By Sean P. Ray | Managing Editor

*Editor’s note: This article was edited on Oct. 25 to update the cost of a Northside Chronicle subscription.

Hello dear readers. You may have noticed that The Northside Chronicle’s front page is looking remarkably different in this month’s issue.

We’ve redesigned our front page in our continuing effort to ever improve The Chronicle. Notably, we have moved away from our more New York Times-inspired font for the front page masthead, to something with a little more of a magazine look. We feel this is more emblematic of The Chronicle, especially given that we are a monthly paper, much like a magazine publishing schedule.

Further, the front page redesign was necessitated by a business decision. Subscribers to The Chronicle will see that their version of the paper has a slightly different front page design to the copies available to the general public. This is due to a new mailing system we’ve adopted for our subscribers which is both cheaper for us and will get our paper out to our subscribers much faster than before.

However, to work with this system, we needed to make a space on the front page for a stamp. We figured while we redesigned that, it would be good to make some other changes as well.

These changes were primarily done with our subscribers in mind. Subscribers play an important role in continuing to support what we do here at The Chronicle, and so we want to make things as convenient as possible for them.

In fact, the regular print version of the paper will now thank one of our paying subscribers each month. The subscriber edition, meanwhile, will offer a “thank you” to all our subscribers, since we appreciate them all.

What may surprise some of you is how relatively few subscribers The Chronicle actually has. Out of the 5,000 papers we print monthly, less than 100 go out to subscribers. That’s something we’re hoping to change.

Starting this month, we’ll be offering temporary free subscriptions to new homeowners in the area. These subscriptions will last only for a few months, but we’re very hopeful that the homeowners might grow attached to receiving our paper every month at their doorstep and will stay on. A subscription to The Chronicle is, after all, only $50 a year.

While that may seem like a small amount of money, a subscription goes a long way in keeping The Chronicle going and involved in the Northside neighborhood. We are the only newspaper in Pittsburgh that focuses exclusively on the Northside, and we try our best to deliver important and relevant information to you, our readers, every month.

Whether that news is a business opening up, a municipal meeting touching on the subjects that will impact you or a preview of a fun event, we shine a spotlight on the goings on of the Northside and keep you informed.

Having a reliable and professional news outlet is an invaluable service, especially with more and more publications closing down. News deserts are an ever increasing phenomenon, depriving people of needed information.

The Chronicle aims to keep the Northside community informed by offering our paper free of charge. Free professional journalism can be a rarity in these days of paywalls and limited access. Even our website and online edition are provided at no cost.

We’d like to be able to keep these features all free moving forward. However, more subscribers would help ensure that’s possible. It would not only help provide us with more funding to keep doing what we do, but it’s a sure sign from the community that you all support us and like what we offer.

If you’re able to subscribe, please consider doing so. Not just for the benefit of getting the paper sent to you, but also to support a staple of the Northside community free for everyone. Think of it as a service to your neighborhood.

If you’re interested in subscribing, check out our website thenorthsidechronicle.com and click the “Subscribe” button along the top, or cut out the Subscription Order Form on the bottom of page 2 and mail it to us with your check.