Staff Sgt. Angela Eggman, Northern Light editor, reads the last edition of the paper on Wednesday before it goes to print. The paper that comes out Friday will be Misawa’s last “newspaper” as the base makes the transition from hardcopy to an online format. (Jennifer H. Svan / S&S)
MISAWA AIR BASE, Japan — After 58 years of publishing a base newspaper, Misawa bid farewell to the Northern Light on Friday, when the last edition hit newsstands.
Now base news will be delivered online.
The digital transition is part of an Air Force push to be more efficient and better serve readers, according to Air Force officials.
Online news delivery is expected to save hundreds of thousands of dollars in labor and printing costs while allowing public affairs staff to post news within minutes instead of days via a new standard Web format, officials said.
The hope is to get most bases online by Oct. 1, though some commanders may decide to maintain a hard-copy newspaper, according to Col. Michael Caldwell, Air Force deputy director of public affairs at the Pentagon.
The change comes amid a 28 percent downsizing in public affairs — part of a congressional directive that calls for a phased force-reduction across Air Force career fields of 40,000 full-time equivalents to meet war-on-terrorism budget constraints.
Public affairs won’t be able to maintain the “labor-intensive” weekly base newspaper and accomplish all its other missions, Caldwell said in a written response to a query from Stars and Stripes.
He said Air Force research shows that base newspaper readership is on the decline — from 57 percent in 1994 to 38 percent in 2004 — while most of the service’s primary audience has Internet access, either at work or at home.
Online news delivery was recommended by a 19-member working group formed last July of airmen and Air Force civilians with base newspaper experience, Caldwell said.
He said the new format is expected to save each public affairs shop about $3,975 per week in labor costs.
At Misawa, the switch will save $60,000 a year in printing and delivery costs for about 4,800 weekly papers, and about 20 hours a week in layout and design work, said Northern Light editor Staff Sgt. Angela Eggman.
“This is long overdue,” she said. “We’ll be able to assist with more projects within public affairs. As editor, I’m rarely asked to do something else because the paper takes so much focus.”
In Pacific Air Forces, Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska has already made the online transition, while some bases are still weighing the all-digital option, according to PACAF spokesman Maj. Bradley Jessmer.
Reaction to news that the Northern Light soon would be extinguished was mixed Wednesday at Misawa.
“I’d rather have a paper at my door,” said Tech. Sgt. Sean Cannon, a pharmacy technician with the 35th Medical Support Squadron. “If I have to look it up … I’m going to be looking up the major news and not what’s going on on base.”
But Chief Petty Officer Virgilio Poblete of the Navy’s Personnel Support Detachment at Misawa thinks the new format will be more convenient.
“We can read it any time we want to,” he said. “We don’t have to wait until Friday.”
Within PACAF, base news will be available on each base’s new standard Web format, Jessmer said, though the timeline is still to be determined.
About Misawa’s new online news format
The Misawa Air Base news Web site will include base news, events, information and photos, as well as links to other Air Force Web sites, according to Staff Sgt. Angela Eggman, Northern Light editor. No sections from the hard-copy Northern Light are expected to be dropped, she said. News will be updated routinely and old stories will be archived.
The site is a public domain, accessed at www.misawa.af. mil. Some news and information already is posted, but the site won’t be fully operational until Jan. 8, Eggman said.
Stories, briefs and other information still can be submitted for the Web site but will undergo the same scrutiny for news value and propriety as before, Eggman said.
— Jennifer H. Svan
