COMMUNITY
The People’s Press
Across the country, independent local newspapers are holding up a mirror to their communities.
By Melanie Morassutti | Illustrations by LeeAndra Cianci
IF YOU FIND YOURSELF visiting a small town in Canada this summer, the quickest way to read its pulse is by parting the pages of the local paper. It’s where you’ll get the scoop on what animates public life there — council news, arena repair updates, an exclusive on the urn found at a local thrift shop, the ashes still inside. Then there’s birth and death notices, classifieds and, of course, the advertising that holds a paper together, paying its staff and flagging spots to get breakfast, buy drywall or see a play.
That is, if that town is lucky enough to have a newspaper. According to a report released earlier this year by the Public Policy Forum think tank, local news providers in more than 340 Canadian communities have folded since 2008. The impact runs deeper than just leaving tourists wondering where to get bacon and eggs. The hazards of losing the “shared commons” of a local newspaper, written about a place by the people who live there, include voter atrophy, less volunteerism and an increase in polarization.
But in many regions across the country, local newspapers continue to beat the odds, publishing independent, locally owned papers that are critical in keeping their communities healthy and informed.
“Local papers still play a vital role”
For Craig Westcott, finding readers is the least of his problems. Westcott is the editor and publisher of The Shoreline, a group of regional papers that covers Newfoundland and Labrador’s Avalon Peninsula. No matter how many copies of The Shoreline News weekly he prints and piles on store shelves, “they’re gone by the end of the day,” he reports. That’s because readers know that if they pick up The Shoreline, says Westcott, “they’re going to see something they won’t see or hear on TV.” With a staff of just four, his newsroom covers 10 town councils regularly and another 10 to 15 as time permits. “No one else is doing that.”
What Westcott really needs is an on-island printing press. The last web press in Newfoundland was dismantled in 2024, when SaltWire, the East Coast’s largest news media network, was purchased by Postmedia; the printing press wasn’t part of the deal. Now, Westcott’s weekly edition gets inked in Montreal and arrives by ship in the port of St. John’s every Tuesday morning, which has led to a sharp increase in production costs. But Westcott offers up a novel take. “People look at the newspaper industry as a failing industry, not as effective as online. But [that’s] really not true. Local papers still play a vital role. If we [could afford the cost of printing], we could easily distribute double our circulation. There’s that much demand for it.”
“People are happy to preserve journalism”
In Toronto, large corporate dailies like The Star have long provided broad coverage of municipal news and issues. But over the years, as ad spending dried up and editorial budgets contracted, local and grassroots reporting have declined. That was the inspiration for launching the West End Phoenix (WEP), the non-profit print-only paper I edit that services the west end of Toronto, from Spadina Avenue to the Humber River.
The idea took root eight years ago, when publisher Dave Bidini was writing a book about spending a summer in the Northwest Territories as a stringer in the newsroom of the Yellowknifer. He returned home to Toronto convinced that his own neighbourhood deserved to be covered with the same lively journalistic principles as the small Canadian northern capital. In addition to the staples — local news briefs, shopkeeper profiles, free classified ads — WEP runs political coverage, investigative stories and exclusives alongside full-colour comics penned by local musicians, plus short fiction, poetry and imagery commissioned by photo editor Jalani Morgan.
Local support takes various forms. In addition to print subscribers and patrons who make donations to the not-for-profit paper, more than 100 west enders have volunteered to take delivery routes. Others attend WEP events, from rock shows in parking lots to meet-the-candidate nights to large-scale fundraisers that draw attention to the plight of small newsrooms. We see those events as a key part of what we’re trying to do as a community organization — build trust among neighbours to fortify us against whatever comes our way. “In the end,” says Bidini, “people [are] more than happy to support and preserve journalism and the printed word.”
“Survival of the most stubborn”
After a series of shuffles and closures in corporate-owned papers, NewsNow is the last weekly standing in the segment of Niagara it serves, which publisher Mike Williscraft views as “survival of the most stubborn.” Every week, 29,000 copies of the paper get distributed via Canada Post to residents of Grimsby, Lincoln, West Lincoln and Winona — even though the paper is free, more than 2,000 readers pay for it voluntarily by donation. “That’s how much the community wants the paper to survive,” says Williscraft.
It also helps that Williscraft himself is a well-known entity in Grimsby. He’s served as president of both the provincial and national community-newspaper associations and has been a member of several local chambers of commerce and business improvement associations. NewsNow also raised funds for a local hospital and helped save a local chapter of Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Canada through a “Hockey Night in Grimsby” event that Williscraft pulled together in 2012. (They got hockey icon Johnny Bower to come out, at age 88, and packed the place.)
And NewsNow has a reputation for covering stories the corporate papers wouldn’t. Williscraft says his was the only paper in 2019 with the scoop on and extended coverage of how the town of Grimsby invested in a failed waste-management biodigester and lost $20 million on it. As for delivering the daily news, “I’ve been the psychological couch for everybody in town for 30 years,” he says. “We have a little loveseat in the office and people come in and talk, and [that’s] how you know what’s going on. That’s how you need to run a small-town paper.” CAA
How to keep the presses rolling
GET A SUBSCRIPTION
When you put your money down, you’re not just supporting local journalism, says West End Phoenix publisher Dave Bidini. “You’re also becoming part of a greater community.”
BUY AN AD
“We reach many more people with the print paper than [advertisers will] ever get online,” notes Craig Westcott of The Shoreline. “Online, a lot of stuff gets overlooked. But you won’t get missed in our paper.”
SPREAD THE WORD
“Our marketing initiative mostly includes pink lawn signs, which spread around the community,” says Bidini. “Stake a sign and seed a newspaper.”
SOUND OFF
“It’s not unusual for me to get 35 or 40 letters to the editor in a week,” says NewsNow publisher Mike Williscraft. Reader feedback “keeps us on the right path.”