Rothenburger — May City’s newsletter last more than one edition

COLUMN — Somewhere, in one of my many boxes of useless memorabilia in the basement, is a copy of a City of Kamloops newsletter from the mid-1970s. It’s a few pages of odds and ends about what was going on in the city and what council was doing with people’s money.

It became quite the news item for a while, but not in the way then-Mayor Al Thompson was hoping when he paid me $350 to put it together. The media coverage was all about how production of the newsletter hadn’t been put out to bids, whether it was politically motivated, and whether it was a waste of “taxpayers’ dollars.” Harrison probably lambasted it in an indignant editorial.

My recollection of why I was invited to put together the newsletter is that it was a sincere attempt to reach out to taxpayers and keep them better informed. The fee certainly came in handy, as journalists — especially ex-journalists — aren’t the highest paid people on the block. Being on one of my temporary retirements from the newspaper business, I was working at what was then called Cariboo College, wrangling loans for needy students and teaching classes in the journalism program (it was called Communications Media then).

The newsletter was killed after one edition due to all the negative publicity. Interesting then, that 40 years later, former Kamloops Daily News reporter Michele Young has been hired for $3,000 to write a newsletter for City Hall to keep taxpayers better informed. She was hired without it being put out to bids.

Nobody seems bent out of shape about it, so obviously attitudes have changed since the ‘70s. Looking at the first edition of what they’re calling the Kamloops Insider, it’s pretty standard newsletter stuff. The most interesting article is a mea culpa about the City’s self-admitted “blunder” on talks with TRU over Stuart Wood school.

Certainly, putting out a newsletter is worth a try even it if isn’t exactly groundbreaking. Not only did the City try it 40 years ago, but the Thompson-Nicola Regional District has been putting out regular email newsletter blasts for quite some time.

The test for the Kamloops Insider will be content and whether it can effectively complement what the mainstream media are already doing. Anything that might expand awareness of and engagement with local government is worth a try.

I wish it well — may it last more than one edition.

• • •

This reminds me of my first real newspaper job. On Oct. 31, 1968, I signed a contract with the Prince George Progress to be its managing editor at the rate of $2.15 per hour for up to 44 hours per week.

In practice, it was considerably more than 44 hours per week — we just didn’t get paid after 44 hours. We worked nights and weekends, smoked three packs a day and went for steak dinners and beer pretty much every night after work. It seemed like a pretty good gig.

According to the contract, I was required to give at least seven days notice if I quit, and vice versa. “Conduct detrimental to the company” was not allowed. Judging by some of our after-hours conduct, “detrimental” was open to interpretation.

A rate of $2.15 an hour for being in charge of a newsroom, albeit a small one, was probably reasonable pay at that time. During the winter of 1966, when I was still a student, a top-up at the gas pumps was costing me around $4. My apartment was $60 a month, I paid $4.12 for a textbook, $10.70 for phone, saw a movie for $1.50, paid 78 cents for a new typewriter ribbon, bought shoes for $4.69 and went out for dinner for $2.

Mind you, that was in American money.

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