Why weeklies matter…

Despite the belief held by many that what’s printed in weekly community papers is only of “local” importance and easily dismissed, people often forget that proximity has the potential to impact us the most. Local municipal affairs may sound boring and not terribly “sexy”, but they’re often the essential building blocks of a community; the decisions that profoundly affect us in our daily lives.

It’s why the most passionate, most verbose, most damning, most disputed and contentious letters we receive always have to do with local issues.  Once something takes place in people’s own backyards it becomes THEIR issue. Objectivity often goes out the window in the process and we will be perceived as never quite covering the subject matter fairly enough or adequately enough. We will always be found lacking. And that goes both for local residents, as it does for local administrations.

Despite that, weeklies continue to remain indispensable sources of easily-accessible credible information and it’s why they are so well read. While daily papers around the world have been experiencing declining readership, what’s perhaps surprising to those not in our industry is that interest in local news has, in fact, increased. According to a recent Léger Marketing poll, 80% of Quebecers believe that local newspapers play a vital role in a democratic society, and close to 80% believe that the loss of their local paper would have a negative impact on their community. Every week, approximately 64% of Quebecers read a local weekly. That’s a pretty solid number.

Local papers are the first place readers go to for information on community events, taxes, local government, arts and culture, social services, zoning and development. Whereas national and daily newspapers can focus on the bigger picture, local papers often analyze the –often, cumbersome- details of what local government is doing and the impact their policies have on the ground. They also act as a voice for their readers, first and foremost by publishing their letters, and secondly by mirroring and focusing on their concerns.

It’s not enough to simply reproduce the press releases of local authorities unchecked and unchallenged, which often, due to time and space constraints, I’m loathe to admit I’ve seen happen. It’s our job to make sure that we allow room for deliberation and debate. It’s why an Opinion page is available in all our papers and why as much editorial space as possible is allocated to the publication of readers’ letters. Those we are unable to publish due to lack of space will always make their way on our websites. Comments are monitored, but are highly encouraged.

Without a local paper, the “official” version of events would soon be the only version, and that would never be in a democracy’s best interest.

We live in world of such proliferation of news – online, TV, blogs, daily and national print, Twitter, etc. that we often forget that all news is local news until media makes it global. News is more or less exclusively local until another media outlet decides to make local news global by raising the dialogue to a national, regional or global level. But it all starts here…

Do newspapers have a future in Quebec?

On Wednesday, October 26, Serge Lemieux, the VP of Transcontinental Media’s Quebec and Ontario division will be speaking (in French) on whether or not newspapers have a future in Quebec. I’m pretty sure you already know my answer. The speech takes place at 12:30 a.m. at Hotel Espresso downtown (1005, rue Guy). If interested in attending, call 514-365-0487 or email info@ccisom.ca