Reminder: Changes are coming to your weekend Times News newspaper

Six Rivers Media, the parent company of the Kingsport Times News, is making changes to ensure your access to meaningful community journalism.SRM is a family-controlled business with deep roots in the Appalachian Highlands.Note the word "business" in the previous sentence. As such, the company made a business decision to reduce its publishing cycle from seven days to six days a week.The reason is the local market can no longer financially support a seven-day-a-week newspaper.Here's the good news:You will not lose local news.Starting the first weekend May, you will receive a combined Saturday and Sunday edition delivered to your home on Saturdays. The newspaper will still publish your favorite features — investigative reporting, sports, entertainment, calendars, farm and garden, lifestyle, business, puzzles and comics.Speaking of comics, you will find comics for both Saturday and Sunday in the new "Weekender" newspaper. And yes, two days of horoscopes.The new standalone weekend edition will be heftier than either of your current Saturday or Sunday newspapers. The Living section, for example, will grow from eight pages to 12.The Weekender will be available for sale at local retail stores both Saturday and Sunday.Additionally, SRM will bump up the Monday and Tuesday newspapers to a minimum of 12 pages. Last year, the company cleaved both newspapers to eight pages.You will continue to find award-winning journalism produced by trusted reporters who live and work in this community.They are dedicated to unearthing stories and breaking the kind of news that others follow. Times News reporters are watchdogs who look at the larger picture and analyze the information or situation — where is the story going, where might it go next, where could they take it deeper?For example, reporter Allison Winters recently cracked open a Federal Aviation Administration database and examined runway incursions at Tri-Cities Airport.Winters discovered 20 runway incursions over 20 years, 10 of which involved pilots who took off or landed at Tri-Cities without air traffic control authorization.Last fall, reporters used public records requests to dislodge information from police agencies in Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee. The records showed a total of 384 firearms have been stolen over the past year. Of these, only 16%, or 63 firearms, have made it back to gun owners' hands. Law enforcement officials told us this is a troubling problem.In 2022, the Kingsport Times News received national recognition for its 2021 staff project, "Meth Mountain," which brought the region's methamphetamine epidemic to light through detailed data, analysis and first-person accounts of addiction and recovery.The Times News continues to report about the region's deadly methamphetamine and fentanyl crisis and about efforts to open a regional treatment center.Locally owned Six Rivers Media has the most reporting firepower in the Appalachian Highlands with its two daily newspapers in Kingsport and Johnson City and four weekly publications in Bristol, Erwin, Jonesborough and Mountain City.By the way, locally owned means that the shots are called here in Kingsport, not from a far-off corporate tower in a far-off corporate city.Thank you for your unmeasurable support and patronage of the Kingsport Times News. Your subscription supports the kind of community journalism not found anywhere else.Ron Waite, publisherRob Walters, managing editorGene Helmick, director of circulationDebora Salyers, vice president of financial servicesTim Archer, vice president of operationsHayley Potter, vice president of marketing