There’s been a lot of confusion about the future of a print newspaper for readers of the Blue Mountain Eagle.

As we’ve tried to explain to folks, there will still be a printed newspaper carrying Grant County news — it just won’t be called the Blue Mountain Eagle. 

Starting this Wednesday, the Eagle’s print subscribers will begin receiving a new, expanded print edition of the East Oregonian. Single copies of the paper will be available here at the Eagle office and at all the other locations around Grant County where the Eagle traditionally has been sold. 

The Eagle office on North Canyon Boulevard in John Day will remain open and will continue to be staffed by two reporters — Justin Davis and myself — who will continue to cover the news around the county. Advertising consultant Kim Kell and office coordinator Alix Hand will still be here to take care of our customers.

We are losing reporter Neil Nisperos, whose position was eliminated in companywide staff cuts by EO Media Group as part of an effort to stabilize the company’s finances and ensure that we can continue to cover the news in the communities we serve. We will miss Neil and his contributions to the Eagle. 

We will also miss putting out a weekly print edition under the Blue Mountain Eagle banner. This newspaper, along with its direct predecessor publications, has been covering Grant County since 1868 — that’s 156 years of journalistic tradition. Over that time the Eagle has become a local institution, a vital part of the community’s identity. 

No one wanted to see that end.

But the newspaper business, in response to powerful economic and social forces, is changing, and we must change with it — or go under.

So now it’s time to turn the page on a new chapter of the Eagle’s history. 

Starting this Wednesday, we will be part of the East Oregonian, which will now become a truly regional publication, carrying news from all over the northeastern portion of the state — including Grant County. 

I think readers will find a lot to like about the East Oregonian, which will showcase the combined work of EO Media’s newsrooms in Pendleton, Hermiston, La Grande, Enterprise, Baker City and John Day. The first edition is shaping up to be 32 pages. That’s twice the size of last week’s Eagle, and it will have some features the Eagle didn’t, including more comics, more puzzles, expanded outdoors and business coverage — even “Dear Abby.”

Some fixtures of the old Blue Mountain Eagle will be missing, of course — “Cops and Courts,” the senior columns, the “What’s Happening” community calendar. But those will still be available for subscribers to read on our website, along with all the other content we’ll be producing every week that won’t fit in the print edition.

Change can be unsettling. But institutions that can’t adapt to changing circumstances inevitably wither and die. That’s not the future we want for the Eagle and its readers. This newspaper — Oregon’s oldest weekly — will live on in our website, and in the pages of the East Oregonian. 

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If you have a subscription but you’re still having trouble accessing our content on the internet, check out our online help center (you can get there by clicking on the question mark in the upper right hand corner of the nav bar on the Eagle’s home page, www.bluemountaineagle.com).

There you’ll find step-by-step instructions for dealing with some common challenges, such as how to log in, how to reset your password and how to register your print subscription to unlock full access to all our digital content.

If you still need help, contact our Circulation Department at 800-781-3214 or support@eomediagroup.com. We have team members standing by to assist you in taking full advantage of all your subscription benefits.

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As always, if you have comments or questions about the Eagle, or want to pass along a story idea, send me an email at this address: editor@bmeagle.com.

— Bennett Hall, Editor