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ARMCHAIR MAYOR

ROTHENBURGER: The pandemic will either kill newspapers or save them

Apr 4, 2020 | 6:50 AM

THE LAST NAIL IN THE COFFIN of the community newspaper industry has a name — COVID-19. Or, the virus might prove to be its salvation. It could go either way.

Several B.C. newspapers have put their survival in the hands of readers. On Wednesday, Kamloops This Week sent out a call for public donations. The previous Friday, the Sun Peaks Independent News did the same. According to both, the response has been encouraging.

The objective is to save their print editions, that old-fashioned style of newspapers that land on your doorstep or group mail box instead of your email in-basket. They’re swimming against a tide of shutdowns that’s accelerated along with the spread of the coronavirus.

Online editions and websites were once viewed as an add-on to publishing on newsprint; now, for many papers, they’re a last-gasp option for trying to remain viable. Unfortunately, they’ve never proven to be reliable money-makers.

The Merritt Herald, which has published print editions since 1905, goes online-only as of April 9. The Oliver Chronicle and Osoyoos Times both suspended their print versions on Thursday. So did the 112-year-old Vancouver Courier, saying it had ceased printing the paper “for the time being.”

I fear that, for some, it will be more than for the time being.

A stubborn clutch of weekly/ community newspapers soldiers on with print, asking readers to save them. The Squamish Chief, North Shore News, Burnaby Now and even the once-proud once-daily Prince George Citizen have all posted pleas for donations.

All of those papers are either owned by the Glacier Media Group — which shuttered the Kamloops Daily News a few years ago — or by its corporate partner Aberdeen Publishing.

Tim Shoults is operations manager for Aberdeen Publishing, which owns Kamloops This Week. I have immense respect for Tim, who thrives on adversity and is getting a bucket full of it right now.

He’s candid about this being a survival issue. Though he declined to reveal details, he told me the response to the donations plea has been “heartening.”

The irony in asking readers to start paying for news is not lost on Shoults. “Free” newspapers, a business model that eschews paid circulation in favour of mass distribution and relies entirely on advertising revenue, are a comparatively new phenomenon in the history of the industry but until now a successful one. For the past two or three decades, the freebies have been eating the traditional dailies’ lunch in smaller markets.

But it’s a model that doesn’t work in these troubled times. As businesses have shut their doors, they no longer have anything to advertise — a fatal situation for free-distribution papers already struggling against online competition.

Asking for donations is a tentative return to the paid circulation model.

“We’ve trained our readers for decades that you pay for your news with attention, not your wallet,” said Shoults. “If something like COVID-19 causes local media outlets to take a step like this and people recognize the need, maybe it will work out.”

He said KTW was already looking at a reader-donation program, planning to test it out by soliciting donations to send sports reporter Marty Hastings to the Japan Olympics. COVID-19 killed that idea but gave birth to the current call-out.

The notice published in KTW says “100 per cent” of donations will go towards local journalism. Shoults backs up that statement by saying the purpose is to avoid newsroom layoffs.

Brandi Schier, publisher of the unaffiliated Sun Peaks Independent News, takes a similar view on the survival of printed newspapers. SPIN runs with a tiny staff — Schier, editor Jean Strong and a part-time graphic designer. She hopes to save all their jobs.

Like KTW, SPIN was already looking at revamping its financial model before COVID-19 struck. “We had been looking at ways to become more sustainable,” she said. “The trend in independent newspapers is to rely more on readers.”

Readers may be ready to start paying for news again. The COVID-19 scare has us all tethered to whatever source of news we can find for status updates. Mainstream media are more important than ever.

Within a few days after Schier began urging readers to purchase “an annual membership,” more than $10,000 of a $50,000 target had been pledged.

Schier expects there will be at least a small print run for the next SPIN edition but admits her paper might have to join others that are taking a “temporary hiatus” from publishing on newsprint. Her notice to readers talks about “building a new, digital, reader-based model that serves our community better.”

Newspaper people have a habit of talking about each new challenge or industry shakeup as an opportunity. After the KDN closed, leaving Kamloops This week with a monopoly, the bi-weekly ran a spectacularly tone-deaf front-page headline, “Welcome to a new era of journalism in Kamloops.”

With the paper having now reduced its publishing schedule, twice, and asking for help from the public to keep it off the ropes, Shoults has avoided the usual bafflegab and is straight-out asking for help from those who can afford it.

In effect, the reader-donation plan would move newspapers not just towards a return to paid circulation but towards becoming charities. The federal government, as part of its program to financially support the media, has left the door open to it.

But what’s needed is not for newspapers to become full-fledged charities but to remain businesses and be able to issue tax receipts for donations, which they can’t do right now. There are already structural models out there that don’t rely entirely on the usual advertising revenue. There are co-ops, for example, and a complicated but intriguing model called the Community Contribution Company, or C3. It allows the public to become shareholders and to receive dividends within strict limits. I’ve always thought it could work for newspapers but I’m not aware of any in Canada.

Though I’m not onboard with tax dollars being used to bail out the media, if voluntary donations can help keep them going, I’m all for it. If the millionaire owners of media chains would take at least a symbolic pay cut, it might encourage the public support they’re asking for.

I’ve never been a big fan of Kamloops This Week but it and other papers like SPIN play a vital role in community life and in our democracy. I’ve been pessimistic about the future of print journalism for a long time but I fervently hope they survive, and that those that have suspended publication can come back.

Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops and newspaper editor. He writes five commentaries a week for CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group.

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