Proudly covering your life daily
“Your Life Covered.”
By now many of you have seen that declaration by the Daily Inter Lake — accompanied by some of our best photography — on billboards and in our own newspaper. In the coming weeks you’ll also hear radio ads and see TV spots talking about the Inter Lake’s role in our community.
This comprehensive promotional campaign goes much deeper than blowing our horn, though. It’s really about showing folks the myriad ways the Inter Lake’s print and online editions interact with folks throughout the Flathead Valley area and beyond — from the far reaches of Lincoln County to the east side of Glacier National Park.
For 124 years the Daily Inter Lake has been a constant source of news. It’s always been a blend of national and state news along with a wide range of local news. Of course there have been some changes in the ways we’ve covered people’s lives. In bygone days rural correspondents sent in their “news,” letting readers know who had traveled where and who was over for coffee. In the days before privacy laws even hospital admissions were published.
These days there’s no other news source that provides the amount of “people” news that the Inter Lake does, from accomplishments of our military men and women to a five-generation photo of your neighbors down the block. We regularly publish duplicate bridge results, honor rolls, dean’s lists, scholarship winners, business newsmakers and articles with photos about couples celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. This is all in addition to our regular slate of local news and feature stories.
There’s no other news source that covers more City Council, Planning Board and Flathead County Commission meetings than the Inter Lake. In fact, we’re often the news source for other news media.
Our regular features such as the crossword and Sudoku puzzles are so popular we really hear about it when there’s an occasional scheduling mishap and the wrong puzzle gets published, as was the case last week. Sorry about that, dear readers.
The impact of a daily newspaper transcends the happenings of the day in that we are the Flathead Valley’s most consistent, ongoing archive. Our record of local history since 1889 is a valuable resource.
We are the Flathead’s history book. (Check out today’s Montana Perspectives section for some of that little-known history from 1943!)
While we’ve always felt we’re intimately entwined in the lives of Flathead Valley residents, a recent independent survey conducted by American Opinion Research validated that assumption.
Done by a firm considered one of the top three market research companies in the country, the survey found that 76 percent of all people in the Flathead read the Inter Lake and its sister weekly newspapers spread throughout the valley.
Another key finding was that 51 percent of all adults in the Flathead rely on the Inter Lake for their buying decisions.
So do we have your life covered? You bet, and we’re thankful and proud to be of service.
Editorials represent the majority opinion of the Daily Inter Lake’s editorial board.