Extra, Extra, Save The Whitehorse Star!

With the Total Eclipse on Monday and so many of us casting our eyes to the heavens, we should look, as well, to the north to another star, The Whitehorse Star in the Yukon. This quality daily newspaper could soon be eclipsed permanently. After 124 years in operation, it has announced it will soon be closing its doors.

But there is a reason for optimism, a ray of hope!

Jim Butler, the long-time editor of the Star said in an interview on CBC radio on Tuesday that a coalition of concerned citizens, prospective investors, and journalistic idealists, are working on a proposal to save the newspaper. Butler says: “I’m hopeful. I am an idealist but also a realist.”
 
The realism is something that the diminishing group of editors of small newspapers across Canada are expressing right now. As Butler notes the biggest problem for these papers is, in simplest terms, “social media.” Many papers have long since died.

Largely U.S. owned social media outlets are vacuuming up advertising revenue, leading to the near demise of great newspapers like The Whitehorse Star. Butler says these papers now cannot even afford newspaper carriers. These are the flesh and blood of paper routes that once gave our young people a little cash to get by on. Without the paper carriers, newspapers are delivered in bulk to central locations like grocery stores and languish there. By the time people get into the bigger stores to do their shopping, the news is no longer fresh and worth reading.
 
Across the country there is precious little good basic journalism going on with reporters covering the local town council, the hospital board, the school system, or even the local energy utilities, to tell citizens what is really going on in the community. Far too many people are getting their “news” from the gossipy, one-sided information of social media and, especially, Meta’s Facebook.

This is not just a phenomenon of faraway Yukon; it is being seen right here in New Brunswick. The St. Croix Courier, the paper that this Blog writer once edited, has published continuously for close to 160 years, longer even than The Whitehorse Star. The Courier, once a hard-hitting investigative paper, limps along now, a thin shadow of its former self.

But let’s get back to our primary focus in this column.

The Whitehorse Star is everything a newspaper should be. It is hard-digging, independent-minded and locally owned. The Star’s motto reflects the rough and romantic image that most Canadians have of the Yukon. The Star's motto is: "Illegitimus non Carborundum", a mock Latin classic, meaning more or less "Don’t let the bastards grind you down".
 
We think of the Klondike Gold Rush, with all its intrigue over desperate mineral claims, or, the unique narrow gauge White Pass and Yukon railroad from Skagway Alaska through and over the mountains to the Yukon, or the mighty Yukon River plied by young adventurers as they sought to paddle 1,000 miles on the river, stopping along the way to camp and pan for gold with high hopes.

This is romantic lore, yes, but when will Canada’s politicians wake up to the fact that the Free Press in our country is strangled and very close to dead.

The latest news about Canadian journalism has been terrible:
Saltwire, the owner of 23 Atlantic Canada newspapers is $94 million in debt and has filed for creditor protection. The crows are now massing over the wreckage to find serviceable bits of the Saltwire empire.

Bell Canada recently eliminated 4,800 jobs, selling off forty-five regional radio stations. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed his anger, but not much more. The federal government also backed away from tough action to control the American tech giants sucking up the revenues of Canadian news media. Instead of placing a hefty tax on Canadian news being used south of the border, the government settled on a dull squib, a onetime cash payment by some of the social media giants. This was a totally inadequate response.

National Conservative Leader, Pierre Poilievre, has repeatedly made the statement, to the applause of some, including New Brunswick’s Premier Blaine Higgs, that he would “defund” the CBC, one of the country’s few great remaining English language journalism institutions. This is an incredibly irresponsible statement by a would-be Canadian Prime Minister. It is compounded by the fact that, in a failing effort to pick up more support in Quebec, Poilievre, did not threaten to cut the budget of the French language broadcaster, Radio-Canada.
 
Several newspapers in the country including the Toronto Globe and Mail, and The Telegraph-Journal in New Brunswick, both considered the flagship newspaper in their respective territory, Canada, and New Brunswick, practice the new form of journalism that we can call “More news per dollar.” It works like this, read an enticing sentence about a piece of news, and then there is a pop-up saying if you want to read more, there is a bargain for you, just pay $1.99 more.

This is not what quality journalism is, or should be, about.

Canadians most interested in Canadian news and commentary naturally look to the federal government for solutions. Afterall, it was the federal government that initiated three national commissions on the state of the Canadian media. There were limited positive results from those, but one of the most important actions by the federal government through its Canadian Radio and Television Commission (The CRTC), was to oblige the Irvings to sell their CHSJ radio and television stations in Saint John, thus clearing the way for a provincial CBC station in Fredericton, and three CBC radio stations in Fredericton, Saint John, and Moncton.  This did the most ever good for journalism in New Brunswick, which has borne the burden of the provinces successive Irving and Post Media newspaper monopolies.
 
Also in New Brunswick, the French language daily L’Acadie Nouvelle, sensibly backed by the federal government with a hands-off trust fund since the 1960’s continues to offer an impressive brand of journalism.

The N.B. Media Coop, largely with volunteer writers and editors, works valiantly to provide alternative coverage in the province. While not offering mainstream news reporting, the Co-op provides a vital independent voice.
 
There are other signs of hope as well. Two of the world’s great newspapers, the Guardian in Great Britain, and The New York Times are thriving with a mix of digital and print methods, and excellent reporting and commentary.

All over North America a mosaic of small media, blogs and podcasts have been springing up like mushrooms on a spring lawn.

Another bright spot has been the small but mighty, Halifax Examiner, an investigative newspaper under editor Tim Bousquet, which has been the main news outlet covering the threat to the Saltwire newspapers.
 
It is difficult to talk about the Canadian free press these days, without sounding like a complainer with no solutions. We all could follow the motto of

The Whitehorse Star that has blasted out its motto for all to hear: 
“Don’t let the bastards grind you down.”