The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette announced Thursday it will end home delivery in Mississippi County on March 31 but will provide readers with an Apple iPad tablet if they subscribe to the digital replica version of the newspaper.
The newspaper will invest $200,000 in getting iPads to subscribers, publisher Walter E. Hussman Jr. said in a letter to Mississippi County subscribers in advance of the newspaper’s April 1 all-digital debut in the county. Newspaper executives also made the announcement during a staff meeting Thursday in its newsroom.
While the program is aimed at cutting the costs of printing and delivering the newspaper, it also is a realization of digital’s ongoing effect on traditional newspapers.
Hussman said “the future of newspapers and journalism is digital.”
“There are inescapable economic advantages to digital delivery that we must adopt so that we can remain a viable source of high quality news,” Hussman wrote.