The new Sanpete Messenger website goes live

MANTI—After more than a year of development, a new Sanpete Messenger website went live Wednesday at midnight.

“This new website will open up a new era at the Messenger in which more of our content will be digital,” says Publisher Suzanne Dean. “We will be publishing breaking news on the day it happens. Our Facebook friends will find links to important photos, stories and editorials, all housed on the website.”

Alexander Jessop, the main developer of the site, says the Messenger is providing “more ways to access information people need when they need it.” Those outlets include the printed newspaper, the Messenger’s weekly E-Edition delivered by email, the website and social media.

The site, which uses the WordPress platform, was developed in cooperation with the Mormon Pioneer Heritage Area (MPNHA) and includes pages explaining what the heritage area is and does. The MPNHA section of the site also includes maps and tours of the six-county heritage area.

Other than that, the site mirrors the organization of the newspaper, with pages for news, opinion, lifestyle, school and sports. The home page contains top stories in each topical section and links to subordinate pages for the newspaper sections.

But the website, including the home page, goes beyond newspaper content. At various times, the home page will contain special links to photo spreads, public notices and MPNHA reports and news releases.

The menu across the home page includes a link for “community.” Clicking the link takes the reader to a page with icons for government, schools, Snow College, medical services and churches in the Sanpete County. Clicking an icon takes the person to a page or pages of resources related to the topic, including addresses and phone numbers.

Besides the most recent news stories, the news page contains the current-week’s Sanpete Events Calendar.

Besides stories from the newspaper, the Lifestyle page contains the latest Randal Thatcher column, plus links to the various types of “society” notices the Messenger runs, including obituaries, weddings, anniversaries, first-birthdays and special achievements.

The “school” section of the site contains a link to the last two middle-school and high-school honor rolls, while the sports page contains links to Messenger sports booster magazines published so far this school year.

Sprinkled throughout the site are links to the website archives. While some updating will be needed to add in stories published in the past couple of years, within a couple of months, the archives should offer access to almost everything published in the Messenger since 2017.

The site will be free for the next couple of months. And certain content, such as obituaries and community information, will always be free.

But in order to pay the costs of maintaining the site, the Messenger will be putting up a paywall. After three clicks, the reader will receive a message asking him or her to support community journalism, especially Messenger reporters and editors, by subscribing to the site.

The rates, which are similar to rates for the printed newspaper and the E-edition, will be modest: $7 for one month, $25 for six months and $40 for one year.