Rogers offers "State of the Daily" address

Some newspapers may be in crisis mode, but don't put the Neosho Daily News on that list, Publisher Rick Rogers says in a column that ran in today's Daily and is posted online:

As I reported during the Neosho Area Chamber of Commerce’s quarterly luncheon in March, the Daily News experienced some positive trends in the past 15 months. In 2008, we welcomed 323 new subscribers to our family — folks who had never before had the Daily News delivered to their homes. This was the largest increase in the four years I have served as publisher. In all, we had a circulation increase of 52 subscribers in 2008. While you may not think that number is large, any circulation increase is against the national trend for newspapers. We were quite pleased.

Also, the editorial staff was honored with 18 awards in 2008 for journalism excellence. These awards were received for their work in 2007 — a year like no other in the Neosho region for major news stories such as the January ice storm, August church shooting and the missing person case of Rowan Ford. These 18 awards were the most received in one year at the Daily News in recent memory.

While we experienced circulation growth, our Web site — www.neoshodailynews.com — also experienced growth. We are currently averaging more than 2,000 unique visitors a day, and continue to see growth, according to our third-party Web service

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