This week, I thought that I would respond to a few questions that have been directed at me via phone calls and email, but which I thought warranted response in print.

What happened to the stock market information that used to be in the newspaper?

Around the first of the year, we took the Markets page, which includes commodities prices, and moved it to the Minot Daily News website exclusively. You can find a link to the up-to-the-minute markets info, commodities and additional markets news by going to minotdailynews.com, clicking on “News” and then “Financial Markets.”

We made the change for a couple of reasons. One, space is always at a premium in a newspaper for editorial, and the one thing that we can offer for which we have little competition is local news, information and features. Maximizing our available space for Minot and regional news is an important objective. Reason two is that in today’s faster paced world, by the time we acquired, produced, printed and distributed market news, it was effectively old news by the time most people picked up the newspaper.

I realize people don’t like change much, but it is a reality and it is constant in this business. Some have asked if I would consider bringing this information back into the print edition. While that seems unlikely, every six months or so, I do take a look at our content lineup to see if any changes are desirable. So, nothing is impossible.

What happened to the Outdoors section of the newspaper – the Sunday “E” section?

A couple of things have changed.

One, we are still publishing outdoors-oriented news and features. We are just publishing it in a more prominent position in the paper – the news pages – and we are publishing it throughout the week days, as opposed to only what we have room for in a Sunday dedicated section. If you’ve been reading the paper the past couple of weeks, you have probably noticed outdoors stories in our “A” and “B” sections. We did this for a number of reasons, including wanting to spread the material out, wanting to utilize outdoors features on the front page Sundays when available, and also because we wanted to try something new with the “E” section. Meanwhile, weekly outdoors briefs and the outdoor calendar appear Monday on page two of the Sports section.

As you can see in this edition, our “E” section has become “Etc.” Now, the section won’t appear every week, but when it does it will include some new categories of material. In addition to travel, “Etc.” also spotlights topics such as technology and the internet, parenting and caregiving, books, pets and hobbies. We will feature columns on everything from millennial perspectives to organizing oneself. My plan is also to use the section to increase interactivity – exchanges between readers and my newsroom. Ideally, I would like to see the section include a periodic literary supplement to be a vehicle for aspiring regional writers. But I haven’t bounced that one off anyone here at the office yet, so let’s keep that between us for now.

I used to find letters to the editor on the Sunday editorial page every week. But I saw some running other days of the week now. What gives?

Happily, we are now receiving about three times as many letters to the editor as we were a year ago. We are also going out of our way to print as many as we can. As a result, we don’t have the room to run them all on Sunday. This is one of the happiest challenges I have had, because I love readers’ letters and have been waiting on the volume to increase. The solution was to run letters on the editorial page as often as needed to keep up with them. So, you will need to keep an eye out for when they run. Oh, and you could help me out here and send me a letter on issues of interest to you in our community.

Who are all of these new columnists in the newspaper?

One of the most fortunate improvements we made last year was inking a deal with Forum Communications to share some content. This enables us to have access to a rich pool of sports coverage – UND and NDSU primarily – that we have not had before. Additionally, we now have access to a number of columnists and I am integrating them into the newspaper. We have been able to bring back Rob Port and his distinct and thoughtful voice; in addition to Mike McFeely on the Opinion page; as well as numerous columnists for other sections of the newspaper. These largely-North Dakota based writers each brings something unique to the table.

Additionally, this  legislative session, our friends at the North Dakota Newspaper Association are working with well-known journalist Mike Jacobs and with us, to bring coverage from Bismarck to us. Although mostly Mike is producing news about the goings-on at the capitol, he also occasionally pens a column.

I hope addressing these questions in this column help illuminate some of the things we are doing at Minot Daily News. A year ago when I launched this column, I wrote that its purpose was to do just that – to take you behind the scenes for a look at what we do here, why and how. I also wrote that there would be changes to come and to be patient. Happily, most of you have been and I hope you remain open to the possibility that you just  might appreciate some of the new components of Minot Daily News. We sure enjoy bringing them to you.