Stop the presses: Desert Wings ending print edition after 56 years

  • Published
  • By 2nd Lt. Brad Kimberly
  • 95th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
An Edwards mainstay since 1950, the Desert Wings is set to join several other Air Force newspapers that have announced plans to move away from a printed product.

The Desert Wings is scheduled to end its print edition in February as part of an Air Force initiative to transition news delivery to the World Wide Web.

"Phasing out the print edition is actually a two-part operation," said Tech. Sgt. Eric Grill, 95th Air Base Wing Public Affairs internal information chief and assistant site manager. "First, the Edwards public Web site will migrate to a new design in January. After six weeks of working with the new Web site, we'll discontinue the newspaper. We'll begin posting news stories and event links on the Web in January as part of the transition."

Edwards' Web site, currently hosted on base and maintained by the 95th Communications Group, will move to a new off-base server modified using the Air Force Public Information Management System. AFPIMS is a Web-based site development tool that allows stories, photos, biographies and other products to be published with little to no Web design experience.

"The new Web site is going to look very similar to Air Force Link as the Air Force is working to standardize the appearance and operation of installation Web sites while increasing server security," Sergeant Grill said. "By moving to the new system, we will gain the ability to release news stories in minutes rather than in days or weeks."

Through the Air Force Smart Operations 21 process, a newspaper working group determined a typical news team spends 30 to 40 percent of its time designing the newspaper rather than writing news stories.

With the change, public affairs writers will be able to focus more on reporting and will no longer be subject to the constraints of a weekly news cycle, Sergeant Grill said.

"At the moment, we write our stories with an internal deadline of Tuesday afternoon for Friday's paper," he said. "If something happens on a Wednesday, there is very little chance of it making the paper until nine days later. Under a digital delivery system, we can publish a story as quickly as it takes to write and edit it."

The Desert Wings is produced by the 95th ABW Public Affairs office but is published through an Air Force contract by Aerotech News and Review, an Antelope Valley-based printer. Once the last newspaper hits newsstands, the contract will end through an existing termination clause.

As one of the base commander's primary communication tools, the Desert Wings is read by more than 18,000 people per week including active-duty servicemembers, reservists, retirees civilian employees and dependents.

"For more than 50 years, the Desert Wings has been available for Team Edwards to get its base news," said Col. H. Brent Baker Sr., 95th ABW commander. "The newspaper reporting business has not changed very much over the years, but the way people prefer to get their news has. We're going to embrace that change as we move to the Web."

According to Colonel Baker, there is a possibility of getting another base newspaper with an Edwards focus.

"I understand there are people who still prefer having a newspaper in their hand," he said. "We are currently working on an agreement to receive a base newspaper, under a different name, which will be produced entirely by the publisher."

Air Force officials said the decision to eliminate base newspapers across the service was made because the public affairs career field has been reduced by approximately 25 percent.

The last issue of the Desert Wings is set for Feb. 23.