Lonnie Wilkey
It’s not often that a Baptist editor is willing to encourage his readers to read another newspaper. Though we don’t like to admit it, we can be territorial.
But, in this case, I can and do encourage our readers to take a look at The Baptist Paper (TBP), a national Southern Baptist news publication launched in 2021. The Baptist Paper is a product of TAB Media Group, which has published The Alabama Baptist newspaper since 1843.
Both TBP and The Alabama Baptist are edited by Jennifer Rash, who I would describe as one of the best journalists I have ever known. She has won numerous awards for her writing. More importantly, she is a woman with strong Christian values who has the unique gift of making the people she meets feel important. Her smile lights up any room.
From the beginning, I have never viewed TBP as a competitor. I viewed it as a complement to the Baptist and Reflector.
The papers are independent of each other, but share the same goal to inform and inspire Baptists.
The B&R’s primary focus has been and will continue to be news about ministries provided by Tennessee Baptist Convention churches and your Tennessee Baptist Mission Board.
No other publication reports on Tennessee Baptists like we do and we take pride in that.
The Baptist Paper works with other state publications, including the B&R, to provide news from other state conventions and the Southern Baptist Convention. These are articles that normally are not in the B&R print version, but that we do use at times on our website, baptistandreflector.org.
For those of you who will be at The Summit in Chattanooga next week, I invite you to stop by a joint booth of the B&R and The Baptist Paper.
I will be there primarily on Monday but Trennis and Pam Henderson of TBP will be there throughout Summit to greet Tennessee Baptists and introduce you to TBP if you have not already seen it.
We have a mutual agreement to provide our readers with the most and best Baptist news available. The Baptist Paper has agreed to offer a subscription to any Tennessee Baptist who is a paid subscriber to the B&R for only $10 for a year. If your church gets a free copy, that does not apply to this offer.
If you are not a B&R paid subscriber, The Baptist Paper would then charge their full subscription price of $34.95. The Hendersons will provide more details on this arrangement and we will make those details available to everyone as they are worked out.
Why are they doing this and why are we agreeing to it? First, I feel confident that we will not lose subscriptions. If anything, I believe we will gain subscribers because readers will then have the opportunity to get more news for their money.
Second, I believe our readers will benefit from having access to both papers. TBP has the resources to report more on SBC life than we do.
Our focus is unashamedly on Tennessee Baptists. We will still use other news sources such as Baptist Press when occasions arise.
Our desire is that we will alternate weeks with The Baptist Paper but that is still to be determined due to unique publishing schedules for each paper. Regardless, if you take advantage of TBP’s offer, you will get 52 issues a year.
I truly believe our mutual agreement is a win-win for both papers.
Most importantly, however, I believe it will be a win-win for Tennessee Baptists. B&R
