Dear Reader,
We’ve come through a year that has been filled with successes and challenges across our communities, from Indian Bayou runoff, to alcohol sales, paying for a courthouse, a new school's groundbreaking, breaching jail capacity, an "unprecedented" crime drop, to wondering where the Panhandle Butterfly House will go, seeing Locklin become a college, remembering a past councilman, and an election.
But one constant that we want to take a moment to celebrate is you.
We’re thankful for Santa Rosa Press Gazette readers like you because you care enough about your community, and your place in it, to keep up with what's happening around you. You are engaged and concerned. You have thoughts to share, and what we deliver to you in words, photos, graphics, audio and video helps you inspire or drive conversations.
From our coverage of Milton City Council and Santa Rosa County Commission activities, NAS Whiting Field and other military news, and local nonprofit needs and successes, we strive to be your most trusted, local source for news. A good local newspaper should both celebrate the community’s accomplishments and challenge its assumptions. You don't always like or agree with what we write, and some of you tell us so. We respect and appreciate that.
Knowing some of the challenges of our industry, readers ask with increasing frequency how they can help make sure the free press remains vibrant. Our response is to recommend that they maintain a subscription to the newspaper or a digital subscription for full online access, that they support our advertisers (who, in turn, support our journalism), and that they encourage their friends and neighbors to do the same.
We are all grateful for a country that provides us the freedom to freely examine and discuss the important issues we all face. And we at the Santa Rosa Press Gazette are grateful for you and your continued support for our work.
We wish you a warm, joyous, happy holiday season and look forward to continuing to serve you in 2019.
Publisher, Jim Fletcher
Editor, Aaron Little
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Letter to our readers