Columnists
Keeping the estate
When I write this column, I occasionally imagine the reader lying in bed, at the breakfast table, sitting in an armchair by a fire, or on a couch at one of the County’s coffee shops, enjoying the paper.
It’s a pleasant image, but one that’s slowly dying away. Community papers have not suffered the decline like the one ravaging daily newspapers. Not yet anyway. The fact remains, hoever, that for many Canadians, newsprint is being replaced by smartphones and tablets. Newspapers, especially dailies, are struggling to keep up with online media outlets.
Of course, when television came along, everyone said it would kill the radio, today, we still tune in on the dials, even if some prefer podcasts and SiriusXM digital audio to FM and AM airwaves. There’s a chance the newspaper will survive the digital revolution. But the outlook is grim.
Last week saw the Guelph Mercury shut its doors, having printed its last physical edition in late January.
More and more, small dailies are being sold to the likes of Postmedia, Quebecor and Torstar, with those companies laying off journalists and instead, opting for submitted stories and photos, and a network that sees the same article published in dozens of papers.
We’ve seen that loss regionally at both the Intelligencer in Belleville and the Trentonian in Trenton, which, along with the County Weekly News, were purchased by Postmedia. All three publish the same articles on local news and events. The result is that our perspectives and our voices are shrinking, replaced by media factories.
The fourth estate was once a stalwart of societal structure—the independent body we relied upon to keep an eye on government, business and law enforcement and keep us in the know. Its existence was an important factor in keeping everyone honest, to the extent that it worked. It also made us aware of the problems happening in this world—the injustices, the imbalances.
I’m so fortunate to be working with one of Canada’s few remaining independent papers. But by the same token, if you are reading this, and especially if you’re a resident of Prince Edward County reading this on newsprint, you’re pretty fortunate, too. We have something rare here.
What we have are local voices. Articles written about the County, from the point of view of County folk. We have stories about the local government, health care system and environment. We have features on the people who live here and the events we attend. And understanding what’s happening in our community makes us better citizens.
We can’t get these things reading The Globe and Mail, listening to CBC and, increasingly, residents can’t get those things from their local papers, saturated with wire stories from the Canadian Press.
Of course, understanding national and international events also has merit. But those stories aren’t going anywhere. Journalism isn’t dying. Neither are community papers. But when smaller dailies close or get swallowed by the industrial news machine, the community’s voice is lost in the mix. If we sell that estate, we’ll all be a little poorer for it.
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