Remember the pandemic? Here at River Towns Media we certainly do. In March 2020, just as events were being canceled, public gathering spaces were shutting down, and office workers and students were becoming shut-ins, we launched River Journal North (RJN) to serve the northern River Towns.
Our plans were in place months before that fateful March precipitated the masking of America. But pandemic be damned, we felt; instead of surrendering, we pivoted to combine River Journal North with our sister monthly, the then 21-year-old River Journal, into one publication serving eight River Towns, from Irvington north to Peekskill. We continued that way for the remainder of 2020, then in 2021 felt confident enough to resume the original plan of publishing River Journal North on its own.
And for the past four years, RJN has stood on its own, as the only monthly print publication serving the vibrant tapestry of villages and hamlets and neighborhoods that comprise the City of Peekskill and Town of Cortlandt.
Why am I telling you all this? Because it has become a daunting financial challenge to keep River Journal North on its feet any longer. It needs to take a seat.
That brings us to the terse headline at the top of this column that undoubtedly is cryptic for many, but which old-school journalists recognize as our profession’s time-honored shorthand for “the end,” placed at the bottom of news copy to indicate there is no more to come.
Translated, that means this is the last print edition of River Journal North, which will continue to publish stories and other information of interest to our community on riverjournalonline.com. This business decision in no way affects our flagship title, River Journal, which is financially robust where River Journal North is, to be blunt, financially a bust.
In today’s media market, publishers like River Towns Media rely on but a single revenue stream – advertising from local business owners. The simple – if regrettable – equation is that there are not enough businesses in this marketplace willing to advertise for us to justify the considerable monthly cost of printing and postage, as we have been mailing 30,000 copies of this periodical each month through the U.S. Postal Service.
Speaking as one who has been at this game for a bunch of decades, there are precious few publishers who would have stuck it out this long while losing a substantial sum of money each month. For that, might I suggest that we all owe a sizable debt of gratitude to River Towns Media LLC Founder and Owner Alain Begun. I’ve known since we started working together that Alain’s made of sterner stuff than most in his position, and we’ve all been beneficiaries of that generosity of spirit and intestinal fortitude.
This is not a hard goodbye – since River Journal North will still be visible and active in our digital space and in person around the community – but signing off from the printed page with a full-stop -30- remains hard nonetheless.
Thank you to all the advertisers who have been with us on this ride. Thank you to the readers who have embraced our brand of uplifting community journalism.
And, thank you, Alain.
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As long as River Journal/River Journal North continue to publish, you’re doing all these communities a service by connecting them and emphasizing the positive. I’m grateful for your type of coverage, whether it’s in hard copy or not.