A year ago today Hawke's Bay Today became a morning paper.
It is amazing to think that it has been a year already, but then again a lot has happened during that time. The biggest change since then has been our successful move to compact size last month.
Looking back on the shift to mornings, it was the best thing we could have done. The transition had its challenges, with a weather bomb during that time playing havoc with our new delivery times. Things have settled down since then and I get many readers telling me they enjoy the morning paper. One thing that has remained the same despite the two big changes has been our focus on local news. We are proudly local and while we still cover national and international news, our first priority is telling you what is happening in your communities.
Yesterday also marked a year since I took over from Antony Phillips as editor of Hawke's Bay Today. It has been a good year and one in which I have been able to build on the solid platform left by Ant. There have been two main objectives during the year. The first has been to offer readers more analysis and in-depth reporting. We have done this with the introduction of our new Insight feature every Saturday and our (recently introduced) Monday Spotlight. We use these features to examine issues affecting our region. Another objective was to allow the community to have more of a voice in the paper. Our letters and texts to the editor sections have always been popular but now we have a daily column for local leaders and organisations to have their say. If you do represent a local organisation or group, please feel free to submit an article of 750 words to be considered for publication. This is your newspaper.
