On the comeback trail

I recall March of 2001, when slow ad sales forced The Panama News to interrupt our regular print publication after more than six years. The person who more or less runs one of this country's other English-language cultural institutions suggested that we would be gone by that May. That other institution is scraping through hard times, and that person will be leaving Panama shortly, but The Panama News lives online.

As a matter of fact, as ugly and stripped down as the last two issues were, The Panama News website attracted more visitors than ever in February, with nearly triple the number of visitors as the same month the year before. On the average, more than 900 people per day click onto this website.

Moreover, all across Panama there's a renewed interest in learning English. Unilingual Spanish-speaking parents want their kids to learn English because that's the most common second language here and its mastery unlocks opportunities in international business, tourism and technology.

Ever so slowly, the national advertising market is rebounding. Though they generally can't afford the more expensive imported programs they used to show, the commercial TV networks have increased their broadcasting hours. Several months have gone by since we have last had major layoffs in the news media to report.

Two years ago The Panama News was in full retreat. We're still a ragtag remnant of the expensive operation we used to run out of offices on Via Argentina. However, when we published a magazine-format special print edition last May our long retreat ended. Our online readership has increased steadily since then, and our ad sales are up a bit, too.

Yes, I still usually sleep on the office floor, I need a new pair of shoes and my clothing is more ragged than ever. Yes, our office is down to one old computer --- though recently augmented by the addition of some used memory boards. And yes, our financial weakness is such that a change of address by the person on whose computer we had been uploading the paper resulted in the late uploads and diminished quality of the past two issues.

But it's time for one of our two annual fundraising drives (the other has been and will be in September) and this little community publication is ready to advance. I'm asking for your support not so that we can pay next month's rent, but in order to get The Panama News back into print. We can produce and distribute a print edition in our old format for about $2,000 an issue, but to do so on a sustainable regular basis would require a larger investment

Why would readers of an online paper, especially those of you who are not in Panama, care about a print edition that they may never see? Because, even though we intend to remain a primarily online publication, the ad sales income from the print medium would still be much greater given present business realities. Because going back into regular print publication will give The Panama News the resources to hire reporters and photographers, and pay the costs of stories that we ought to cover but can't due to financial constraints.

Do you want to see a better version of The Panama News online? Then contribute generously to help get it back into print. Send your donations to:

The Panama News
Apartado 55-0927 Estafeta Paitilla
Panama, Republic of Panama

We have survived Panama's continuing economic crisis largely due to generous in-kind contributions from a number of people. Without Michelle, George and Cheryl, Michael and Mona, Janet, and David and Nancy lending the use of their computers, we would have folded. Many of our Dining section reviews are the result of friends treating me to meals at restaurants that I hadn't visited before. Many of the photos that we have published have been taken with donated film, and a few with borrowed cameras. A lot of people have contributed opinion columns, news stories, reviews or photographs without being paid for them. Elida put in a lot of free labor to help us get last year's special print edition out. We wouldn't be around without the forbearance of creditors, whom we hope to gradually repay as our conditions improve.

We are and have been a community paper, and your continued in-kind contributions are necessary for our success. We need many things, including your suggestions about what would improve The Panama News, but at the moment these are the things we want the most:

• Another computer, with a compatible scanner and non-pirated word processing, graphics and web design programs;
• Competent Spanish-to-English translators to make more of the articles and columns we receive in Spanish available to those of our readers who only understand English;
• More contributors for our Review, Arts, Sports, Dining and Fun sections, so that we can broaden the scope of this paper's culture;
• Articles by folks with expertise ranging from aerospace technology to zoology, and everything in between, to raise the level of our Science and Outdoors sections
• Caricaturists, especially those who specialize in editorial cartooning about current Panamanian topics; and
• People to compile briefs about happenings in Latin America and the Caribbean for our News section

I thank all those who have helped us, and those who will lend a hand now and in the future.