Dear readers,

We continue to receive and appreciate your feedback on the regional print edition of East Oregonian as well as on the website. One recent suggested asked why a story that had been online several days at eastoregonian.com did not make that particular week’s print paper.

Our newspaper right now is about 50% ads, leaving the rest of that space for us to fill with news and opinion, which we always run on Page A4. So for a 10 page A section, for example, we have one page for opinion and about the equivalent of four pages to fill with news. The Outdoors & Recreation and the Business & Agriculture sections might be more open but have far fewer pages.

Producing the print paper remains the most labor- and time-intensive work we do. We plan ahead for the paper, sometimes deciding more than a week in advance what we’ll have on the front of any section. Having stories ready for page designers well in advance makes production work much smoother. The more we can do that the easier it makes building the print edition, and that ensures we meet press deadlines to get the paper out to news stands and subscribers.

While we sometimes can change out one story for another, it’s can be far easier to say than do, so we tend to avoid that.

All the EO Media Group newspapers in Eastern Oregon for any given week produce more news and photos than we can run in print, of course. We aim to provide the freshest news on our websites, and from all of that we select what goes in print.

The printed East Oregonian, then, is about showcasing our best work. The better we plan and prepare that work ahead of production, the better that showcase looks.

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