BOISE, Idaho — Two friends, who both share differing political views, are brought together every weekday by the newspaper.
Steve Scanlin and Dave Steinhaus meet at a local Boise coffee shop to do crosswords together in the local paper. Something that, despite their differing opinions, they can both agree on.
Scanlin describes himself as a "news junkie" -- he's a hardcopy guy, he said. So when the Idaho Statesman notified their readers they would be breaking a 135-year-old run by reducing their print product to a tri-weekly, he was saddened by the news.
“I know the media is experiencing this overall, all over the country papers are closing,” Scanlin said. “It’s a little sad, too."
The Idaho Statesman has been a daily paper for so long, they were pumping out the pages before Idaho even became a state.
The Idaho Statesman has printed a daily paper since 1888. The paper was originally published three times a week upon its original founding in 1864.
Steinhaus is no stranger to the history of the paper -- he used to deliver the local news on his bike in 1965. He would put the papers in his canvas bag and ride through the neighborhoods in the heat, in the snow, in the sleet and in the rain.
"A lot of my friends had paper routes. We get together once in a while and talk about our routes... But we would get together and have our little cultural engagement once in a while," Steinhaus said. "But yeah, I liked it. I liked being part of the Statesman."
Even with the change, Idaho Statesman Editor Chadd Cripe said journalism is still an instrumental necessity that people still care about. He's been at the paper for 27 years.
"Really nothing is changing from our newsroom’s perspective," Cripe said. "We're on the leading edge of it. This is where the industry is going."
The paper's daily content will still be made available through their online platform. The Idaho Statesman is owned by a national ownership group, McClatchy, based in Sacramento, California. The Boise paper is McClatchy's first to adopt a tri-weekly model, Cripe said.
"If you were to look at the full breadth of what we do, we are doing more journalism at a higher level than we have done in years," Cripe said. "I get that not everybody wants to read the news digitally -- I understand that. But that's where it's going."
The Idaho Statesman currently has 14 reporters, soon to be 15. A couple of years ago, the paper employed 10.
"There's deadline constraints, there's space constraints, there's a lot of constraints involved in the actual newspaper product that have effects that don't effect the journalism we're producing," Cripe said. "And so, I think sometimes there's a disconnect there, particularly for people who don't look at the digital."
Even though people may start getting their news in different ways, it doesn't change the love Cripe has for the job.
"I don't know what else I would do," he said. "I'm surrounded by great people and a great community."
Current customers of the Idaho Statesman can expect a physical paper every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. The paper is also now sending out deliveries through the postal service.
USPS does not deliver mail on Sundays, so subscribers should expect the Sunday paper with their Saturday mail.
Join 'The 208' conversation:
- Text us at (208) 321-5614
- E-mail us at the208@ktvb.com
- Join our The 208 Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/the208KTVB/
- Follow us on Twitter: @the208KTVB or tweet #the208 and #SoIdaho
- Follow us on Instagram: @the208KTVB
- Bookmark our landing page: /the-208
- Still reading this list? We're on YouTube, too: