Everyone loses when there are fewer journalists
“Time is always an issue, especially in daily print media.”
Barb Sweet journalist
Here’s a game you can play at home.
It’s not particularly fun, but it’s certainly illustrative.
Type the phrase “Justin Trudeau may be in for an earful” into your Google search.
What you will see in the results is that phrase as part of a longer headline from Sept. 9 — “Justin Trudeau may be in for an earful as he meets with caucus in B. C.” — from an article by Laura Osman of The Canadian Press.
The article was picked up by media outlets large and small, from CTV News and the Toronto Star to the Delta Optimist and the Jasper Fitzhugh.
TOO FEW JOURNALISTS
I have no complaints about the story, which was a setup piece for the prime minister’s caucus retreat in Nanaimo last week. The Canadian Press does a good job of covering important stories and making them available to the media outlets that subscribe to their news feed.
What I do have trouble with is how few other news organizations had the resources to cover that story themselves.
Just Google “Trudeau” and “Nanaimo” and that same “in for an earful” headline will appear over and over in your results.
It is evidence of the media monopolies that exist in this country — monopolies that are built when small, local news outlets are shut down or downsized and news coverage becomes aggregated by a few large players.
NOT A CRITICISM OF ACQUISITION
Let’s be clear — this column is not a criticism of Postmedia’s recent acquisition of SaltWire Network.
I am grateful that Postmedia recognized that Atlantic Canadian news gathering was something worth preserving, albeit on a slimmed- down scale.
I am thankful that many of the local reporters who once worked for SaltWire are still telling unique stories from the places where they — and we — live.
I just wish there were more of them instead of fewer, right across the country, as news organizations battle the fierce headwinds of aging populations, competition from social media and shrinking advertising revenues.
IMPORTANT STORIES
Now let’s play another game.
Type “Mount Cashel orphanage” and “Barb Sweet” into your Google search. What you’ll get is a selection of stories dating back years about the ongoing fallout from the Catholic church sexual abuse scandal, written by former Telegram reporter Barb Sweet, who left the paper in 2022 for an opportunity at the Cape Breton Post.
Sweet is originally from Nova Scotia and was among the local journalists who were casualties of the SaltWire Network fire sale.
She pursued the Mount Cashel story with a relentless determination that benefited Telegram and SaltWire readers, and the sexual abuse survivors themselves, as it kept their stories alive and kept the continuing anguish of what had happened to them as innocent children alive in the local and national consciousness.
BUILDING TRUST
She won a national newspaper award for her work, and discussed the arduous task of trying to track down Mount Cashel survivors in an interview with the University of Regina School of Journalism’s JWire in 2015.
“Time is always an issue, especially in daily print media,” Sweet said. “I think I was working on two other things at the same time.
Tracking down people. This one guy I never did find. He was supposedly pushing a cart, collecting recyclables. I went to his boarding house a bunch of times, drove around looking for him. I never was able to find him. … Because I didn’t grow up here, I didn’t have the first- hand knowledge of ( the scandal). You’re tracing back through old stuff and digging out old print copies and files.”
Sweet’s legwork led to her gaining the trust of several former “Mount Cashel boys” and she stayed with their story as long as she was with the Telegram.
That’s the kind of bootson- the- ground journalism you get from good local reporters, and the kind that is diminished whenever local media jobs are lost to the chopping block.
Reporters who live in our communities are the ones who take the time to tell the stories that matter and that inform our knowledge of ourselves.
THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS AFTER THE FACT
A few weeks ago, I wrote a column asking why we were hearing nothing but crickets from Atlantic Canadian premiers about SaltWire’s impending demise.
Recently, Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Andrew Furey finally addressed the loss of the last newspaper press in the province ( which wasn’t part of the deal when the Telegram changed hands) and made a fleeting reference to lost jobs.
To my mind, thoughts and prayers after the fact never do much good.
Those jobs had immense value and they deserve acknowledgement. We will surely feel their loss in the days to come.