There’s usually a catch when you are offered something for free, right? Go online and look at the dozens of websites where you can get stuff for free. The catch being getting emails up the ying yang, having to buy a product and then being asked to fill out a survey, then being hounded again via email (or perhaps daily robo calls).

I bring up this “free thing” from the standpoint of the editor of this newspaper. Yes, we do sell the newspaper for a buck each week (less for subscribers) and we do get advertisers’ dollars to help keep this business afloat. However, for approximately 12 years (that’s approximately 4,264 days), we have given you, the reader, free access to our websites (Boothbay Register and Wiscasset Newspaper – as well as our sister paper, Pen Bay Pilot) which contain 99% of the news we cover or receive each week.

Also, offering our site for free allows anyone to access our sites, which includes our online ads giving local businesses/advertisers more visibility and we are all about supporting small business.

If you are old enough to remember back to 1998, we started a very rudimentary website called The Porthole Online. Our former reporter, Joseph Orchulli, helped start it and it gave readers a few stories, some obits, columns, maybe a few letters to the editor … but not much else. Like other newspapers back then, we were just getting started with having a website. The old website, which lasted until 2011, became a much better website in 2012 – enough so, that we have won several Maine Press Association awards over the past decade or so.

Free. News for free. Not a good model for sustaining a newspaper. Would you like to pay a monthly or yearly fee to read our newspapers online?

Many newspapers have put up paywalls for readers to access their local news, but we have not. Yes, it has entered our discussions, but there are many things to consider before doing it. More on that for another time, but first I want to give you some facts about producing a newspaper.

We must pay people to cover and write the news, send out bills and subscription notices, collect and produce advertising, design the newspaper, deliver the newspapers to the newsstands, buy new equipment, keep the building heated and the lights on – then there are the printing costs … you get the idea … we can’t do these things for free.

Advertising – both in print and online – in newspapers has dropped since the advent of the internet and social media. Other factors for the decline include businesses struggling to fill their staff, increases in food and inventory and other costs, which businesses have to deal with before spending money on advertising. 

You, the reader, can help fill in the gap of declining ad revenue. Become a supporter. Visit our websites and click on the Support the Boothbay Register or Support the Wiscasset Newspaper button to support local journalism – There are various options to support.  

 The Boothbay Register and Wiscasset Newspaper have been around a long time, and we want to continue to bring you the local news – the news you won’t get anywhere else.

Thank you for your continued support.