TNM opens new chapter with rebirth as a monthly

After more than seven and a half years on a biweekly printing schedule, The Northern Miner’s print and digital editions will be moving to a monthly schedule as of October. That makes our Sept. 4-17, 2023 issue our last biweekly edition.

The Northern Miner’s roots are in print and we believe there will always be a place for a product you can hold in your hands, read and reread, mark up and collect. For 101 years, The Miner was a weekly. During most of that time, we owned our own printing press. In fact, we even had one in Cobalt, Ont. — where The Northern Miner was born in 1915 — before the publication moved to Toronto in 1929.

But times have changed. It’s true that print media faces unique challenges in the digital age. However, that doesn’t mean we are abandoning print. Instead, we’re focused on upping both our print and digital games. We see the two mediums as complementary and both as essential to serving our existing readers better while winning new ones.

While digital can’t be beat for speed and features like video that simply can’t be replicated in print, reading in-depth features and analysis is a lot easier on a physical page. We can also make an impact with newspaper layout and choice of images that just isn’t the same on a website.

With that in mind, we see our move to a monthly publishing schedule as an opportunity for rebirth and renewal. Our monthly issue will be bigger and indeed better, with more in-depth news, analysis and interviews, plus more data visualization and infographics. In place of our long-running stock tables, which have lost their appeal in the era of online stock trading, we’ll bring you more valuable data in a format that’s easier — and even fun — to read. You’ll find improved warrant and shorts data, new metals ETFs and gold funds data, more TNM Drill Down data highlighting the best assays of the month provided by Mining Intelligence. All in a visually appealing format that makes the information easier to digest at a glance.

On the digital front, you’ll notice a livelier Northern Miner website. A less hectic print production schedule will allow us to put more time and effort into digital storytelling. If you visit our site regularly, you’ll notice that we’ve been doubling down on video and exploring new and more engaging ways to convey information and get to the heart of a story. That includes video — especially those our writers shoot in the field, bringing our site visits alive and letting you kick the rocks along with them. It also includes data in various forms, such charts and graphs that give a quick but precise overview of exploration projects by region and commodity (lithium and rare earths); and most recently, interactive maps that let you see where the year’s best drill holes were collared.

And of course, our popular free weekly podcast has grown immensely since March 2016, when it was started by former writers Lesley Stokes and Matthew Keevil. (It’s now in the capable hands of host Adrian Pocobelli.)

What’s changing?

• The publishing frequency of our print and digital editions from biweekly to monthly, starting after the current issue. Our next issue will be the October 2023 edition. Check out our updated media kit for information about the feature sections in each print issue and important deadlines. 

• The size of the print and digital edition will increase. We will aim to double the size of the paper to 48 pages, up from 24. (When the paper was published weekly, it was often as slim as 16 pages.)

• You will also see changes in our content both in print and online. Since we will be publishing the newspaper and digital edition less frequently, we will be shifting our content even more towards analysis, commentary, in-depth interviews with key industry players, data insights, and on the website, multi-media.

What’s not changing?

• The Northern Miner will remain in its current newspaper format.

• The publishing frequency and volume of news on our website will stay at the same levels or better.

• Our pricing will remain the same. We recently combined with our sister publication Mining.com under the TNM Group umbrella, with one subscription giving you access to both publications.

• And most importantly, as one of the few players in mining media that is truly independent, our commitment to bring you unbiased news and reporting remains steadfast.

Our strong and experienced editorial team which it is my privilege to lead — consisting of Western Editor Henry Lazenby, Senior Staff Writer Colin McClelland, and Production/Copy Editor Blair McBride — are excited about these changes and along with our incredible Art Director Barb Burrows, are working hard on new features that you’ll see in our first monthly edition in October.

I’d like to extend a heartfelt thank you to our subscribers and advertisers for your continued support. Please don’t hesitate to contact our customer support team at support@northernminer.com or reach out to me (ahiyate@northernminer.com) with any concerns.