Thursday, January 02, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Editor's Note: Welcome to year three

When we launched the Mercury on Jan. 5, 2001, we had no clear idea what the paper would look like two years later. We wondered and worried about how the community would respond to a third alternative newsweekly, especially the quirky version we offered in those early months of existence. Some doubted whether the paper would even survive for two years.

Well, I do know this: The results have met and, in many ways, exceeded our expectations. The Mercury started small--small staff, low circulation, modest ambitions. We rather quickly developed a small but dedicated readership that, I think, appreciated our satirical take on things and our creative (some might say bizarre) definition of a cover story (anyone remember Andrew Kiraly's quixotic search for flying pants?).

We also confused and frustrated some readers. At first, you may recall, we mixed the real news with our satirical features. It took an awfully careful reader to know the difference. Perhaps the most confusion--and anger--was generated by our cover story about an albino mountain lion attacking people in Red Rock Canyon and nearby neighborhoods. From our perspective, the article offered plenty of clues (ever seen an albino mountain lion?) that it wasn't real, but a fair number of readers took the threat seriously. One man called and told us that he'd been patrolling his Summerlin neighborhood with a shotgun. He was genuinely chagrined and mad as hell to learn that it was a false alarm. We were just glad he didn't shoot anything.

Well, about six months into this project, we decided to separate the news and satire sections, a move that eliminated the confusion for almost everybody.

So, in that first year, we attracted readers but not a whole bunch of advertisers. It wasn't clear to them who our audience was. At that time we didn't have much of an arts and entertainment section, and we didn't have much hard news either. We were having a ton of fun putting out our 20 pages of weirdness, but it wasn't really working as a money-making enterprise.

In the fall of 2001 we decided to become a more "traditional" alternative newsweekly. We bulked up our A&E section, expanded our calendar of events, took a serious turn in the front part of the paper. Over a few months, we dramatically increased our distribution, eventually printing 100,000 papers (35,000 more than either of our competitors) each week and delivering them to more than 2,300 locations in the valley and in outlying towns such as Laughlin, Pahrump, Mesquite and, no kidding, Barstow.

Advertisers started to take notice, and the Mercury started growing. We went from publishing 20-page editions each week to 56 pages, 64 pages, 72 pages and topping out with hefty 84-pagers in the final six weeks of the year. It was a heady period--a lot of work, but constantly rewarding in terms of giving readers everything they could want from an alt-weekly.

What we accomplished in 2002 was to put the Mercury on the cultural map. We became a contender, drawing readers away from the competition by providing a more interesting, entertaining package of news, commentary and arts coverage, not to mention our trademark humor section. Those efforts were rewarded by the Nevada Press Association a few months ago when we took home 15 awards, highlighted by a first-place honor for general excellence, in its annual statewide contest.

So, what's in store for 2003? The edition you hold in your hands reflects some modifications we've made for the new year.

We expanded our editorial package greatly in 2002, adding columns, adding cartoons, expanding various features. We might have gone a little overboard, we think, so the leaner, meaner 2003 Mercury does not contain everything you would have found in the Dec. 26 edition.

The essentials remain: Knappster, Goldberg, Ain't Necessarily So, Boondocks, Free Will Astrology. Some other features continue but will no longer appear every week: Aural Intercourse, for example, will now appear biweekly. Other features are going away (Gut Reactions, replaced with our new themed restaurant guide) or shrinking a little (Mercury World Report).

In my 15 years in this game (five in the alternative biz), I've learned that a good newspaper is always evolving. Excellence comes through constantly striving to do something better, and never letting what you did yesterday dictate the best way to do it today. If something's working, leave it alone. But it's easy to fall into a routine and let that routine determine what you deliver to readers, regardless of whether they actually want it. The key, I think, is to throw changeups every so often to keep everybody on their toes.

That's what this edition of the Mercury is intended to do. There was nothing wrong with our Dec. 26 edition--we're as proud of it and previous editions as we can be. But we don't want to do the same thing every week--we don't do widgets here. If it becomes a routine for us, then it's probably not going to be of much interest to you.

Two years ago this week the Mercury was born. It's been a long, strange trip, but I can say, without hesitation, that my career has never been so fun or rewarding. I hope the enthusiasm with which we put together the Mercury is evident in these pages.

--GEOFF SCHUMACHER