Independent just great

Editorial

It seems that the rumor mill is alive and well. Last week, we wrote about a vicious e-mail that was being circulated about a community member. This week, the "news" is that the Jewish Independent is in trouble. Never ones to shy away from airing dirty laundry, we'll share ours with everyone: we're doing better than ever.

Thanks to your strong support, as advertisers and subscribers, the Jewish Independent is looking forward to its second consecutive profitable year. Granted we're not talking about tens of thousands of dollars, but the paper is in the black again – a major achievement if one considers the financial hurdles faced by print media around the world in light of the Internet's ever-increasing popularity. And we're not even a big media conglomerate, just an independent publisher with a small, but important, niche audience.

Of course, there are ups and downs in any given year for most businesses. The newspaper's slow times are February-March and the summer, which reflects the "drought" of larger Jewish holidays between Chanukah and Passover, and Passover and Rosh Hashanah, as well as the fact that many people vacation in July and August. When there are not many people around, readership and advertising declines – if you look at almost any other newspaper, you will notice that there are fewer pages and more "fluff" pieces in the summer months than during the rest of the year.

But, as publishers of the Jewish Independent for six years now, we've got the cash flow aspect handled. Sometimes suppliers and freelancers have to wait awhile to get a cheque – but they always get paid. And the wait time has been getting shorter as the paper has become more financially sound.

As for the non-financial side of the business, there, too, the Independent is happy and healthy. Under the same leadership and with essentially the same staff since 1999, two new staff members were hired this year and are contributing greatly to the paper. Former co-owners and employees still write for the paper whenever they can. The office atmosphere is cheerful and relaxed, with perhaps the exception of Tuesdays, which is when we go to press, so there is more pressure to focus on the tasks at hand and less opportunity to chat among ourselves or with people who call in with story ideas and the like.

In addition to our new editor and assistant publisher, a highlight of this year was the change of the name of the paper, from the Jewish Western Bulletin to the Jewish Independent. The transition has taken place with minimal administrative difficulty and the name itself has been well received overall. Already the decision has proved to be a good one, in that advertisers are taking the newspaper more seriously, especially those not located in British Columbia. As well, we have several new subscribers – people who picked up the "new" publication and loved it.

For the Independent's 75th anniversary, the paper received more press coverage than it has in the last six years. We are generally the writers of stories, not the subject of them, so this was welcome attention. About 150 people came out to the July party to share this milestone with us and, as a result of media interviews we did to promote the event, more people became subscribers of the paper. As well, Business in Vancouver carried a feature profile of the publisher, Cynthia Ramsay, in one of its August issues, thereby further broadening the newspaper's circle.

Editorially, the positive feedback about the content of the paper continues to significantly outweigh the negative. We continue to add to the paper's quality and interest – never thinking for a moment that your support is unconditional. We want to provide you with the best product that we can, given our resources; a newspaper you will enjoy, and not just subscribe to out of a sense of duty. For example, for the last few months we've been running an advice column, Let's Talk, written by staff at the Jewish Family Service Agency, and we've increased the number of personality and business profiles we publish. With our new design has come more photos and an effort to make the paper more visually stimulating.

But the excitement surrounding the Independent is not enough for us. We are constantly considering new ideas for columns and how to attract more readers. As is the case with most Jewish community organizations, the Independent needs to increase its appeal to the "next generation," and we are working on it. The difference now is that we are working on it from a position of relative strength. We're no longer scraping by financially and we have an excellent staff in place to take us into the future. Last, but definitely not least, we have thousands of loyal subscribers and advertisers who continue to support us through it all. Thank you and shana tovah.

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