You may have noticed that our masthead on the cover of this issue, Vol. 8, No. 18, and our logo have changed to simply The Buzz. Why the change? We are often called The Buzz by many of our readers, and since originally naming the newspaper in 2018, a lot has changed.
To fully understand where we are now, you should know how far we have come and who we are. We started the Buzz because of a need for a community-focused newspaper after a long-standing newspaper ceased operations. Given our expertise in publications, we quickly moved to fill the need, publishing the Dresden Buzz newspaper within a few weeks. We had been operating Dotson Design Studio, a graphic design business, since 2009, moving our business to Dresden in 2014. The first volumes of the Buzz were printed in-house with a low print run and just a few pages covering news, sports, and events from the Tri-Valley area. During that time, we heard the need for more local coverage in print for news coming from other parts of the county. In 2023, we made the decision to step up our coverage efforts and expand to include all of the county, becoming Muskingum County’s Free Newspaper. That change meant first doubling, then quadrupling, our print run and adding more pages. The massive load of papers that we hand-deliver to around 80 high-traffic locations throughout the county is wild to see packed into our car, definitely exceeding its suggested load capacity. But a family-run business does what it needs to do, especially a free newspaper operated by a team of mostly two, with assistance from my mom, who gathers events for the event calendar, my son, who draws the comics, and my daughter, who has written for the paper and will occasionally proof read since I am absolutely horrible at catching my own mistakes. My husband, Matthew, has been by my side this entire time, even though I am sure he thinks I am nuts for wanting to venture into the newspaper world. He has taken on the job of photographing sports and writing articles covering eight high schools and Muskingum University. We both wear many hats, as you can imagine. I will not list mine as I don’t want to put you to sleep.
Now that you know the history, let me shed some light on why we made a slight change to our branding. We have been battling the issue of many not immediately understanding why a newspaper from Dresden is covering something across the county. We have heard, “Oh, the Dresden Buzz, what are you doing here?” and “I did not know Dresden had a newspaper.” Plus, many other comments that indicate that the messaging is not getting through as easily as we hoped. We completely understand the confusion, and that is why we needed to make a change that clearly states that we are a paper for a broader audience. I was inspired by the Muskingum County Center for Seniors’ recent rebrand, where they began using their nickname, The Center, to represent who they are for today’s 60 and better crowd. So in short, we are still the same Dresden Buzz, we’re just going by the name our readers have given us. Our website address and email addresses will remain the same.
The Buzz has grown a lot over the past almost eight years, and we are not done! We will continue to listen to our readers, to support the community by highlighting the amazing accomplishments of students, sharing the achievements obtained by residents, promoting local events, supporting small businesses through featured articles and affordable advertising, and connecting all areas of our county with a truly local newspaper – made with 100% local news, that can be enjoyed in print and online at no cost to our readers thanks to the support of our advertisers.
