Changes at Albany Herald will increase focus on local news (copy)

ALBANY — The words of a long-ago wit speak an elemental truth: The only constant is change.

The Albany Herald, which has served southwest Georgia since 1897, has become part of the newly formed Georgia Trust for Local News. The Georgia Trust, part of the National Trust for Local News, is focused on the long-term sustainability of news in our state and on ensuring that communities have access to timely and accurate information.

Starting the week of Feb. 5, The Albany Herald’s print edition will be published three days a week, hitting newsstands and subscribers’ front yards on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. You can expect those newspapers — and our digital platforms — to have even more local news.

In addition to bringing back a full-time sports editor, the Herald will hire an additional reporter in the coming weeks.

We’re adding feature pages on Albany State University, highlighting the people and programs that make the university a special place in our community. The Herald also will publish a page focused on Marine Corps Logistics Base-Albany, representing the many important local and national happenings at the base that currently don’t get their due coverage.

And on Saturdays, look for a new weekly Southwest Georgia Outdoors page, SWGA Outdoors website and — coming this spring — a new glossy SWGA Outdoors magazine that will be created and distributed in the region. The Herald also will soon launch a new edition exclusively for Calhoun County.

At The Herald, we’re committed to being your source for advertising and marketing needs in southwest Georgia, with expanded access across the GTLN’s footprint of nearly a million readers in middle and south Georgia.

Another important way in which we’re even more local now: All of the calls to The Herald will be brought back in-house. When you want to walk in and pay a bill, you can do that here at 306 W. Broad Ave. in historic downtown Albany.

“We are excited to bring all of The Albany Herald back to Albany,” DuBose Porter, executive director of the Georgia Trust for Local News, said. “We are a community newspaper company and believe in community journalism. The new emphasis will be local, local, local — local sports, local business and local government. Also, our coverage of the southwest Georgia lifestyle and love of the outdoors will be enhanced, along with recognizing the people who make this area unique.”

This change allows The Herald to provide local content online quicker, too. News will be reported as it is happening, with more detailed information provided in the print editions.

“The absolute best thing possible about the Albany Herald being sold is being sold to the newly formed Georgia Trust for Local News,” Albany Herald Publisher Scot Morrissey said. “It is an organization that at its founding core has a mission to protect and sustain the critical efforts of local news in Albany, southwest Georgia and across the state.”