Comments about Daily News were off base
SATURDAY MORNING EDITORIAL — Sometimes (and this will shock you) journalists talk just to sound as if they know what they’re talking about.
That might be what happened to TRU journalism professor Charles Hays on Friday.
Hays was interviewed on CBC Daybreak Kamloops about a newspaper distributor’s plan to deliver The Vancouver Sun and The Province to Kamloops doorsteps.
When asked about the loss of the Kamloops Daily News, he attributed part of the reason for the shutdown to its lack of focus on online news coverage, in contrast to what he indicated was a fine job done by Kamloops This Week.
Hays also significantly misstated the paid circulation of the daily and said, “I don’t think too many of them (readers) were missing it even when it was in print.”
It’s an odd thing to say about a paper that provided his journalism school with at least a couple of instructors, gave quite a few of his students their start in the business and awarded an annual bursary to a deserving TRU journalism student.
It’s also quite unkind — though perhaps unintentionally — to those who worked so hard to make the KDN a success for so many years, and to a good corporate citizen that supported hundreds of local causes.
Besides his print circulation numbers being wrong, he’s off base about the website. The Kamloops Daily News site had by far the most robust following of any online news outlet in town. That’s because it assigned staff specifically to the website.
Social media editor Mark Rogers’ job was to keep news flowing onto the site from reporters throughout the day, shoot and edit video and often do independent coverage on his own, plus look after a vibrant exchange of opinion among readers.
No other news outlet did that, and no other news outlet is doing it now. So when Hays says, as he did Friday morning, that “Part of the problem (with The Daily News) was they saved as much as they could for the daily paper product,” that doesn’t reflect the way things were.
There was always room to improve, of course, but The Daily News easily led the pack online. It’s also true that the KDN produced significantly more local news copy than any other Kamloops news medium, either in print or online.
Industry analysts have speculated on lots of reasons The Daily News failed, but Hays missed pretty much all of them.
The attention to community is why the paper is missed. Whether it was The Kamloops Daily News or another daily newspaper serving this community, the fact that our city doesn’t have a dedicated written daily news outlet is a void and not one that is easily going to be filled, “new era of journalism” or not.
Surely those who teach our future journalists should be able to recognize that.
— Mel Rothenburger
ArmchairMayor.ca 
I miss the KDN and the community of commenters that the online paper generated. Comments by the ” professor ” are just indicative of what happens to your brain when you’ve never been required to function outside of school in the real world.
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Yes the Kamloops Daily News is missed. But nature abhors a vacuum. Something will fill the void. The Armchair Mayor news may be the fertile ground on which to grow something. No physical paper costs, no office overhead. There are possibilities.
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This family is missing the KDN incredibly! The KTW does a great job of local events however it doesn’t cover international news so unless you want to bury your head in the sand you only have TV News ,or the other (quite expensive) papers (Prov., Sun, G & M, etc.). and there’s nothing like a great cup of coffee and the KDN each morning. Amen!
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Please! The Kamloops Daily News was a very sad joke in regards to covering “international news”. In fact, it can be easily argued that reading the “international news” on the Kamloops Daily News was akin to have the head buried in the sand! The internet is a fabulous source of information, opinions and points and counter-points.
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I think the Kamloops Daily News did a big dis-service to this city.
When I look back at the many articles and editorials that basically trumpeted the BC Liberals agenda or at least never really questioned it, I say Mel you are wrong.
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Perhaps those teaching journalism should get out of their ivory towers long enough to see exactly how the local media works once in a while. I’m sure they’d be welcome to write a few news items and keep their skills up to date. It would also help with them being better informed, especially since outlets like the KDN took in several of their students as interns and had to teach them a lot on the job. I heard this intereview, too, and wondered what Hayes was talking about, given the KDN had a much more comprehensive and vibrant web site than any other news media in town. And his circulation stats were wrong. Accuracy is vital in journalism and Hayes missed the boat on many levels.
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