By Pepper Parr
October 18th, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
This is the third of a series on the changes taking place in print media and the challenge of keeping the public informed.
What is working well in the new media environment?
With next to nothing available in the way of printed newspapers in the vast majority of communities in Canada we began to see the emergence of online newspapers.
At this point the following are the daily newspapers in Canada: Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal , Globe & Mail , Halifax Daily News , Montreal Gazette, National Post, Ottawa Citizen, Toronto Star , Vancouver Sun. The Halifax newspaper market is in a state of flux.
Small independent newspapers found they could no longer survive – the cost of printing a paper was something that couldn’t be covered with what there was in the way of advertising revenue.
Once a stable of 70 weekly newspapers.
The Metroland Media Group had a stable of 70 weekly newspapers, one of which was the Burlington Post – at one time they published twice a week. In September of 2023 they abruptly shut down the papers and worked their way to becoming online newspapers. Metroland was a subsidiary of the Toronto Star that was seeking creditor protection at the time.
The Burlington Gazette was the first online newspaper that was admitted into membership in what was then the Ontario Press Council – that was in 2012.
Since then there are perhaps as many as 500 on line newspapers.
Online costs were lower which meant advertising prices could be lower.
However, publishers found that many of the retailers in the small markets didn’t understand digital – they didn’t have a clue as to how they could take advantage of the immediacy of an online paper.
The online publishers had to find ways to educate their potential advertisers and teach them the benefits of being online. Their editorial teams also had to learn how to work with a 24/7 news cycle.
Classified advertising was gone and national advertising had no place to go.
By national advertising, we mean advertising done by the auto section that looks for full page full colour advertising that used to run in every city across the country. Banks and insurance plus major brands were huge national advertisers.
What we began to see was the emergence of corporations that had online papers in many communities – the biggest example at this point is Village Media that has dozens of on line newspapers.
Village Media – a collection of online newspapers that exists coast to coast.
Village Media owns and operates local news sites in a number of markets and provides technology, consulting and fulfillment services to strategic news media partners. Together, they work as a collaborative partner network, with shared technology, ideas, content and advertising potential.
They also have an online broadcast that has a paywall.
They are funded by their advertising base.
The Narwhal – a not for profit that has led the way in showing what online media can do when they joint venture with major daily newspapers.
Another example of the new approach is The Narwhal – a not for profit that was able to secure funding from three different foundations to get started. They have a loyal following that donates on a regular basis.
What has made The Narwhal the success it is, was joining forces with the Toronto Star and now the Guardian, a British newspaper that went on line in 1999.
The Guardian has since established office in Washington DC and is proving to be a strong online competitor to the New York Times and the Washington Post. By March of 2001 the online Guardian has 2.4 million unique readers.
In the joint ventures with Toronto Star and the Guardian, the Narwhal editorial people would do the on the ground investigative work with editorial input and guidance from the larger media which would then publish the articles.
We believe that the larger media provided financial as well as editorial support.
The editorial leadership at The Narwhal is for the most part female – a welcome change in the way newsrooms were once male dominated.
The Narwhal’s leadership is female – not all but most of the leadership is female. Newspapers have in the past been a male dominated business. That has changed – for the better.
They are relentless with their drive to get subscribers that donate on a regular basis.
There is another small group Compass Newspapers. They developed a curated news application designed to deliver trending news. The company’s curated news application is for millennials, powered by an AI editor, and is able to choose the global politics, current affairs, business, finance, technology, and entertainment news published every day.
The use of Alternative Intelligence allows Compass to summarize and analyze their content giving their readers the latest news instantly.
This isn’t reporting – this is collecting what others have reported and packaging it based on the profile of their users. What surprised me was the support iPolitics gives them.
For online newspapers the focus was getting the news out in a 24/7 environment; accounting and administrative stuff got a lick and a promise.
The federal government has worked hard with media organizations to force Meta and Facebook to put some of their revenue into a fund that is distributed to media that meet the criteria; one of which submitting a corporate tax returns to Canada Revenue Agency. Many of the smaller online operations haven’t grown to the point where they can file a tax returns – their accounting system is a collection of receipts in a show box.
The Halifax Examiner, an on line paper is a subscription based operation. You pay a monthly fee ($12.50 a month) and you can read everything. They are doing very well.
We are seeing some consolidation of community based online newspapers – Village Media is one example. There are foundation supported online newspapers. The philanthropic sector is being approached by many for ongoing financial support
Part 1 New media replacing print with digital
Part 2 The change was taking place and we didn’t see it coming
Coming: What role are governments going to play in keeping media alive?
