Adapting to the new normal a challenge, but one we have faced before

Everyone is talking about “the new normal” Texas and our nation face in the wake of COVID-19. 
We’re watching friends and fellow business owners grapple with issues such as whether or not they should follow CDC guidelines and wear masks to serve their customers or if that will offend their customers, whether they should reopen their businesses and more. 
These issues are of great urgency and are keeping many business owners up at night. Meanwhile, as newspaper owners, publishers, editors and journalists, we face our own set of challenges in adapting to the new normal. 
Let me remind you: we’ve been down this road before. 
If you’ve been in the newspaper business for a while like I have, you remember the aftermath of September 11. When the U.S. Postal Service had to change its operations to combat the threat of Anthrax and other terrorist attacks through the mail, many rural newspapers were faced with dramatically changed deadlines from their local post offices. In fact, I remember editors telling me they were having to pull more all-nighters than usual and shift their print days and times to accommodate changes with the post office. 
We made it through that. 
Remember, too, back in the days of dial-up internet when online advertising was just beginning to be a thing? We adapted to that, too. Yes, it may have put some newspapers in an early grave and forced a lot of changes in our industry, but between paywalls, online ads, bounce rates, click-through rates and page views, we all were able to teach ourselves a new vocabulary and new tricks to survive. 
The men and women in this profession who came before us had to deal with shortages of paper and ink and rationing during World War II. The American newspaper survived. 
The same holds true with COVID-19. We may be having trouble selling ads right now. We may not have events we can cover safely in person that we are covering through Zoom, or from a distance with a telephoto lens. But we will survive. 
John Campbell started The Boston News-Letter, considered the first true American newspaper, on April 24, 1704. 
In the more than three centuries since, through the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Civil War, Reconstruction, financial recessions, booms and busts, financial panics, the influenza pandemic, World War I, World War II, the Great Depression and more, the American newspaper has persevered. 
We will survive and we will persevere because our public demands it of us. The American newspaper is the greatest vehicle to hold American government accountable, and to get information into the hands of citizens who wish to be informed about what is going on in their world. Whether online or in print, nothing can take the place of the American newspaper. 
Ad sales will pick up again, events will return to some semblance of normal. Our new normal may mean social distancing, no handshakes and wearing a mask, but the American newspaper and American journalists will be here to cover the story. 
We will be faced with decisions such as whether or not your staff should wear masks in the office, or if that offends people in your community. We will be faced with decisions such as whether or not to send staff to cover crowded events. We will be faced with advertisers who may not like our coverage because they think COVID-19 is a conspiracy. 
That’s the reality of the world in which we live. In all instances, we must make decisions that keep our staff, and the communities we cover, safe. And we must make decisions that will assure that the American newspaper survives to go to press another day. 
We will go to press tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. 
Wash your hands, wear a mask, and stay safe.