Year to bring change driven by readers

The new year will bring a few more changes to The Eastern New Mexico News.

But this time, those changes won’t involve cost cutting as they have so often in recent years.

This time, the change will be driven by readers.

Starting Wednesday, we will introduce a Readers Choice page.

We’ve been asking readers — through our Facebook page and face-to-face encounters — what they’d like to see that the paper doesn’t publish now.

A few of the responses:

• More reader interaction

• Contests with prizes

• Information about local businesses

• Free stuff

• Pets in search of “forever homes”

• National news reports

A newspaper can never please every reader, because each reader has unique tastes and sometimes they conflict.

One may want more crime news, while another wants less crime news. So providing content that all readers want is complicated.

And full disclosure: It’s not realistic to give readers what they mostly say they want, which is a daily paper in Clovis and Portales again, with 24-7 news coverage online. The revenue simply isn’t there for a return to the newspaper’s heyday that we all want.

So we adjust as best we can, and compromise where it’s possible, to try and give readers as much variety as we can as often as we can.

That’s the purpose of a weekly Readers Choice page.

Part of that concept begins today with suggestions from readers who asked if we could report more news outside the region.

While most of our resources are committed to providing local news and sports, we do have access to the Tribune News Service. It offers in-depth news coverage on major stories from major newspapers including the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Newsday and The Dallas Morning News.

We don’t have space to publish all of that content, but how about a weekly “think piece” for a Sunday afternoon that gives a little perspective to important events outside our neighborhood?

The Sunday Reader begins today with an in-depth analysis focused on the Texas Senate campaign of likely presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke. The Democrat did not defeat incumbent Ted Cruz, but he raised eyebrows with the success he had in a state that thinks a lot like eastern New Mexico.

I hope you will let us know what you think about today’s Sunday Reader and the Readers Choice page that we’ll unveil on Wednesday.

Both, undoubtedly, will be evolving over the next few weeks as we try to provide information that’s relevant and enhances our readers’ lives.

If it’s going to accomplish those goals, we’ll be needing your feedback and continuing ideas.

David Stevens is publisher for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:

[email protected]