We publish digitally at network scale and we still print. People assume the print side is sentiment. It is not.
What print does that digital does not
It sits in a waiting room for a month. It gets picked up by someone who was not looking for it. It reaches the part of a town that is not going to find you through search, and in most towns that part is larger than anyone building for the web wants to admit.
It is also finite, and that changes the editing. Twenty pages forces a decision about what actually matters this month. Infinite space quietly removes that discipline, and you can usually tell.
What print stopped doing
Breaking news, obviously. Anything time-sensitive belongs online and always will. The job print kept is the one it was always best at: being the thing a town keeps on the table.
How we run both
Same editorial standards, same review, different rhythm. A story can run online first and in print later, or exist only in one. What does not happen is print becoming a dumping ground for content that did not work online.