I’ve kinda missed reading the paper every day. Procrastinating against the impending day with a cup of coffee and the radio. Not that there’s anything in it. The only thing it’s good for is the little bit of local stuff, most of which is advertising. There’s certainly no mind-blowing insight or fresh perspective to be found, just the day-to-day, yesterday’s news. The sports page was good to check up on the Capers and last night’s scores but last night’s scores are already available on-line. The day is not far off when we’ll be able to customize individual versions of the “News of the Day”, as many pages of whatever you want, plucked from an infinite variety of sources while you sleep. But unless someone puts the local news there, it won’t be available. The way things are going around here, it’s not looking good.
We need a local news source that gives proper coverage to local events and news, not just a line here and a column there in between the ads and wire service stories. The radio has always been a good source of local news. The coverage it provides is very much needed in this area. But now that the CBC is chopping up its budget, we’re in danger of losing that source too. You can get your national and international news from other media (i.e. TV, on-line, national papers, magazines, etc.) but where do we go for the news that affects us the most? We need Mainstreet, Information Morning, Island Echoes, Talkback, Wake Up To Cape Breton, Celtic Serenade, and the ill-fated Now That’s Alternative. If CBC has to save money they should look to their television budget. CBC tv is an important source of news but that’s what Newsworld is all about. Why not just broadcast Hockey Night In Canada on Newsworld or sell the rights (for some quick cash) to another Canadian broadcasting company and shut the rest of ‘er down. That we should lose the radio is a tragedy. It’s as integral a part of Canada as he railroad was. (Some consolation, eh?)
The Cape Breton Post must be making money for Thomson because such corporations don’t tolerate low profit margins. And Thomson isn’t Buddy Thomson from over the Northside, so you can be sure that most of this money is leaving Cape Breton Island. Some stays, like the pittance afforded to the workers, but the rest of it is sucked out of our community’s economy. If Thomson can make money doing this why can’t a resident of the Island? We know how to do it—there are weekly newspapers now in several island communities that concentrate on local going’s on, not to mention the people who work at the Post now. Could these weeklies be incorporated into one? Even a weekly local paper that covers the whole island (a Sunday Edition maybe) would be more effective as a local news source than the Post has been.
The Cape Breton Post may not have been able to provide us with the best local coverage, but that’s more to do with the nature of being owned by a huge multi-national corporation which has no interest whatsoever in the community other than financial, then the incompetence of the workers who live here. Everybody has a list of criticisms for the Post and some may say ‘Good riddance. It’s only a rag anyway, we should boycott it’, but if we stop buying it then the people who work there will join the ranks of the unemployed and that’s no good for anyone. What we should do is kick Thomson the hell outta here and put a paper out ourselves!!! And that ‘…would be good for everyone: the workers, the advertisers, the community.’
