Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - April 29, 2020, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A4 A 4 WEDNESDAY, APRIL 29, 2020 ? WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COMNEWS I MANITOBA / CANADA M Y first byline appeared in the Selkirk Journal about 25 years ago, and I still remember that feeling of pride. It wasn't much of a story, but it was thrilling for a teenager who was heading off to journalism school. At the time, the Journal was a thriv- ing community institution. Its many readers scoured the pages every week to see what was happening at council meetings, who was in trouble with the law and who was celebrating a birth- day or an anniversary (this was well before social media). And there was advertising - lots of it. So when the Journal gave me my first job out of college, I was eager to succeed. I worked 50 hours a week. I was a reporter, a photographer, a headline writer, an editor and a de- signer. I made wages barely above the poverty line. I started work early in the morning and often worked late into the evening. I combed through arrest reports, covered every small-town fes- tival known to man, sat through hours- long rural Manitoba council meetings, attended countless community events and even shot a gun once for a story. And I loved it. That experience helped me hone my skills as a journalist, and gave me a real taste of what it takes to get a news- paper to press, from start to finish. Maybe that's why I ended up being an editor, because I loved the experience of putting together a newspaper so much. So when news broke Tuesday that Postmedia Network is permanently shuttering 15 community publica- tions in Manitoba and Ontario - in- cluding the Selkirk Journal - due to the financial fallout from the CO- VID-19 pandemic, my heart broke a little. It broke for all the young report- ers who rely on weeklies as a starting ground, a place to develop their jour- nalistic skills - and a place to make mistakes. It broke for the readers who still rely on their weekly papers to de- liver the community news no one else will. Who's going to cover the munici- pal council meeting to keep councillors on their toes? It broke for all the community events that will never get covered or cel- ebrated in print. Who's going to make a splash about a local festival? Who's go- ing to write a story about the 100-year- old resident's birthday? It broke for the up-and-coming journalists who may never get the ex- perience I had - the long but reward- ing days, the lasting friendships, the countless laughs and the feeling of true family. While we tend to forget about weekly newspapers as we hear more often about the financial struggles of larger media organizations - including the Winnipeg Free Press - the closure of these community institutions is a significant loss. It's a sad day for journalism. So today, I will cherish those memories of my time working at the Journal, as well as my stints at the Interlake Spectator, Stonewall Argus & Teulon Times and Portage la Prairie Graphic. I owe my career to those places. I'm so grateful for the times we had together. Stacey Thidrickson is an associate editor at the Win- nipeg Free Press. stacey.thidrickson@freepress.mb.ca POSTMEDIA Network Inc. is shut-tering its community newspapers in Selkirk, Winkler, Altona, Mor- den, Gimli, Stonewall/Teulon and Car- man, as well as the Prairie Farmer, part of a list of cuts announced Tuesday by the national media company. Each of the Manitoba publications will run their final issues next week. Postmedia also announced the closure of seven of its southern Ontario news- papers, employee salary reductions, and a total of 30 permanent layoffs. The company owns the Sun newspaper chain in Canada, including the Winni- peg Sun. "You ask anyone in these commun- ities, and they'll tell you they're going to miss holding the paper in their hands," said Red River Valley Echo editor Lori Penner, who was working on the last issue of the Altona-based newspaper, founded in 1941. "Between the four papers in our chain - Morden, Winkler, Altona and Carman - there's almost 200 years of history," she said. "I will miss this paper dearly, as I'm sure will thousands of our loyal readers." Blaming the economic freeze brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, Post- media chief executive officer Andrew MacLeod said in a memo every employ- ee making above $60,000 (aside from commissioned sales representatives) will see salaries reduced a minimum of five per cent, rising to 20 per cent for executive vice-presidents. MacLeod - who made a reported $820,000 in salary in 2019, plus more than $1 million in bo- nuses - took a 30 per cent cut. "Team, these decisions are the most difficult and are only taken after all other options have been explored," MacLeod wrote. "And the measures we are taking today are all focused on put- ting our company in the best possible position to emerge from the current crisis and move ahead on our strategy." April Lindgren, a journalism pro- fessor at Ryerson University who re- searches local news, said the closures were ominous in a crucial time for jour- nalism. "The obvious irony is that it comes at a time when people have never been so reliant on local news to find out what's happening in their communities," she said. Jana Pruden, a reporter for the Globe and Mail, got her start at the Inter- lake Spectator in Gimli from 1998 to 2000. On Tuesday, she said she was devastated and deeply concerned by the closures. "At a time when access to reliable and accountable information can literally be a matter of life and death, journal- ism matters more than ever," she wrote in an email. "This is true in smaller communities, and for our country and democracy, overall." Long before being purchased by Postmedia, which over time reduced staffing and funding, the soon-to-be- shuttered papers were community in- stitutions dating back decades. The Selkirk Journal was founded in 1985; the Carman Valley Leader began as the Dufferin Leader in 1898; the Morden Times was the product of a 1911 merger of the Morden Empire and Morden Chronicle; the Stonewall Argus & Teulon Times has roots going as far back as 1893. Terry Zurylo, a business owner in Stonewall who'd purchased ads in the local paper and read community pa- pers from the Interlake each week, said the closures will hurt - not just for advertisers but for community mem- bers to be seen and heard. "It's the go-to communication in a small town," he said Tuesday. At a Selkirk Tim Hortons, news of the Journal's closure came as a disappoint- ment to Rory Doak, Travis Spratt, and Austin Deboer, who'd each been fea- tured in the local sports section. "We get the paper weekly," said Spratt. "Other than that, you don't real- ly know what goes on (locally). You see and hear things, but you don't know for sure until it comes in the paper." Doak said print is more reliable than posts on social media. "You can't be- lieve everything on the internet," he said. "I feel like I can fact-check the in- ternet with the paper." In Altona, Dave Harms, a former pre- press foreman at Friesens Corp., which printed the Red River Valley Echo, didn't need to look far to see the impact the paper had on the community. Since the winter, he has been scanning every edition of the newspaper, from 1963 to 2007 - digitally preserving a history that wouldn't exist without the Echo having published it. "I go through a year every week," Harms said. When Postmedia took over the Echo, Harms said it was clear it wasn't from the community and didn't care much about anything other than profit. "(The papers) are a volume of histor- ical information that if nobody takes care of, will be lost," he said. Other publications, such as the in- dependent Stonewall-Teulon Tribune, Winkler-Morden Voice, Selkirk Rec- ord, and Express Weekly News, along with radio stations, will continue to serve their communities (the Wink- ler Times newspaper is among those that will close). But with Tuesday's announced closures, the local media landscape has become undoubtedly bleaker. "There's a thread running through the whole thing. It's like an encyclo- pedia of southern Manitoba," Harms said of the Echo. "It was an almanac." ben.waldman@freepress.mb.ca malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca STACEY THIDRICKSON Passion for journalism born, raised at weeklies Eight Postmedia titles to cease operations in province Layoffs, closures strike newspapers BEN WALDMAN AND MALAK ABAS RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS The Interlake Spectator, the Selkirk Journal, and the Stonewall Argus & Teulon Times are among eight Postmedia-owned community newspapers the company has announced it's closing. RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Terry Zurylo, owner of Keyboard Ventures in Stonewall, said the closure of the Stonewall Argus & Teulon Times will hurt the community. FORT MCMURRAY, Alta. - Joseph Enverga kept hoping the flooding would slow down or even stop as his apartment lights flickered on and off. The 35-year old was prepared for an evacuation of downtown Fort Mc- Murray, Alta., on Sunday afternoon. By dawn on Monday, he looked out his win- dow and saw the reflection of his build- ing in the parking lot that was covered in water. He decided it was time to go. "In my vehicle, I had my clothes ready, I had my documents ready," he says. "On top of that, I had my slack line ready, I had my bag of my favourite board games ready. "I was telling myself: this is going to be the best evacuation ever." On Tuesday, municipal and provin- cial officials were keeping a close eye on river levels after a 25-kilometre ice jam caused major flooding and forced nearly 13,000 people from their homes in the downtown. Colleen Walford, a river forecaster with Alberta Environment, said a mon- itoring flight just before noon Tuesday determined that the ice jam had short- ened by about one kilometre and was melting. "We have nice sunny conditions up in Fort McMurray today. We hope that continues tomorrow and it will con- tinue to deteriorate the ice jam." But officials with the Regional Mu- nicipality of Wood Buffalo said it re- mains a critical situation. "We are not in the home stretch yet," Scott Davis, director of emergency management, told reporters. Data shows the Clearwater River was still rising and the Athabasca River had only dropped by about four centimetres. Mayor Don Scott said it has caused the worst flooding in the region in re- cent memory. "This is a one-in-100-year flood," he said. "This is something that we haven't seen in this generation. "And it's actually happening during the COVID-19 pandemic, which is a dual combination of issues." Officials said evacuees are being put up in hotels and work camps where they can have their own space. More than 6,000 people have registered at two evacuation centres and the municipality said that number is expected to grow. Premier Jason Kenney and Environ- ment Minister Jason Nixon took a flight over the city Monday. "It really is ... devastating to see much of central Fort McMurray flooded just four years after the terrible fires of 2016," Kenney said Tuesday. - The Canadian Press Flooding forces 13,000 to evacuate downtown Fort McMurray GREG HALINDA / THE CANADIAN PRESS A vehicle drives through floodwater Monday in downtown Fort McMurray, Alta., where flooding has forced thousands to flee. A_04_Apr-29-20_FP_01.indd A4 2020-04-28 9:28 PM ;