Over the next couple weeks, there are going to be some changes in the News-Press’ delivery of news. Although this is not a formal announcement, we can provide some clues about what is coming that may be experienced as different to you, Dear Reader. Our changes are driven by our passionate commitment to survive in this current anti-newspaper environment.

Just last week, yet another Northern Virginia weekly announced it is going completely digital, usually the last stage of a terminal illness. Many others have gone that route before, and we are not going to let that happen here if possible.

First, let us reflect on the importance of newspapers to a democracy in the context of the bloodbath that papers have been enduring in recent decades.

It must not be lost on any lover of democracy that the uprising leading to the American revolution and establishment of our Constitution began with a newspaper, one founded by Benjamin Franklin in the early 1700s. Through it, the public was rallied to thoughtful and widely circulated discourse and options for actions to get rid of the corrupt British monarchy. Others followed that lead.

It was through newspapers that the Federalist Papers were circulated to people throughout the newly-liberated colonies to lay the foundation for the successful ratification of the Constitution. The principal author of those papers, Alexander Hamilton, founded the New York Evening Post in 1801, and the nation’s greatest constructive reformers always relied on newspapers as critical to their efforts. Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of FDR, used a newspaper for her daily column, “My Day,” that she wrote throughout FDR’s presidency to rally the women of the nation to support the New Deal and Social Security. So it was also for FDR’s friend, the seminal newspaperman of the 20th century, the anti-fascist William Allen White.

Before all that, it was Guttenberg’s invention of movable type in the 15th century that led to spread of the Bible into vernacular tongues for the first time and the Reformation and the Enlightenment precursors to the American Revolution.

It was the distribution of a universal printed word in newspapers and pamphlets that lit up the minds of the masses of humanity that led to the Enlightenment, that movement which made possible the American revolution and all the freedoms this nation has been able to offer the world.

No wonder Trump the Fascist identified the media as his greatest enemy since he first rose to power.

So, we refuse to abandon a print edition of our paper and its distribution to every household in the City. Too many don’t access the Internet at all, especially not regularly, and would not read the paper if it were not delivered to their doorstep.

As we mull the introduction of a modest “paywall” on our website, and solicit friends of the News-Press to become dues paying members, know that it is our democratic zeal that informs what we are still accomplishing.