Welcome, Pine Bluff

You’ll have your own editorials, too

AND BEFORE we knew what was happening, we were converted. It was a sunny Sunday morn, the light was pouring through the window, we held up the paper to keep it off the breakfast table, and the light from the other side washed out the ink. We moved a couple of times, trying to find a position best to read the news, until we decided to put down that Sunday paper, and clicked on the iPad.

Then we stopped to think about what had just happened.

It was just one moment, but we were officially converted to the digital replica edition of this newspaper. For our friends and family in Pine Bluff, we promise you: This is better. And you’ll realize it when you have your own such moment.

On Monday, news came that Gannett sold the Pine Bluff Commercial to this newspaper and its parent company, WEHCO Newspapers Inc. This will not only be good for journalism in Pine Bluff in the long term, but also for readers in the short.

The Pine Bluff Commercial gets a new editor, and a new staff. It will produce local stories about Pine Bluff, and local editorials about the region. Unlike many, many newspapers in the last decade, it will not shut its doors and let feral politicians run wild in the streets. You’ll still be able to find out what’s going on at City Hall or the school board. Long live the inverted pyramid!

But back to that digital replica, which some in Pine Bluff doubtless are wondering about. Here are just a few of its benefits, not including the fact that it enables the newspaper to still commit journalism—that is, to afford it.

■ The light from the other side doesn’t wash out the page on a sunny morn. But we’ve mentioned that.

■ You can get the paper before daylight. No matter where you are in the state. No more walking through the rain or slush to pick up a paper, which might be wet itself if not wrapped tightly.

Some family members in southern Arkansas used to complain about the sports section down there, because the edition they received every morning used to “go to bed” long before midnight.

And sometimes the sports section didn’t have the previous night’s scores if the games went long. Sometimes the sports section didn’t have the previous night’s scores even if the games didn’t go long. Imagine the complaints we heard when the Hogs were playing on the West Coast.

Now those scores will be at your hand at, say, 4 a.m.

■ In the digital edition, editors often add videos. You click on a video that goes with the story, and it’s like reading a newspaper from a Harry Potter movie.

■ You can increase the size of the print in the digital edition—without looking for your glasses. The older we get, the better this feature becomes.

■ Subscribers will be able to get the digital edition anywhere. Even if you’re vacationing in Europe or Africa, or an even more exotic location like Texas, you’ll be able to get the morning paper, complete with the indispensable “In The News” section on 1A, to Wally Hall’s column, to the Friday movie section. And you won’t have 20 papers stacked up on your porch when you get home.

■ You can’t accidentally throw away the replica edition. Did you forget to save Eric Harrison’s restaurant review from last week? And you wanted to show it to your spouse? It’s still there. Just click on the paper’s date.

■ And you’ll get more news.

That is, as papers across the country cut, cut, cut to save money and try to make their companies profitable, a digital edition allows this paper to not only continue journalism, but to increase it.

Current subscribers could explain the extra pages that come with the digital replica. And charts and graphics concerning the virus. And the weekly that-didn’t-really-happen feature, including all the fake news of the week. And “extras” that our editors pick to give readers even more. And not just on Sunday, but more news, every day.

The story goes that a man well into his 90s told our publisher that he wasn’t sure about this whole iPad thing and the replica edition. But after a few minutes of using it, he converted, too. And said he liked it better than the old printed paper. We think you’ll enjoy it, Pine Bluff. Welcome aboard.