There’s a lot happening around Berks County, and the county’s commissioners want to make sure residents know about it all.
The commissioners on Tuesday approved creating a county magazine to highlight news and events they want to share with the public.
They entered into an agreement with Hoffmann Publishing Group in Wyomissing to produce the magazine, pending review and approval by the county solicitor. It will be published three times a year, and the first edition is expected to hit mailboxes early next year.
The commissioners spoke about the need for the magazine at an operations meeting earlier this week. At that meeting on Tuesday, commissioners Chairman Christian Leinbach said the board has been discussing this issue for quite some time.
Leinbach said the idea stems in large part from the shrinking of local media outlets over the last several years in both what they cover and the amount of residents they reach.
He said the commissioners reached out to two publishing firms to provide more information about what the process would entail. Hoffmann Publishing Group’s proposal stood out because the county would not have to pay the cost to have the magazine printed.
Hoffmann will make money by selling advertising in the magazine, and the only cost to the county will be about $40,000 in postage.
Tracy Hoffmann told the commissioners at their operations meeting Tuesday that his company will cover the costs for the design, production and printing of the magazine. The county, however, will be responsible for expenses related to postage and creating content to fill its pages.
The commissioners said the content will be generated by departments within the county focusing on the news and events they feel should be shared with residents, working closely with the county public relations officer.
The magazine will be called Berks 1st and will consist of a minimum of 32 pages and a maximum of 48 pages.
It will be mailed directly to 87,646 households and about 300 high-traffic consumer locations like doctors’ offices, beauty salons and libraries. A digital version will be available on the county website.
He said there will also be a section in each edition that includes information in Spanish and said the entire digital version will be available in Spanish as well.
While Hoffmann will be responsible for selling advertisements, the commissioners made clear that they will not allow any political advertisements.
“This is about departments that have regular information that they need to get out,” Leinbach said. “We could have an article about an event at a county park, about information relating to an upcoming election, about the status of the effort to bring back passenger rail service, or any number of things.
“But this is not going to be what I would refer to as editorial or narrative prose. The goal here is to have a way to reliably get key information out to people within Berks County.”
Source: Berkshire mont
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