Since it is National Newspaper Week there is something we think bears repeating: Community newspapers are a great success story that needs to be told.

More people are reading the news The Moultrie Observer publishes than ever before.

We have had to change with the times, adapt, grow and in some ways reinvent ourselves but what business hasn’t changed?

Every day it seems more and more of our readers read articles online and fewer read the printed editions, but honestly that is to be expected. Technology has given us the possibility of reaching more people, more quickly with more information. Those are all very good things for our community.

Negative people want to focus on negative narratives, pointing to a decline in print readership throughout the newspaper industry but the fact is the number of readers we have gained through digital sites and social platforms exceeds the number of print subscribers lost.

As we crunch the numbers, we have some exciting news to share: The core market penetration of The Moultrie Observer is a staggering 82 percent of the total market. That’s right, when you factor current print and digital products produced by The Moultrie Observer, the newspaper reaches 82 percent of the market.

Honestly, we think that just maybe we haven’t done a very good job of telling our own story. For the longest time we have only talked about print circulation numbers but that is only one small part of the overall story.

To be accurate, we have to talk about the total audience not just the numbers of people who prefer traditional printed newspapers.

Of course, we remain totally committed to print and love delivering printed newspapers to your doorstep. But surely everyone knows news articles, features, sports coverage, video and podcasts are delivered every day throughout the day across our digital platforms and consumed on laptops, desktops, tablets and phones, nonstop.

On a daily basis, we are writing more articles, taking more photos, producing more videos and podcasts than ever before.

We are producing journalism that matters. We are publishing strong editorials, doing deep-dive reporting on important issues, and receiving more social media commenting and more letters to the editor than ever before.

Our commitment is first and foremost to this community, to holding the powerful accountable and providing you with the information you want and need to know.

We are constantly working to improve ourselves, improve our coverage and increase our interaction with the community.