The Martha’s Vineyard Times laid off five staff associated with the print edition and will go to all digital content for the next four weeks.
With other small businesses on Martha’s Vineyard either closed because of stay-at-home orders/advisories or offering limited services as a result of Gov. Charlie Baker’s ban on restaurants and bars, The Times has suffered a dramatic drop in advertising revenue in recent weeks. The decision was also made, in part, for the safety of our distribution staff in handling the newspapers and delivering them to the Post Office and retail outlets.
In order to cut expenses, The Times, New England’s weekly “Newspaper of the Year” for three years running, is suspending its print edition for four weeks. At that time, publishers Peter Oberfest and Barbara Oberfest will evaluate the situation.
“The Times staff is extremely close, and we’re a small group, so layoffs are terribly painful. We are eagerly anticipating getting past this awful threat so that we can get our full staff back together again,” Peter Oberfest said. “The Times remains committed to bringing you the robust, timely, and accurate coverage you’ve come to expect during these uncertain times on our website mvtimes.com and through our daily newsletter, The Minute. Starting last weekend, we began sending the newsletter on weekends as well because of how quickly this ongoing story evolves. The entire news staff remains ready to tell the story of how our Island community is responding to this pandemic. We have an easily accessible information box on our home page, and a dedicated landing page that includes all aspects of our coronavirus coverage, from the breaking news to the useful information about closings, schedule changes, and even some of the bright moments at mvtimes.com/coronavirus.”
The first story about coronavirus was published on The Times website on Feb. 12, and since then we’ve published more than 140 stories on the subject in order to keep you up to date. By the time you’re reading this that total will be outdated. That doesn’t include the columns, letters, and hundreds of comments we’ve received and published about this pandemic.
During this time, we’ve put all stories about the coronavirus outside of our paywall so that everyone can access that information.
It doesn’t provide much solace, but we’re not alone in this situation.
Charles Sennott, CEO of The GroundTruth Project, and Steven Waldman, co-founder of Report for America, co-authored a piece for The Atlantic headlined “Coronavirus is killing local news.”
“Those small businesses in your town that are closing left and right? They are also advertisers for your area paper,” Sennott and Waldman wrote. “… Many news outlets are taking down their paywalls to make information on the coronavirus more accessible. That decision — although the right one — means lost revenue too.”
Resources for subscribers, advertisers, and retail outlets
Direct ad sales email: adsales@mvtimes.com
508-693-6100 ext. #35 (make sure to hit the pound sign)
Or direct to Jenna Lambert: 774-563-0737
Classified ad questions:
Samantha Church: 508-693-6110
mvtclassifieds@mvtimes.com
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