Midweek Searchlight to take on new look, focus

Come next Tuesday, July 25, the Midweek SEARCHLIGHT will take on a new focus and appearance.

“We felt that seven years after its introduction, there was need to refresh its content, particularly to make it more appealing and distinguish it from our Weekend publication,” explained Clare Keizer, chief executive officer of Interactive Media, publisher of the SEARCHLIGHT newspapers.

Keizer explained that the Midweek publication will not only take on a fresh, modern design, but its content will better reflect the views and interests of today’s active workforce, with a greater community and business focus.

There will also be less emphasis on hard news and more on human interest stories.

“We will maintain our popular health features with doctors Miller, John, Adams and Onu, but next Tuesday, we will add to our line-up an exciting new columnist, who will share her views on everything and anything affecting life in St Vincent and the Grenadines and the world.”

The new opinion writer is Dr Debra Providence, a lecturer, writer and mother, who also describes herself as “a make-believer and an unapologetic book nerd.”

Some traditional aspects of the publication will be discontinued, while new ones, such as a fortnightly feature on all aspects of the automotive industry, will be introduced.

A defining feature of the new Midweek will be its features on businesses of all types and sizes.

“Our aim is to partner with individuals and businesses to raise greater awareness of their skills, products and services and get them noticed,” said Karen James, marketing and advertising executive at SEARCHLIGHT. She explained that the aim is to make the Midweek publication the place to go to find information on events for the upcoming weekend. 

“We also hope the publication will become an all-inclusive product guide for local, regional and international tourists,” James said, adding that readers can expect entertainment, ‘Where to Find’, ‘Where to Dine’, ‘Where to Stay’, ‘Where to Shop’, ‘Places to See’, tech stuff, ‘how to’ and other personal development and environmental features.

Keizer said the first set of businesses, organizations and individuals to be featured will be the winners of the 2017 Best of SVG awards.

“In an effort to highlight the winners and raise greater awareness about what they represent, we are producing multimedia features on them, the first of which will be published next week.”

She explained that each feature, which will include a two-minute video clip, will be published in print, on the SEARCHLIGHT website and shared on social media.

“We will publish in the newspaper, next to each feature, a QR code, which users of smartphones may scan to see the video clip which accompanies each story.

“We hope, through this effort, to stimulate business for the winning businesses/personalities, provide an incentive to other businesses to lift their game and strengthen our commitment to greater community focus,” said Keizer, who is also the editor of SEARCHLIGHT Midweek and Weekend.

SEARCHLIGHT Midweek was first published on Tuesday, June 22, 2010, during the company’s 15th year of existence. SEARCHLIGHT is 22 years old, having been first published on April 7, 1995.