A Sign Of The Times??

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Are Newspapers the buggy whip business of our time?

With little fanfare the newspaper serving Kamloops for 83 years was closed on January 11 succumbing to financial realities of this age.

The owners of the Kamloops Daily News, Glacier Media Group, are the same owners of the local Daily News which likely is facing the same pressures in Nanaimo, which is about the same size as Kamloops.

There are only so many advertising dollars to go around and the News Bulletin also competes for those same dollars offering advertisers a similar means of advertising vehicle. The Bulletin seems to have won the war for the flyers, which are likely the lifeblood of that publication.

Authors of their own destiny?

Glacier Media Group is quoted as saying the Kamloop's closure was due to declining ad revenue in a time when the public reads news free online and through social media.

It could be that the public generally has become weary of 'infotainment' which 'news' papers use to fill the space between ads. Declining subscribers at the local Daily testify to the importance and relevance Nanaimo residents put on a daily newspaper. The number of paid subscribers I understand is about 5,000 now, compared with the early 70's when that number was 10,000+ with a much smaller population.

A creeping apathy among Canadians towards democracy is likely another 'canary in the coal mine' signifying the health of local newspapers. A population which participates less and less in all levels of their government, has less and less interest in what the paper reports.

Perhaps there is no longer a need for a daily newspaper delivered to your door. Maybe once or twice a week is all the newspaper needed to adequately serve today's communities. After all, the day to day stuff can easily be found, not only online but via television which is also in the infotainment business.

Once upon a time newspapers existed to inform citizens of what was happening in their town, citizens gladly paid a few pennies for that news and the papers survived on sales of the papers. Ad revenue in those days was just the cherry on top. Nowadays, the newspapers exist to serve the advertisers, as they simply can not survive on circulation revenue and if they don't cater to the whims of the advertiser, they simply have to close. Hence they wind up putting out a 'paper' on a daily basis, not necessarily because there is something news worthy to publish, but because advertisers want their ads delivered. Sometimes the advertising is the most interesting content.

Being a dinosaur I can actually remember when principles dictated a newspaper would not sell space on the front page for any price. The front page was considered sacred and only worthy of providing the most news worthy stories of the day, and under no circumstances was the newspaper going to appear to endorse a business by allowing them front page coverage. After all this was a NEWS paper and not an advertising delivery system. Being a respectable, family friendly publication there would be certain businesses that would not grace it's pages.

The following ad does not appear on the pages of some men's mag or sleazy tabloid but the classified pages of the local daily. Times they are a changin'