As a publisher, I take great interest whenever I hear of magazines or newspapers shutting their doors. Nine times out of 10, the owners/management will blame declining advertising revenues, increased printing and labour costs or that nasty information source called the “Internet” for ruining their early retirement plans.

Last week I watched an episode of 60 Minutes that detailed the restructuring of the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

Although still profitable, over the past few years the newspaper had witnessed a steady decline on its bottom line. In an effort to reverse that trend, the powers that be decided that they could maximize their returns by reducing its publishing frequency and staff.

I always hate hearing about staff layoffs but it’s a common and sad reality when companies restructure. Hopefully these changes will result in a brighter future for those still left on-board this partially submerged ship.

My hat goes off to the management for being proactive. Rather than being satisfied with a shrinking bottom line and blaming it on changing times, they decided to take the bull by the horns.

The staff of Truck News has always embraced the Internet. Our Web site (www.trucknews.com) has truly become an extension of this magazine. We recently took the next step forward in delivering the news by increasing the frequency of our e-newsletter. Instead of twice a week, it’s now sent out daily.

I don’t mind sharing with you that the logistics of making such a bold move have proven to be a challenge. In a nutshell, at the end of the day (well after 5 p.m., I might add) our editorial staff must determine what news items are worthy of inclusion in the next day’s edition.

Once the content is determined and the layout completed, it’s forwarded to our IT department who then marry it with our e-mail database and in turn, deploy it well before most of you have taken your first sip of java. We’re pretty proud of this accomplishment. We’ve always been first on the streets with the news and now we’re continuing the tradition electronically.

Leading rather than following, we’ve embraced social media, won awards for our online Transportation Matters TV series, created information modules and produced a number of highly popular webinars. Unlike some of the larger US newspapers, we welcome the Internet and look forward to a long fruitful relationship!