Ken Graham: FROM THE PUBLISHER

The newspaper business has changed a lot since the first issue of the Waitsburg Times was published in (get this) 1878. For example, it was some time after that that they started putting in photographs.

The beginnings of this newspaper, which (without fail, as far as I know) has been published every week since, preceded such technological icons as the telephone, radio and television. Oh yes, and the internet. For most people in and around Waitsburg in the late 19th century, this was their only source of news.

As we at The Times plod along in the early 21st century, we’ve long since lost our monopoly as a news source. And now we lay the whole thing out on a computer, digital color photos and all, and send it off electronically to be printed on a giant press somewhere else. We rarely get our hands dirty.

This month we’re taking one more step down the road of advancing of technology. Readers of the Times can read the entire newspaper online. For free.

We’ve had a website for awhile (as have most other newspapers), and most of the articles were there – but you had to pay extra. And most readers didn’t.

Now the entire paper is available online to everyone with a subscription. And you can read it in web format, or you can see a digital image of the printed paper – which allows you to see all of the ads, including legal notices.

Our web address is still http://www.waitsburgtimes.com. If you are a Times subscriber, you can go to the “Free Trial” link there to set up your username and password. Your expiration will then be set to the same date as the expiration of your print subscription. When you renew your print subscription, your online access will be automatically extended as well.

If you are not a print subscriber, then give our free trial a try. You’ll not only get 28 days of free online access, but you’ll receive the next four copies of the print version of The Times in your mailbox.

And here’s a third option: If you’re one of those people who doesn’t have fish to wrap or fires to start, and you’d like to free yourself of the clutter of dead newspapers, you can opt to read The Times only online. You’ll still have to subscribe, but the entire paper will be there for you to read, ink-free.