Comments on: Kamloops no longer has a daily paper, but it’s no town without news

By: James Mirtle

James Mirtle — Thu, 19 Feb 2015 15:18:24 +0000

The fact the editor-in-chief of the paper became the city’s mayor speaks to how influential KDN was. I grew up reading it every morning and I think it was a big reason I went into journalism.

It’s a sad story – one that’s becoming more and more common in this country. The small city dailies are being gutted more than any other publications and more are going to disappear.

By: A town without a daily — less about news, more about ritual – The Armchair Mayor News

Thu, 12 Feb 2015 23:43:13 +0000

[…] To read this story in the Ryerson Review of Journalism, click here. […]

By: Shawn Thompson

Shawn Thompson — Sat, 17 Jan 2015 15:26:16 +0000

The spirited responses of Dale Bass and Michelle Young show a pride in the accomplishments of the reporting staff of their newspapers and a healthy competitiveness. Both newspapers are commendable. The demise of either newspaper is a loss to the community. And it is sad to see so many long-term journalists losing a job they loved. For me, that is a personal flashback to the moment that one third of the news staff were fired in the daily newspaper where I worked in the mid-1990s. The local TV station here in Kamloops did a wonderful job recently in a broadcast piece on the anniversary of the end of the Kamloops Daily News. That broadcast piece was sincere and genuine in recognizing the loss to the community, which was a generous act from a competitor even to remind its audience that the daily newspaper was gone. If some day Kamloops This Week were to suffer the same fate as the Kamloops Daily News and go to its maker, it would not be another instance of an obsolete reading habit disappearing that can easily be filled by the remaining media. That is the real point. As the number of reporters shrinks in different communities, is there still the same quality and quantity of reporting?

By: Dale Bass

Dale Bass — Fri, 16 Jan 2015 01:35:50 +0000

You are aware KTW was named the best community newspaper in the country last year by the CCNA, right? And won several other editorial awards last year and in years previous, including Webster’s. And you are aware there is a newsroom of 10 staff, some with little experience and some, like me, with more than 40 years of experience — more than 25 years of that at the London Free Press. So I would hasten to suggest that your portrayal of our newspaper and our newsroom is lacking completely in any accuracy. And I’m sure you’re also aware, but just failed to mention, that KTW took on many of the community activities the Daily did so well, including the Christmas Cheer program, which raised, in our first year, almost $50,000. Since you do not live in Kamloops, you have no way of knowing KTW has a beat reporter who covers education. If you do a search of our website, you’ll find dozens of education stories. Yes, it is sad that the Daily closed down. Yes, even those of us at KTW miss reading it but to say Kamloops is lacking in a newspaper belittles the work of the young journalists who work with us and who are dedicated to what many believe is a dying industry and it simply ignores the quality of work all of us produce every single day.

By: Shawn Thompson

Shawn Thompson — Thu, 15 Jan 2015 17:13:29 +0000

It is hard to find the nut graf in this story but unless it is buried elsewhere, it seems to be this at the end of paragraph three: “One year later, with easy access to journalism online and from broadcasters, many in the town are finding that a daily paper may be more about the habit than the news.”

How did the writer conclude that “many” people in town agree with her opinion that easy access online replaces a daily newspaper and that reading a newspaper was a habit, presumably meaning an empty habit? And how many is many?

To understand the loss of information with the demise of the Kamloops Daily News, you have to consider the number of reporters producing stories in its newsroom, the number of stories being produced and the depth of the stories, compared to the same elements in any particular other competitor.

The number of other media outlets added up is not a reliable factor in the comparison. The number of other outlets online or broadcasting does not mean more information in itself, because they may be repeating the same story. A number of outlets producing the same story and the ease of access can create the illusion that there is a plethora of information.

If the role of the media is to create soothing and satisfying illusions, then maybe we should not worry about the death of an apparently obsolete “habit.”

Otherwise, the media that are surviving in these volatile times need to pick up their game, which some are indeed doing in interesting and commendable ways.

Please excuse the grumpiness of someone from the “generation gap” who worked at a daily newspaper in the distant misty past.

By: Michele Young

Michele Young — Tue, 13 Jan 2015 16:43:11 +0000

I’d like to point out that the closure of the Kamloops Daily News wasn’t just the death of another newspaper, but also a huge loss in terms of continuity of information as well as the death of the biggest online news provider in Kamloops. That seems to be forgotten in the stories that are focussed on the physical paper, and ignoring the fact that the KDN’s online presence was bigger and better than any other in town.
News was posted immediately, coverage went from early morning to late at night, the number of hits/page views on our web site was higher than any other news company in town (and probably second highest in the Glacier chain, assuming the Victoria Times-Colonist was tops) and we had a vibrant (albeit sometimes over exuberant) commenting community.
So it wasn’t just the loss of a paper. It was the loss of two media outlets, really.
A few other corrections. The KDN’s circulation in 2013, as I heard it, was 12,000. We won a National Newspaper Award in 2013 (out of two nominations) and we had two nominations for Jack Webster Awards in 2013 (we lost both but we were up against big-budget, big-staff outlets like the Vancouver Sun and CBC national). We had a long list of other wins in previous years.
Now those journalists are becoming plumbers, job developers, real estate agents and one web strategist. Most of us want to remain here, and that means limited options. I’m training to be a pharmacy technician after 30 years in journalism because there are more pharmacies than media outlets in Kamloops. And local media aren’t hiring those of us with experience; some of them have undergone cutbacks. (Kamloops This Week took two reporters; a third they hired quit after four days. They have since hired two recent j-school grads, not several as this story says.)
Kamloops is poorer for the lack of depth and continuity that comes from daily newspaper reporting. It’s poorer for the online presence that the KDN had. And while a new online company just launched this week, its stories are only a few paragraphs and its staffing is small.
One other point. For those who live in B.C., Glacier Media and Black Press just ‘bought’ (or swapped) many of their newspapers in competing communities on the West Coast and Vancouver Island. That means in many communities, the same company now owns both newspapers, instead of there being competing newspapers. From a strict business model, that won’t make sense to keep two entities going in one community. I expect there will be a lot more layoffs and closures soon to come (I went through a similar experience 20 years ago in Brandon, Man.)
It isn’t just about Kamloops and it isn’t just the loss of newspapers. And once they’re gone, they don’t come back.