Dear reader: We need your help
I wanted to let you know about changes we will make soon to our online coronavirus coverage.
First, thank you for your support over the last month. We’ve seen a record number of page views at sunherald.com, as we’ve tried to keep you informed on the latest with the pandemic, both here in South Mississippi and around the country. And we’ve done it for free, as a public service.
It is now time to put some of our coronavirus coverage back behind the paywall.
Let me explain.
The Sun Herald survives on the support of our communities, through subscriptions, and advertising revenue. The economic shock associated with business shutting down during this pandemic has had a dramatic impact on advertising revenue.
Our communities have shown us they value the news and information we are providing as this disease spreads across towns and cities nationwide. We now need our communities to help us continue to provide this valuable information by subscribing. Subscriptions — to our digital and print products — are critical to our ability to continue to serve our communities.
So, we will begin to raise the paywall on our non-urgent coronavirus coverage, after more than three weeks of free access to all coronavirus news and information.
Disclaimer: The paywall will remain down on stories of immediate importance to the health and safety of our communities. And the paywall will remain down on the daily COVID-19 update story that captures all major developments on the coronavirus pandemic locally. No one will be shut out of information you need to make safety decisions.
There are several ways you can support our journalism.
First, of course, is a subscription. And we’ve got an awesome deal for you right now. Click the link here and you’ll be able to get a digital-only subscription for just 99 cents per month for your first two months. That’s less than a soda at most vending machines.
Our customer and product team also is working to help us improve our ability to communicate the need to support our communities. Among them, we are testing a registration wall, that will allow us to capture email addresses of anyone coming to a story that is free. Also, we are talking about other ways to “support” beyond a subscription.
Thank you again for reading the Sun Herald. Our team of reporters and editors are out there every day hustling to get you the latest on the pandemic. That won’t stop. You have my word.
Blake Kaplan
Executive Editor and General Manager
Sun Herald
This story was originally published April 1, 2020 at 5:00 AM.