I wonder if Bob Dylan knew just exactly how much the times would be a-changin’ when he wrote a song of a similar name 45 years ago?
    Yes folks, the times they are a-changin’, and, as Dylan warned, “you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone.”

There are no plans to do any sinking here at the Hood River News and Columbia Gorge Press; we’re staying afloat, thank you. But like many other companies, we’re examining our business model, tightening our proverbial belts and doing our best to adapt to fast-changing reading habits — among other things.

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Our mission to cover the news of Hood River County won’t change. We will continue to work hard to focus on local news — what’s going on in our communities, in our schools, on our athletic fields, and at our businesses. We’ll continue to record what’s happening in our local neighborhoods as well as across town — from Mount Hood to Cascade Locks, and points in between.

We’ll continue to help businesses reach customers and potential customers, so they can weather harsh economic times like these, and grow and prosper.

We will continue to be a community partner, with commitments to civic leadership. Outside of the workplace, our employees will continue to be members of service and fraternal organizations, active church participants, youth coaches, National Guard members and SMART readers.

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What will change — rather, what is changing — is how we cover and disseminate that news. Hood River News readers continue to live a few blocks, a few miles or a few states away. They also live around the world. (How prophetic the Sherman Brothers turned out to be when, at Walt Disney’s behest, they wrote “It’s A Small World.”)

Some read the paper from cover to cover, others scan the headlines. Some go right to the sports, or obituaries or letters to the editor. (We know because they tell us so.) Others read the Hood River News from one side of the computer screen to the other, from Page Up to Page Down. Yet more read the News between text messages on their mobile phones.

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We publish two issues on paper each week, yet we post stories, photos and video every day online. If you read the print edition, you may have noticed you are holding a narrower newspaper. We’ve converted from 25-inch to 22-inch newsprint, which costs us less and also saves a few more trees.

Yes, the times are a-changin’. And, yet, they’re staying the same. For most of the past year, as part of Hood River County’s 100-year anniversary, we published a monthly retrospective section. As we scanned past copies of the Hood River News, it was eerily evident that many of the types of stories readers deemed important 50, 60 and 70 years ago, were the same types of stories they find important today.

Thirty years ago we published a Who’s Who section, introducing numerous businesses to our readers. We’ll do the same thing later this month — some of those businesses will be the same and some will be different.

One gauge of the health of a community newspaper is the letters to the editor section, which we call “Our Readers Write.” The local newspaper must be a place for healthy community dialogue, where ideas can be shared and mulled over, where issues can be discussed. Today’s editorial page reflects the health of the Hood River News. It also reflects the strength of a diverse community, one that’s not afraid from time to time to have its windows shaken and its walls rattled.

— Joe Petshow, Hood River News Publisher