been pretty good at adopting digital. And so there is a feeling that that we can be successful here is sort of the test market for a company doing this.
PRENTICE: These are interesting times to do what you do. Can you speak to the level of skill among 20 and 30 somethings who are at closer to the beginning of their career? I'm curious about what you see in working with these younger journalists, knowing that you were in those shoes. Well, probably in your mind just yesterday.
CRIPE: Yeah, it's been an interesting experience the last last few years. We have gotten a lot younger over the last you know, I've been in this job for two and a half years.
GEORGE PRENTICE: And as editor.
CRIPE: Yeah, as editor. And we've had to, you know, kind of rebuild our staff in the last couple of years. And so, you know, I don't know what the percentage is, but I've hired a large percentage of our staff at this point. And just in just two and a half years and and a lot of them are, you know, 20 somethings. And so it is a much younger staff than we used to have. But it's a great crew to be around. They're really energetic. They they care a ton about the community. They care a ton about people. And you know, a lot of them are, are learning on the job and, and figuring things out. We're fortunate to have this sort of blend of people like me who've been here for decades and, you know, a lot of people who are newer and and we all kind of mesh together well and so, that's been fun. But yeah, it's funny to look at like how much different their jobs are than my job was when I started. When I started, we were print only, right? There was no digital component at all. And now we're, you know, inching our way toward digital only. And, um, and so, yeah, it is interesting to see how different that is. And I lived the transition, covering Boise State football where, you know, when I started everything I did was for the newspaper and by the time I was done, 80% of what I did was for the website and 20% of it was for print. And so, it's been a wild ride the last, particularly the last 15 years or so.
PRENTICE: The change is effective when?
CRIPE: The week of October 9th. So I believe October 9th is a Monday. So that'll be the first day that we don't print a paper that we currently do print a paper and the first mail delivery then would be that Wednesday, which is the 11th.
PRENTICE: The headline is Idaho Statesman to change print days delivery method. And he is Chad Cripe, the editor. And, Chad, thanks for giving me some time this morning. Great. Good luck to you and all of your young colleagues.
CRIPE: Thanks, George.
PRENTICE: Take care.
Find reporter George Prentice on Twitter @georgepren
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