MARINE CORPS AIR STATION IWAKUNI, Japan -- After nearly 50 years in print, the Torii Teller will cease to be a paper product on Sept. 30.
As the world transitions to an electronic information era, this installation will become the first Marine Corps installation to offer command information solely over the internet.
With continued budget cuts and the need for immediacy in disseminating information, the decision was made to use projected fiscal year '06 budget monies to convert the Torii Teller to an online resource.
Beginning Oct. 1, an electronic newsletter will be provided to command personnel and all news stories will be posted to our Web site. These stories will now be available in a timelier manner and more accessible to a wider range of audiences. Families back home need only click on our Web site to find the variety of news only offered before in our paper version.
This issue will be the last news issue offered. Next week, the paper will be devoted to the Torii Teller's transition from a magazine, to a newspaper, to becoming completely digital.
Over the years, the Torii Teller has won various awards for print journalism excellence and the staff has included some of the best Marine Corps writers, photographers and Japanese editorial staff.
The Public Affairs Office has decided to dedicate next week's last issue to all those correspondents who have come before to make the Torii Teller what is today and what it will become in the future. We ask our readership to bear with us as we make this transition of reshaping how your news is delivered.
A sad reality is that printing the Torii Teller costs over 75 percent of the public affairs budget.
Since 2003, we have devoted more of our funding on printing the paper than on keeping our equipment up to date or training our people for new technologies. With this being the case, we felt it was time to retire the paper and dedicate our efforts into a more immediate news delivery method.
For now, the future course of Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni public affairs will be on the Internet at www.iwakuni.usmc.mil. We ask for your support as well as welcome your comments and suggestions.