An open letter from our publisher

Dear Henrico Citizen reader:

These are challenging times for all of us, and they are presenting difficult questions that require difficult answers. The COVID-19 virus has changed the way we all are living and working, and we at the Henrico Citizen and T3 Media, LLC are no different. With Gov. Ralph Northam now mandating that Virginians stay home through June 10, most businesses are closed or operating on very limited hours, and many have slashed or eliminated areas of spending, including marketing and advertising.

Because many of our distribution locations are closed and likely to be closed for several months, I have made the difficult decision to halt publication of the Citizen’s print edition for the month of April and possibly beyond. Our twice-monthly print edition has been our flagship news platform since I founded the company in 2001. But in the years since, we’ve evolved and added an extensive series of digital news platforms, which now include this daily website, daily weekday email update and Henrico News Minute podcast and even more frequent updates on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. We reach more readers online today than we do in print.

Halting our print edition does not mean that we are slowing our local news coverage efforts. To the contrary, in fact, we already have increased the frequency of our coverage online through each of our digital platforms and will continue to do so in the weeks ahead. In the past 10 days alone, we’ve posted more than 30 news articles and eight editions of the Henrico News Minute podcast to HenricoCitizen.com, made dozens of posts on social media and kept 12,000+ recipients of our daily weekday email update list informed about the impacts of COVID-19 locally, changes to the Henrico budget, and how local businesses and organizations are adapting to the “new normal.” We’ve done this with a newsroom staff of two people, an online editor and one freelance journalist.

In many ways, halting the print edition during this time will allow us more opportunity to cover the local Henrico news that is important to our readers in an even more responsive and rapid way – but still with the journalistic integrity and responsibility that will always be at the foundation of every decision we make. Those of you who primarily read us online may not even notice a difference.

The way people consume news already had been changing, and we’ve been changing with it. I’m very proud of the multiple platforms of coverage our small staff is able to provide on a daily basis, and we will continue working as diligently as we know how to provide more of it, in order to reach you wherever you want to consumer Henrico news.

How we’re supporting small businesses in Henrico
We believe in this community that we serve. The COVID-19 crisis has thrown everyone’s sense of normalcy completely out of whack and created great hardships for many. In our own small way, we wanted to help other small businesses like ours, so last week we awarded 10 free two-month digital advertising packages to Henrico-based businesses of 25 employees or less. These include advertising exposure across all six of our digital platforms and had a total value of more than $14,000. We donated this space because we have a platform through which we can reach people, and we want to use it to help our fellow small businesses survive this ordeal and emerge to thrive once it’s over.

Several of these small businesses have begun running their campaigns with us; you’ll see their advertisements on our site, in our emails and on our social media accounts and hear them in our podcasts. We encourage you, if you can, to support them and all the local businesses that advertise with the Citizen. Their success is our success as a community.

How you can support the Citizen – and Henrico nonprofits at the same time
The Citizen is an independent news organization. We are not owned or funded by Henrico County or any large media entity. Our news coverage always has been free, whether in print or online. But during this uncertain period, expenditure cutbacks by local and regional businesses that advertise with us have the potential to make our news-gathering efforts much more difficult.

Many other local publications nationwide are facing the same harsh realities that we are: Without a sustainable form of revenue, our existence may be threatened. We believe in what we do, and we believe in its importance now more than ever. If you value the work we do and the coverage we provide and want it to continue, my staff and I would be honored if you’d choose to support us with a contribution toward those efforts. If you aren’t able to do so, we of course understand.

You may make a contribution to the Citizen here. And if you do, we’re committing to helping others who play such a vital role in our community – namely, the many nonprofits doing important work here – with each donation we receive of $15 or more, we will provide free advertising exposure for them, too. Simply tell us which nonprofit you’d like for us to provide with the exposure, and we’ll take care of the rest.

To all of our readers, advertisers and supporters, please accept our sincerest thanks for helping to make the Citizen Henrico’s hometown news source since 2001. We’re in this with you, and we are here to keep you informed about what’s happening in your county. Please e-mail me anytime at tom@henricocitizen.com to let us know how we’re doing, tip us off to a great story we should be covering or just say hello.

We’re all in this together!