Significant shrinkage

No, you’re not imagining things. This week’s Telegraph is a few inches shorter than normal. But we swear it has nothing to do with shrinkflation or a desperate attempt to cut corners.

Rather, it has to do with the never-ending saga of print media in a digital age. See, while yours truly is healthy as a horse, or at least scrappy as a raccoon, it’s no secret that print newspapers have been struggling in recent years. And the big dogs of the print world are no different. Gannett, which owns the Farmington Daily Times where we have been printed for the last several years, has decided to shut down its printing press in Farmington amid declining …uh, well we don’t really know because no one told us. 

But enough of the economics lesson – back to the shrinkage (we prefer “petite”). With the Farmington press closed, that leaves our printing options few and far between. So, starting this week, the Telegraph, along with a handful of other regional papers, is being printed in the Arizona Republic’s press in Phoenix (also part of the Gannett chain). And a kind group of newspaper angels has offered to drive it up here every week for us. I guess you could say it’s kind of like a Christmas miracle.

We know, some are not going to like this new, more compact Tele, but we think it will just take some getting used to. Think of the upsides, like fewer murdered trees, and better aerodynamics and symmetry. Plus, with the move to the new press, we expect the quality to be much improved over the Farmington press, which we’re pretty sure belonged to Guttenberg himself. And for those who just steal the paper to burn – first, shame on you! – we expect our high-bright stock to burn even better.

So sit back and enjoy the new streamlined Tele, which is still jam-packed with all the same content you deserve and expect, just in a smaller package. And we all know size doesn’t matter anyway.