Spotlight Newspapers will be suspending printing of the Saratoga County Spotlight, as of this Feb. 21, 2013 edition.
We at Spotlight Newspapers would like to thank you for your readership during our 14 years of serving communities in the southern Saratoga County region. We will continue to produce and distribute products covering suburban communities in Albany County and monthly specialty products that cover parent- and senior-specific issues.
This was not a decision arrived at lightly. Spotlight Newspapers has a bright and dynamic history in Saratoga County. We started a paper in Clifton Park in 1999, then added editions in Burnt Hills, Malta, Milton and Saratoga Springs. Over the years came changes in format and distribution, but we’ve made it a point to stay true to our simple mission: to provide the best hyperlocal, community-oriented news coverage possible.
Our reporters have covered town governments, profiled neighbors and previewed school plays. They’ve waded through court documents and crouched down to interview grade schoolers. They’ve put tough questions to politicians, sat up late on election night and double checked school budgets for oversights. No story was too small for us (like the BH-BL Rotary Club’s spring flower plantings) nor was any topic too big (like the fierce debate over the Global Foundries project in Malta).
Through all that has happened in our communities over the years, we’ve also done our best to prepare for the future. Our company has recognized the growing demand for online news and invested in an award-winning website to meet that appetite. We have tailored our reporting to transcend the limitations of a weekly printed product and held ourselves to a new standard of immediacy.
Unfortunately, one of the most devastating recessions in the country’s recent memory and, more recently, new and onerous regulations on businesses have taken a toll on many of us.
Our local business partners have struggled to address these tribulations and, in turn, are advertising less across all mediums. The loss of advertising revenue is coupled with inflation and sharply rising costs for materials and distribution. To say it has been a difficult time for the print industry would be a dramatic understatement.
It is with these cold, hard facts in hand we at Spotlight Newspapers reassessed our future, and sadly our course is not one that includes a news product in Saratoga County for the time being. We hope that in the future, times may change and we will return.
This was a heartbreaking decision. Over the years, we’ve become close and familiar with many of you. The roads, homes, businesses and town halls of Saratoga County are ingrained in the memories of many a Spotlight reporter. For those who have called Spotlight Newspapers home, the paper is more than a product — it’s a calling.
So it is with a heavy heart we say farewell, and thank you from the bottoms of our hearts for reading. It has been your readership that made that call a reality.