Back in May of 2013, after the last issue of The Rhinoceros Times had been produced and delivered, I received a call from Roy Carroll. I was getting a lot of calls from conservatives in the area, so I didn’t think much about this one and have to admit that I didn’t return it promptly.
But I did return it and found out that Roy wanted to meet with me. Not having a job, it wasn’t difficult to find time on my calendar. We met and I discovered that Roy was interested in starting a conservative weekly paper in Greensboro. So we started meeting regularly and, on Oct. 3, 2013, the all-new-and-improved Rhino Times hit the streets with me as the editor and Roy as the publisher and owner.
In those meetings over the summer, Roy and I discussed what had gone wrong with the old Rhinoceros Times and what it would take in this market to produce a conservative weekly newspaper.
And we have had a lot of success in covering news and bringing attention to issues not covered by other media; now we are making the next step we talked about in those early discussions – leaving the world of print journalism behind and becoming a full fledged e-paper.
It is the direction the news business is headed and we decided to cut to the chase.
In making the leap to a web-only publication, we are betting that the people of Greensboro are still interested in an alternative news source and, although some might still prefer to hold a newspaper in their hands, that they will follow us to the web for news coverage they can’t find anywhere else.
And there are huge advantages to not being a weekly print publication.
Having only one shot a week at big news stories is tough. With the new Rhino Times, we will be updating the website and posting stories throughout the day. Going forward, the Rhino Times will be more topical and timely. When a big story breaks on Thursday, we won’t have to wait an entire week to write about it but will be able to get the news out to the community immediately.
Also, not being bound by print, we will have room for a lot more stories. In September, we started posting articles from Paul Clark on the website that we did not have space to include in the print version. In the past month we have been doing the same for some of the articles written by Rhino Times County Editor Scott D. Yost.
Nothing happens in Guilford County government that Yost doesn’t know about and he will continue to report on all the happenings in Guilford County government with shorter, more frequent articles. I will continue to cover the City Council in a similar fashion and Clark will continue to write about the schools and other topics of interest.
The Weekly Hammer will continue to be posted weekly but Under the Hammer and Rhino Shorts will be updated throughout the week. Uncle Orson Reviews Everything will become an occasional column rather than a weekly one.
It’s a new day in journalism, and although the rhino appears to be a huge lumbering beast, it can actually move pretty fast, and with this move we figure some folks are going to be running to catch up.
will the Letters to the Editor section be conitnued?
Yes, but letters should be submitted by email.
Us old farts that like a physical paper will be out of luck. Many of us don’t like getting our news on the web, we want something we can hold in our arthritic, conservative hands. Not sure I will read the web version.
Happy that a conservative view will continue to be available, no matter the format. And news and comment will come more frequently. Moved back to Greensboro six years ago, and not being a big fan of the Greensboro paper, continued to get the Richmond Times Dispatch digitally and am able to read the RT weekly as opposed to monthly.
Will do the same with the Rhino Times. Keep feeding us conservatives