Nearly 20 years ago, a south-central Ontario publishing colleague of The Expositor considered the gaining popularity of the Internet, then in its infancy, and determined that this new technology would eventually pose a real threat to the traditional newspaper publishing industry as a distributor of news and advertising material to readers.
His career by that time had spanned nearly four decades and his spouse was soon to retire from her job as a high school teacher.
To him, it was the perfect time to sell out and retire as there was no succession in his family to continue running the business.
He sold a prosperous, award-winning newspaper to the highest bidder: a newspaper chain operation that at that time was being aggressive in the acquisition of both small market community newspapers and also any daily papers that were for sale in Ontario.
There is a lesson here in the experience of this particular newspaper and its community, especially in light of the current and, for now, seemingly endless discussions about problems facing the newspaper industry.
We know now that the southern Ontario community newspaper publisher’s concerns were insightful, as the Internet (and related social media businesses, as yet unheard of at the moment of his original concern) have picked at some of the newspapers’ traditional revenue streams, notably classified advertising.
We also know now that the sale of a perfectly good and well-performing community newspaper to a large chain is the worst possible thing, in most cases, that can be inflicted on it and, by implication, on the community it serves.
This particular newspaper is published in a rural community, one with significant tourism, in many respects similar to the Manitoulin Island market. It lacks the cultural diversity we are blessed with here and it also lacks the advantage of having a Great Lakes shoreline. But it enjoys its own beautiful sub-Laurentian shield scenery and its own myriad of lakes and rivers.
Very early in this paper’s life as part of a large newspaper chain, head office determined that there were too many people on the payroll and so cuts were ordered.
The long-time and very successful editor of the paper became discouraged and left her job and took her talents to another newspaper in another part of the country.
People in the community began to complain that “there is nothing in our paper anymore” and so readership declined and, with it, local advertising support.
The newspaper no longer won provincial and national awards for writing, photography and design and, because it had been left so weakened by remote management and was now mostly seen as a line item on a head office balance sheet whose primary objective was to generate profit for the newspaper chain, local competition began with another locally owned and managed newspaper starting up in the same community.
The competition prospered to the extent that the newspaper chain sold the older newspaper (for which they had paid a great deal of money) to the start-up company at an enormous loss.
Now, the original community newspaper is back in local ownership, its readership is almost back to where it had been 15 years ago and, this winter, it is once again being recognized by its peers as a newspaper of excellence as it is a finalist in five categories of the Ontario Community Newspaper Association Better Newspapers competition.
This true story is offered here as an antidote to the doom and gloom the national media (television in particular) is just now heaping on the newspaper industry.
The people of the south-central Ontario community are once again supporting their local newspaper, precisely because it has once again become a truly local product. Business support has also come back accordingly, in the form of local advertising.
This is a good object lesson for the community newspaper industry, which locally includes The Manitoulin Expositor and the Manitoulin West Recorder.
The recent downsizing of several of Post Media’s big city publications in Western Canada, the closing down of the Guelph daily newspaper, the downsizing of Rogers Communication’s radio division through staff layoffs, and with all of this taking place within the past month, has unleashed panel after panel of experts who feel compelled to wring their hands and predict/lament the death of not only newspapers, but of news. Many of them are happy to predict the handoff of news to bloggers: the cadre of well-intentioned people only too happy to share their opinions online.
Your Manitoulin Island newspapers are front street, mom and pop operations that report the news and also opinion. The opinions are, in our case, offered through letters to the editor and op-ed pieces.
This paper typically devotes 1.5 pages to letters and this forum, used to the extent it is on Manitoulin, is an industry indicator of a well-read newspaper.
That is what is once again happening at the south-central Ontario newspaper cited as an example of how readers will vote with their feet, both to leave and to come back, in direct relationship to how their needs and expectations are being met.
Newspapers are not going away. The smart publishers have and will adapt their print and online products to meet the needs of the business community and of their readership.
The Expositor, by way of example, has been repositioning itself in this respect by developing Manitoulin’s go-to website and by organically increasing its Facebook following to be the dominant one on Manitoulin: 9,403 followers as of mid-afternoon this past Monday, February 15.
We are not bragging, far from it.
But we felt that, in the face of the mixed messages about this industry that suddenly abound, people might want to hear some news that isn’t gloomy on the future of newspapers and news, especially at the local level.
Independent newspapers like yours on Manitoulin and the other example given are in the minority in Ontario now.
Not so many years ago (about 20), independent newspapers, whose proprietors lived in and were part of the community they served, were the rule. Now, they are the exception and while chain ownership of previously independent papers has not been a universally negative experience, neither is the example of the south-central Ontario paper’s fall from popularity when it became part of a large organization a unique situation.
Independent newspapers in small markets are uniquely positioned to deliver the news and advertising messages to their constituencies.
Communities without newspapers are the poorer for it and this is only exacerbated when an existing paper shuts down or relocates.
In the spirit of adapting and staying current, for example, The Expositor’s production manager and webmaster, Dave Patterson, last fall gave popular presentations at four Manitoulin Island locations that dealt with ways in which businesses could be using social media to their benefit, in addition to their traditional advertising forums.
On Thursday, February 25 Mr. Patterson will present another seminar (in Little Current) on Internet security, another important and timely topic.
In offering these no-charge educational opportunities, Mr. Patterson wasn’t following any other publication’s lead. Rather, from his central role as the paper’s production manager he had heard enough people asking questions on these topics that he decided he should address them. The paper is pleased to sponsor the initiatives.
In a similar vein, Carly Gordon, who finished university last year and is a New Media intern at The Expositor Office, will soon be contacting a variety of Manitoulin businesspeople in order to set up interviews with them about how they think they could utilize various aspects of social media to help position themselves in the market.
Through Ms. Gordon’s interviews, The Expositor plans to develop profiles of how this paper can best assist businesses in this market by packaging our expertise and strengths according to their requirements in this wired world.
That is how this newspaper is adapting to change and, by inference, how the industry as a whole is approaching a new model.
What we will continue to do, though, is to reflect your community and to carry on writing the history of Manitoulin Island as it unfolds week by week and year by year.
