2:00pm | In April, the Long Beach Post will launch a monthly print publication. We will take the same creativity and innovation that made the Long Beach Post website a success, and apply it to the print medium.
 
When Robert Garcia and I sat down in the summer of 2006, we envisioned an innovative community news resource and we wondered if it would work. We also wondered if it was possible to not only create, but sustain an independent news website from the ground up that could compete with established local organizations with decades of experience. Four years after the Long Beach Post first went live in February 2007, we no longer doubt that possibility.
 
Since our beginning, we have always said – albeit internally – a Long Beach Post print version will be a product of our online version, not the other way around. In other words, we will include exclusive print version stories but we will also rely upon our online version’s coverage to recap the month’s most important headlines to help drive our print version. We are excited about our new frontier, and we hope that you will join us in this bold endeavor. 
 
Producing high quality media products is a difficult task; maintaining it day-after-day and building from their challenges and successes is sometimes impossible. Nevertheless, we have been riding a wave of triumphs in the journalism industry as a whole, and we are going to take this community along with us.
 
Last year, we made an important pledge to ourselves and to you: To become the most read publication in Long Beach by January 1, 2015. Judging by the statistics from last year, we are well on our way. Attaining our “most-read” goal means a firm commitment to our three-part strategy that we outlined a year ago: (1) To continue and improve our content by investing in paid and volunteer writers, (2) embrace new technology, and (3) remain nimble. Since then, we increased our use of video coverage and social media tools to reach new audiences. We also redesigned our web site to strengthen the visual experience with an expanded three-column format including the introduction of a new Life section. We transitioned our original brand, lbpost.com to the Long Beach Post and we also migrated our popular LBPOSTsports.com product back into our overall framework giving us a more formal and centralized approach to news delivery. 
 
We also tested a few new products such as our LBPOSTLIVE feature which launched in March 2010 with Mayor Bob Foster as an interactive feature that brought readers closer to a live story through video and social media platforms. In October, we launched a series of polls on some of the most important issues impacting our community. For the first time in recent memory, a Long Beach media organization invested in scientific polling and provided the community the means to debate, discuss and form opinions on the results.
 
With the continued investment in our online product and the introduction of our print version, the Long Beach Post will continue to grow in scope, in reputation and in accessibility, not out of a desire to prosper but a desire to provide this community with the quality media coverage that it deserves. We will not use difficult financial times as an excuse to cut quality. We will not rest on our successes or shy from new endeavors. We will not choose convenience over the level of coverage befitting a city with the influence, significance and character of Long Beach. 
 
We are no longer curious about the potential of the Long Beach Post, but now that we understand it, we owe it to ourselves, to you, and even to our critics to realize it.
 
We are moving forward, and we are going to take you with us.
 
Shaun Lumachi
Publisher
Long Beach Post, Inc.