The East Pacific News Service
March 31, 2020
Eastern Pacific News Service Comes to a Close, Citing Historical Shortage of News
By Tretrid
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On March 31, Minister of Information and Communications Tretrid has announced that the Eastern Pacific News Service will no longer be in print.
This comes only hours after another news service, NSToday, was bought by the Rejected Times.
Minister Tretrid explained in a press release that a critical lack of shortage of manpower and funding were a factor, but he explained that the main reason why the Ministry of Information and Communications (MoIC) was a critical shortage of anything eventful.
“I mean, sure, you can say something about this ‘arembee arpee’ thing, or whatever it is.” Tretrid said when reached to by the EPNS for comment. “Or you could write something about this ‘Pacific-Con’ or Lazarus being neutral or Osiris’s sudden change in ideology. But none of those things are quite worth putting into print, especially since we’re running low on ink to print this with.”
Minister Tretrid did not explain why the Eastern Pacific News Service would need ink to be printed when it exists on an electronic medium, and so shouldn’t require ink.
Tretrid’s full statement can be see Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up (Official Music Video) - YouTube, courtesy of TEP’s YouTube channel.
A Message from the Minister
By Tretrid
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A long time ago (late 2017, of the top of my head), I decided to join the Eastern Pacific News Service. I came into the job thinking it was easy. And then I ended up having to write most of an issue. Of course, I couldn’t write for EPNS for much after then, since I had other business to attend to.
Pretty soon after I returned to NS (and TEP) in the aftermath of Fedele’s failed coup (if you would even call it that), I applied to join the Ministry of Information and Communications (in fact almost immediately after getting my citizenship). I missed writing for the EPNS, since it was a rather fun thing to do.
Really, I didn’t expect to be appointed Minister about two weeks after joining. Though again, I didn’t expect to be last-minuting this statement at 11:06 when you have to get this thing done by 12.
It turned out that Marrabuk had convinced the previous Minister, Mecovy (who I had worked with in my first job in the EPNS) to resign due to not being active enough. Marra informed me that being Minister of Information and Communications would involve things all the way from weekly news updates and info dispatches. It was really a lot of work. I took the job anyway.
Logically, It was pretty clear that I probably wasn’t going to get to do all of those things. I was (and still am) having other, I daresay more important things, but I knew what I had planned for the MoIC. I would continue what Mecovy started.
First, I assembled a team of executive staffers to write articles, as the times were long by that I could be able to write the EPNS by myself. They introduced new and wonderful ideas, like producing the EPNS in the form of a magazine. I also revived the Eastern Pacific News Service puppet and, when the November Issue came out, we had it all out quickly on one day, all on the TEP Forums, as a magazine, as a dispatch, and on the NS Forums. And most importantly, it had a lot of articles that made good reading.
Optimally, all releases of the EPNS would be this clean. But of course it isn’t. The secret to the success of the November issue was that MoIC had been working on that issue for longer than normal, since we had the end of October. Of course, the holidays at the end of November also provided a lot of time to finalize the product, making sure that a polished product was released at the end.
Of course, such a perfect scenario is impossible to achieve every time. Even the next month, we have suffered from staff shortages and article shortages, to the point that we were forced to delay the publication of our December issue, originally scheduled for December 31, all the way to January 13. Honestly, I’m not sure how we got back on track in time for the next publication date on January 31.
Lately, the problems we’ve had on December (the lack of everything) has reappeared this month, but much worse. MoIC’s scope has also increased greatly of late, encompassing everything from those dispatches to endorse the Delegate and Viziers (formerly under the purview of the Eastern Pacific Police Service) to the new, revised version of the University of The East Pacific. Despite this expansion and the resulting increased need of resources, the budget of MoIC hasn’t really changed. As such, we are unable to fund the EPNS. So as much as it saddens me, we have to cut the EPNS loose.
So, with a heavy heart, not only do I announce that this will be the last issue of the EPNS, I am also announcing that I am going to step down as Minister. As important as it is, it is simply too stressing. I plan on sending my resignation to Marrabuk on April 2.