Post-Record co-owner details changes at newspaper, plans for future

Today, The Camas-Washougal Post-Record introduces a new design for our “flag,” or logo. The Old English style is meant to reflect the charm of Camas and Washougal. We think readers will delight in the look of the paper, which is “proudly printed in Clark County” – another piece of flair we have added to the front page. Other changes include a front-page column for our most newsworthy briefs, headline font-style changes and the elimination of our opinion page to make space for more Camas-Washougal news. Readers may have noticed other changes to The Camas-Washougal Post-Record recently. In early January, The Columbian and The Camas-Washougal Post-Record merged newsrooms, folding The Camas-Washougal Post-Record’s staff, Kelly Moyer and Doug Flanagan, into The Columbian’s 30-person team to better share our time, resources and specialties — and to create the best Post-Record possible, with Kelly and Doug still leading The Post-Record’s coverage. We also will be able to publish more articles written by Columbian reporters that are relevant to Camas and Washougal and showcase photographs taken by The Columbian’s award-winning photojournalists. Things also are changing on our digital side. As we all realize, any business that continues to give away its product for free — including a community newspaper — is doomed. This is why we have decided, as soon as next month, to place a paywall on The Camas-Washougal Post-Record’s online news content. Readers will soon need to pay for the news we publish on The Post-Record’s website, camaspostrecord.com. We need financial support to produce news that impacts and informs the Camas-Washougal community and to provide our employees with a living wage. Readers will still be able to enjoy a few free articles each month and will be able to see headlines, photos and snippets of other articles, but the bulk of our content will no longer be available for free on The Post-Record website. The Camas-Washougal Post-Record has a long history of combining resources to serve our readers and survive the peaks and troughs that punctuate our nation’s economy and the newspaper industry. This newspaper began publishing in 1908 under the name LaCamas Post. My family, the Campbells, purchased The Camas-Washougal Post-Record in 2004. Now, we are heading into a new phase for The Camas-Washougal Post-Record. In the future, we hope to introduce a weekly Post-Record email newsletter and an ePaper that will be similar to The Columbian’s digital newspaper replica. We’re also working on a plan to digitize all of The Post-Record’s archives and have them available with the option to search online by keyword, name or date. This is something our company did for The Columbian a few years ago. One final thing I want to state: Print is not dead. Never lost will be the feeling of reading ink, the smell of paper and the crinkle of the broadsheet. We plan to always have our news in that format for a more sophisticated reading experience. Thank you for being dedicated readers. Please email me at will.campbell@columbian.com if you have any questions or comments. — Will Campbell, co-owner of The Columbian and The Camas-Washougal Post-Record

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