EDITORIAL – Kamloops’ new newspaper is something worth supporting

An editorial by Mel Rothenburger.

THERE’S A NEW PAPER in town. It’s called the Kamloops Chronicle and it published its first edition last Friday.

The paper is the brainchild of Arjun Singh but has come about through a society of volunteers who miss the feel of newsprint in their hands.

It’s a humble start. Twenty thousand copies of the paper have been distributed at 50 coffee shops, restaurants and other businesses around town. It’s only 20 tabloid pages and doesn’t include much that wasn’t already covered by other media but it’s a start.

The publishers’ intentions are clear — they want the Chronicle to be a real newspaper of old. That is, a thing that covers a broad range of the interests that make a community. It has some political news, an opinion page, a bit of sports, entertainment, travel, events.

This is an excellent sign. While the first effort is decidedly modest, it provides a hint of what the troops at the Chronicle want their baby to grow into — a genuine reflection of life in Kamloops, in print form.

It won’t be easy. The volunteer subscription model isn’t easy to sustain. Publications that are most successful with it are online daily news providers. They’ve taken the print model and turned it digital rather than attempting to resurrect the printed word. They do it because going online avoids so many of the substantial costs of print.

Will the Kamloops public be willing to financially support a newspaper that publishes once a month, with ambitions to go weekly? I hope so. Online news is the way things are done these days, and such publications are a valuable and convenient way to keep up with what’s going on, but there’s something hugely satisfying about thumbing through a real newspaper. The way we used to.

When Singh and his group talk about wanting the Chronicle to be a true community newspaper, I take it to mean they not only want to focus on local news and issues but to maintain it as community operated, here for the community rather than simply as another business.

That’s something worth supporting.

Mel Rothenburger is a former regular contributor to CFJC-TV and CBC radio, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a recipient of the Jack Webster Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award, and a Webster Foundation Commentator of the Year finalist. 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.