Six months after a daily newspaper died

 

EDITOR’S NOTE: Today marks the six-month anniversary of the shutdown of the Kamloops Daily News. Former KDN reporter Mike Youds reflects on void left by the closure.

By MIKE YOUDS

At the corner of Seymour and Fourth, a couple of crows hop around what was, for 20 years, the home of the city’s daily newspaper. A string of people, some grinning with their stomachs now full, picks up from the evening shade and the Salvation Army canteen truck and moves on.

Save for one corner leased to H&R Block, the building is dormant, home only to a giant indoor flea market, seven days a week until July 27.

Just six months ago you could push through the double glass doors, walk up to the receptionist and do business with a vibrant newspaper that had grown to be a community institution. Behind the front desk, newsroom, sales and production divisions busily went about their tasks, working to relentless daily deadlines. Even in 2014 —as newspapers everywhere cope with seismic shifts in behaviour —they thought their jobs were secure, at least for a few more years.

The pulse of the city always seemed so close at hand, and then, one cold January day, it was gone. Still seems strange, though we’ve moved on in some respects. The older you are, the more firmly rooted your routine becomes, so it’s senior readers —and they were legion —who seem to have felt the loss more acutely. Coun. Tina Lange says her mother, in her 80s, faced the void.

“She was just devastated when it was stopped,” Lange said. “It just ruined her life. She thinks it’s a real loss for her and her routine and how she gets her news.”

Nonetheless, Lange, who once worked at The Daily News, realizes that changing trends mean a daily newspaper won’t be coming back, not in the traditional sense at least. To help fill the gap, her news habits have shifted from reading only the daily to tuning to Radio NL, picking up the thrice-weekly Kamloops This Week and visiting The Armchair Mayor News. Yet there’s a more profound change, she senses.

“It seems to me the community just hasn’t seemed to be as consistently in the news as it was when we had The Daily News. Again, that’s partly based on perception. When the Kamloops Daily News had something in the paper, when it was an editorial, a column or a special feature, it seemed to be people talked about it more.”

Coun. Arjun Singh, an avid consumer of news online and on paper, wasn’t sitting still after The Daily News closed. He put out feelers to the community, arranging a gathering of concerned former readers in the hope of finding an answer to the loss. He was looking for that pulse.

“Obviously there is some concern and interest out there in the community,” he said, adding that he didn’t want to tread on media-sector turf. A number of likeminded people joined the meeting, but nothing came of it.

“It’s important for people to try to do something,”he added. “You can’t expect to be a champion of everything.”

While he felt the loss of the daily, he also feels that corporate interests and community interests are not always the same, that an “exclamatory”news style can subjugate fair and balanced journalism, and that citizens need to become more engaged, not less engaged, with their local media.

“Essentially, (news) media are no longer the only source,” he said, signalling hope in a more broadly informed public through open-access sites such as Wikipedia. There may be superficiality, yet there’s also a great deal of depth attainable on the web, he noted.

“I’ve replaced the Kamloops Daily News. I guess the Armchair Mayor News has sort of become the new manifestation of the same people and same leadership, but it still doesn’t have the same presence as a paper in the box or at the coffee shop. The A.M. News still has much less gravitas than I think the Kamloops Daily had for the whole community.”

How do you rebuild that, he wonders. The question has yet to be answered.

Then there’s that other nagging question, the one on the corner that’s costing taxpayers $4.8 million plus interest: Parkade or performing arts centre? Given its core location in a downtown that cries out for injections of life, I hope for the latter. An arts centre should be central, connected to life, visible and accessible to all, not just to those with vehicles. A little like KDN, come to think of it.

“I believe there will be something there,” Lange said, recalling marble floors in the old place. “I don’t think we’ll have to tear it down. To me, who grew up in Kamloops, it’s a connection. It’s a real solid building.”

Walking past, I get a flashback to those scenes in old sci-fi flicks, where discarded newspapers blow in the wind through deserted streets in some not-so-distant dystopian future.

No, just kidding. This is not that future, but it is a brave new world.

Online at www.kamloopsdailynews.ca, brief parting words remain posted, thanking all after an 83-year run. You can still search for articles on just about every subject under the Kamloops sun. I type in my name to bring up some articles for a CV presentation, wait three seconds and get 1,758 stories. Amazing.

Mike Youds is an A.M. News contributor.

Where are they now?

Some former Kamloops Daily News staffers and what they’re up to now (former jobs at KDN in brackets).

Tim Shoults (publisher): Vice-president, content and audience development at Glacier Media Inc.

Murray Mitchell (photographer) : Realtor, Re/Max Real Estate (Kamloops).

Jason Hewlett (news reporter): Job developer, Open Door Group.

Dan Spark (associate editor): Completing plumber’s training at TRU and co-writing, with his wife Jody, The Rural Life for A.M. News.

Mark Hunter (sports writer): Also completing plumber’s training at TRU among other activities.

Gregg Drinnan (sports editor): Blogging up a storm at gdrinnanblogspot.ca while supporting his wife’s recovery from a transplant.

Michele Young (news reporter): Contributing to the A.M. News and doing the odd contract while looking for work.

Mark Rogers (web editor): Picking up some work at TRU while contributing to the A.M. News.

Mike Youds (news reporter): Content curator for The Angler’s Atlas, a B.C.-based recreational fishing website, while contributing to the A.M. News and constantly gardening.

Hugo Yuen (photographer): Working for the Calgary Sun, shooting subjects such as the Calgary Stampede and Mayor Naheed Nenshi’s reflection on the great flood of ’13.

Sylvia Paillard (news reporter): Travelling in Nicaragua.

Jenn Rensch (finance): Works as an office assistant at Kamloops Arts Council and, as of today (Friday) contributes to A.M. News.

Jody White Lawrence (promotions): Works for Downtown Echo.

Dana Bach (special sections editor): Marketing and communications officer, TRU Research.

Mike Coulter (ad design): Doing design work at TRU.

Deb Freeze (sales): Works for Westkey Graphics Printing (Kamloops).

Rob Covaceuszach (sales): Works for Kamloops This Week.

Claudine Sleik (sales): Completing training as a nursing-unit clerk.

Shelly Hallock: Administrative services assistant with Interior Health Authority.

Brenda Maidment: Completing training as a pharmacy clerk.