Polk Today is not the newspaper. Never has been, never will be.
The site updates become available whenever a story is completed, so each item essentially stands on its own as a singular piece. Presentation-wise, the site as it stands lives within the idea that a user comes, reads, and either jumps to the homepage to find the next update or leaves to surf at their own will. That’s a problem that must be solved in the coming weeks and months on its own, and ideas are in the works. More to be shared on that front to come.
Polk Today’s exclusively online existence makes it difficult to define EXACTLY what the site is for people used to the newspaper experience. There’s no edition to buy on newsstands at convenience stores, no physical copy to hold in the hand.
This is in part by design since the pace of information moves so fast that printing a paper is just antiquated by contemporary standards. Also: Polk Today would be prohibitively expensive to print even a few thousand copies a month. It would be an costly effort without any profit based what people are willing to pay for news in the current environment.
Readers expect to be able to read what they want, when they want without regard to what it costs the creator. No singular effort is going to change those facts, but it is worth reminding those who are checking this item out: $4.99 a month for a subscription is a biscuit combo at Bojangles, or a coffee at Ellianos, and is still less than a six pack of beer.
Opportunity to design a booklet for Rotary’s Tour of Homes in Rockmart for the holidays brought back an longtime itch. Once upon a time, weekly editions of the Standard Journal were pieced together by this writer (for around three years or so) and figuring out a particular style was a lot of fun in days past. So the idea of “What would Polk Today look like in paper format?” began to pop up. This holiday break and the need for wrapping up the year provided the perfect opportunity to create the idea of Polk Today in a paper format.
Check out the first-ever “A Year in Review” edition for 2023. There may be more of these coming in the near future for Monthly+ subscribers, so be on the lookout.
Want to download a version to keep around? Check it out in PDF form.
Enjoy this small piece of what Polk County experienced over the past year, and make sure to return to Polk Today as 2024 begins and enjoy more local news content.
Happy Holidays and New Year!
-Kevin the Editor
What a Great Year in Review!!! Thanks!