Daily Record makes historic change

For more than 150 years, the Daily Record has delivered the news to Laclede County, often changing and evolving to better serve the ever growing community. Starting next month, the newspaper will once again go through a transformation that will allow it to continue serving the community for another 150 years.
Starting June 6, the Lebanon Daily Record will become the Laclede County Record, and it will be published twice weekly on Wednesdays and Saturdays. According to  owner Dalton Wright, who has owned the newspaper since 1972, the move comes after months of research and number crunching and will put the newspaper in a “sound financial position.”
“We truly haven’t been a large enough community to sustain a daily newspaper for quite some time, but we continued to publish a daily newspaper out of tradition. With the change to twice weekly, the Record will be able to continue the tradition of a community newspaper for years to come,” Wright said.
Going to a twice weekly actually takes the Daily Record back to its roots. The Record was originally a weekly newspaper known as the Laclede County Republican, which was started in 1866. In 1935, the Lebanon Publishing Company purchased the Laclede County Republican and its competition, The Lebanon Rustic, which was founded in 1873, and Lebanon Times. The newspapers were combined to make the Lebanon Rustic Republican.
The Lebanon Daily Record was born in 1936. The Lebanon Publishing Company was purchased by O.R. Wright, Dalton’s father, in 1953. Following his father’s death, Dalton Wright purchased the company in 1972. The Rustic-Republican was discontinued in 1975, and since then, the Daily Record has been the only newspaper in Laclede County since. Though several newspapers came and went in the early days, the Record is the only one that is still around and is still one of the few independently owned newspapers in the nation.
The change into a twice weekly publication has actually been years in the making. Starting about three years ago, the newspaper made the tough decision to close down the local print plant and switch to delivering the newspaper through the mail. The next logical step was to cut the publication down to two editions a week — a move that has been made by many community newspapers around the country and in the region.
“The change will allow us to be come much more nimble and improve both our product and services,” Wright said.
Wright stressed that becoming a weekly is the key to keeping a community newspaper in Lebanon. He also stressed the importance of a community having a newspaper.

“There are too many important issues that newspapers need to address and analyze in a community, and that’s not happening on Facebook,” Wright said.
He added that by publishing twice a week, the Record staff will have more time to seek out and write stories that are affecting the community. It will also give them time to make sure stories are correct, something he said that the national news is having a tough time with lately.
“We’re not racing to get out there like the networks. We’re still doing it the old fashioned way and making sure stories are right,” Wright said. “We’re getting back to the basics of journalism. I can’t think of any other medium doing this.”
Wright added that this doesn’t mean that the Record still won’t produce daily news. Stories will still be uploaded daily to the website and social media. Also, the newspaper is looking into a text alert system to let people know about breaking stories.
Laclede County Record Publisher and Vice President Beth Chism has been helping steer the company through the transition. She said the change will address many issues brought up by readers.
“Our two biggest complaints are that the newspaper cost too much and that there was nothing in it. In anticipation to the change, we’ve already dropped the price for a yearly subscription by nearly half. Also, going to two publications a week will ensure that each issue is much bigger that the ones we were producing before,” Chism said. “Hopefully people will see that we’re working to address the issues they’ve brought to us and that we’re listening to them.”
Chism envisions the the typical newspaper will be 20 to 24 pages (sometimes even larger) while right now, at least three of the newspapers published are only eight pages.
Chism emphasized that nothing is being taken out of the newspaper. Customers will still get the same features and news that they did previously, they’ll just be in two publications instead of spread out through the week.
The Record hopes to continue the substantial growth in subscriptions it has seen in the past year and keep delivering the news to Laclede County for years to come.