ROTHENBURGER: It’s hard to imagine Kamloops without a print newspaper
An editorial by Mel Rothenburger.
A TOWN WITHOUT A NEWSPAPER is a sad thing to see. We’ll get a first-hand view of it after Kamloops This Week publishes its last edition next Wednesday.
Yesterday’s announcement of the closure was a shock but not a surprise. Print newspapers have been falling like autumn leaves the past couple of decades and will soon be a thing of the past. Everything’s going online.
KTW was, at times, a good newspaper. Other times, not so much. But since The Daily News closed its doors in 2014, it’s been our only paper. When the Daily News closed, KTW announced “a new era of journalism” and expanded to three days a week. But it later retracted to two days, then back to one. And now, none.
I’m saddened less by the loss of a business called Kamloops This Week than I am about the loss of journalists and journalism in our community.
Mel Rothenburger is a regular contributor to CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a recipient of the Jack Webster Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. He has served as mayor of Kamloops, school board chair and TNRD director, and is a retired daily newspaper editor. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.
ArmchairMayor.ca 
I remember growing up when we had the Sentinel and the Kamloops News which together published 11 papers per week and the citizenry was well informed for the betterment. I find this news very disappointing but wondering if there might be an appetite for a co-op of employees and investors similar to that CHEK-DT in Victoria did almost 15 years ago.
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Couldn’t agree more, Mel. The KTW wasn’t wonderful connective tissue on every weekly publication, but like every small town newspaper it was the epoxy that glued us together. Without it I’m not sure what I’ll be filling my time with on Thursdays. And on an even more banal comment that just entered my head, what now will I use to wrap my moisturized organics in before the bin hits the street for pickup? What a sad legacy is left us as the only weekly glue that connects us is the absolutely necessary collection of our also rejected wastes.
I remember, as a child, looking forward to the seasonal but regular delivery of ice for our ice boxes. I felt their loss too as we were left with nothing to suck on in the summer heat. Now we are left with increasingly heated summers for our descendants to struggle with. Shame on us for the many losses we have allowed. Sorry for the nostalgia, but that’s the way I feel at present.
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I read it is not only the print version gone it is the whole of KTW gone.
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