The Joys and Pains of Growing

The Joys and Pains of Growing
December 15th, 2009

2009 was a huge successs. Thanks to you, we can continue to tell Utah's Stories

A Utah Success Story

It has been a very busy year for Utah Stories.

2009 was a huge successs. Thanks to you, we can continue to tell Utah's Stories

We began with one man's desire to offer substantive, local journalism and chronicle "The Other Side" of Salt Lake City. Though we are have not changed our focus, we are pleased to announce that we are getting more sophisticated about the way we do it. This year we celebrated our third birthday, created a print edition of Utah Stories Magazine from scratch, and won City Weekly's 2009 Best of Utah Citizen Journalism Award.

Utah Stories has quadrupled its online viewership and over 100,000 people have enjoyed our free, quality coverage of the best of local journalism. The launch of the print edition of Utah Stories Magazine was an instant success, and 14,000 copies are now distributed free of charge throughout Utah every month. By creating a partnership with generous local sponsors, we have been able to expand our coverage and offer them targeted advertising they couldn't get anywhere else.

Just this week, we finished our online archive store and have made all of our back issues available for order. Readers who have just discovered Utah Stories will enjoy the Go Local Guide (containing the best of local Utah) as well as the historic snapshot of urban Salt Lake City as it rapidly transforms in the midst of urban renewal. Learn more here:

As one of the only media outlets to experience growth during this recession, we want to thank all the people who have supported us along the way.

Don't worry. We won't let the success go to our head. Their are too many stories we still need to tell, and we see our accomplishments as an opportunity to make our coverage even better and more accessible. Utah Stories has been successful for one primary reason: Utah residents demand quality, local journalism, and we are committed to keep providing it.

Growing Pains and Apologies

Amidst the joys of rapid growth also come the pains. We are currently redesigning various aspects of our website to make it more user friendly and allow for more participation. Our site has received great feedback, including hundreds of comments to our articles. Unfortunately, we have not been able to handle the volume, and some comments have been sitting in our queue for some time now.

For this we apologize.

Please be patient with us as we redesign this important aspect of our website. We value your thoughts very highly and will make every attempt to ensure that each voice is heard, all our surveys are responded to, and every comment is posted--it just might take a little time for us to catch up!

Thank you for your support and interest. There are great things in store for 2010.

Warm regards,

-The Utah Stories Team