Times are a changing at newspapers

Daily newspapers across North America are facing difficult times. Since 2006, the percentage of people reading a daily paper has declined by 4%. Community newspapers such as the Fort Frances Times and the Rainy River Record have successfully held on to their readers.
One of the major changes in daily newspaper readers is that the number of readers, choosing to read their paper on line has grown by almost 50%. Now one third of newspapers daily readers are reading the paper on line. It is a troubling problem for newspaper owners.
Newspapers continue to be the main source of newsgathering across North America. Whether it is a large city such as Toronto, or a small community such as Atikokan, the staffs of reporters, and photographers are crucial to good journalism.
They are the gatherers of news. They write about the local sports teams. They attend council and board of education meetings. They follow cases through the courts letting readers know that justice is being done. They write about the conflicts faced by municipal councils.
They get to see and tell the joys of high school graduations and the pains of death from accidents and suicide. Reporters gather and tell the stories of their communities.
Reporters and photographers are expensive and are the largest costs in producing newspapers. The problem now arising in papers is that with more people choosing to read their papers on the web, less revenue is being generated by newspapers to cover the costs of newsgathering.
People believe that news should be free on the web. Where they might have paid a loonie to read a sports or political columnist in the past they now look to read those same columnists for free. As newspaper circulations have declined, the advertising revenue from advertisers has also declined.
Craigslist, Kijiji and Workopolis have decimated the classified sections of papers that used to be the largest generator of revenue for papers. Flyers from major retailers have replaced department store advertising that once appeared in papers.
Not every paper produces excellent journalism. But they do write about their communities.
A spokesperson for a newspaper explained the newspaper Internet issue simply. He used the analogy of going to a restaurant and enjoying a most sumptuous dinner and then not paying for the food, the waiters who served you, the person who cooked the meal, nor the persons who grew the fruits and vegetables. News web sites provide that sumptuous dinner, but no one pays the reporters and the photographers who create the stories and pictures. No one pays for the development and maintenance of the site.
Web advertising revenue has not replaced the lost newspaper advertising revenue that pays for the reporters, photographers and columnists.
It is a growing problem with papers. Across North America papers are looking to reduce the number of days they publish and some have entirely ceased publishing printed papers. The remaining on-line versions are hollow images of the former papers as the online papers have greatly reduced reporters, photographers and editors.
Community newspapers such as the Rainy River Record and Fort Frances Times have successfully retained their local readership, but have expanded their readership to people who now live elsewhere. That expanded readership is in the online version of our papers.
Many of those online readers are former residents, summer residents or feel that they have become part of the community through the friendships that they have made in the Rainy River District.
The internet and the newspaper are constantly evolving. The newspaper is in a state of metamorphosis and no person is yet certain, what the future paper will look like or how it will be read.

–Jim Cumming,
Publisher