Photo changes have been positive

It was a decision born of necessity.

But it has yielded positive results.

Over the course of the last seven weeks you may have noticed a change in the photos that appear in the newspaper.

Most state, national and world photos are gone. Replacing them are local photos, sometimes a few days old.

Here’s what happened:

Like most newspapers, The Commercial Review has implemented a series of revenue-generating and cost-saving measures in recent years. Times are tight throughout the industry.

One such change began in early August when we ended our contract with the Associated Press for (almost) unlimited use of photos.

We can still use AP photos, but we now pay for them a la carte. And in order to realize cost savings with the change, limiting use of a la carte photos is key.

So, before we made this change, we needed to come up with ideas for how to generate enough photos to fill the gaps left by the absence of AP. Those include:

•Trying to make sure we have art — a photo or graphic — with our top story of the day. That’s not always easy, but it’s often possible.

•Making regular visits to local schools. Once a week, someone from our staff spends an hour or so at one of the schools in order to take photos of what the students and teachers do every day. (Teachers and staff have been encouraged to let us know if they have anything special going on that might be photo- or story-worthy. This week’s story about a Jay County High School science class creating a “superbug” is an example.)

•Taking plenty of photos at local events — think Jay County WALK Against Cancer, United Way of Jay County campaign kickoff and the upcoming Jay County Historical Society Heritage Festival — and using them not only the next day but throughout the following week. (Our goal is to still have a fresh photo — taken with the last 24 hours — to feature each day, but leftovers will often appear on the bottom of the front page or inside the newspaper.)

If you’ve been paying attention — we know some of you have, because you’ve commented — you should have noticed a vast increase in local photos since early August.

We still believe there is value to using photos from across the state, country and world. It’s important to expand our horizons beyond the borders of Jay County, Indiana and the United States.

But there is certainly also value to getting a deeper look at what’s happening here locally. So we’ve been pleased with the results — more faces you know on the pages of the newspaper every day.

As publisher Jack Ronald said last week, “We should have done that years ago.”

He’s right, we should have. Hindsight is 20/20.

As we look forward, though, we see it as a positive for the newspaper and the community, and we welcome further suggestions about how to keep our pages brimming with local photos. — R.C.