We've written a lot about small Canadian towns losing their newspaper due to Postmedia and TorStar (mostly) not being able to make enough money with those papers.
The Tilbury Times (Ontario) had been around from 1884: 136 years until the newspaper was shut down in 2020. The Tilbury Times was one of many newspapers that Postmedia shut down in Ontario and Manitoba in 2020. Tilbury is in southwestern Ontario, 57 km (36 miles) east of Windsor, about 4,800 people. Traveling east on Highway 401 toward London, Tilbury is just east of where the highway crosses Highway 42.
CBC Radio had a special podcast called Circulation, spending time in Canadian cities that had lost their local newspaper.
Haydn Watters spent time in Tilbury to get a sense of the community. Part of the story he told about Tilbury was about how its citizens found out what was happening in their town. The threat of losing the only nursing home in the city. Going to a car show if they only knew the show was happening. The hockey exploits that don't get celebrated.
Circulation (CBC Radio Special)
Mohsin Abbas is not from Tilbury. Abbas, who knows something about independent journalism publications, heard the Circulation special about Tilbury and wanted to help. A short time later, Abbas is now the publisher.
The CBC News article about Abbas noted his credentials: "He's started up his own independent publications before, and worked in newsrooms big and small — in Ontario, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia. Currently, he's a freelance contributor for BBC News reporting in Urdu and Punjabi, and runs another small news outlet called the Milton Reporter."
There are a lot of Canadian towns that could use someone such as Mohsin Abbas. More success stories could inspire others to make an impact on reviving local news in these Canadian towns.
Tilbury Times
Watters talked to several people who tried to use Facebook as an alternative to a local newspaper. Facebook has some advantages and a host of limitations.
We can imagine that the worst of times in the 136-year history of the Tilbury Times was under the Postmedia management. Local ownership means more consideration to what is important in Tilbury. The paper may have existed in name only even before the paper was shut down.
Gaining local control of a newspaper would be much easier before some distant (likely) Toronto-based organization shuts the paper down. In the case of Postmedia, that Toronto-based organization is controlled (financially) by U.S. hedge funds that don't care about Tilbury or any other small Canadian town.
Canadian journalism notebook: TorStar to shut down StarMetro newspapers
TorStar/Postmedia newspaper 'trade' details
Postmedia newspaper cuts mean even fewer Canada journalism voices
Just because a large company shuts down your local newspaper, that shouldn't mean you should go without local news. Local businesses still need to get the word out. Citizens could volunteer their efforts. A daily might turn into a weekly or even a monthly. The newspaper might be purely online.
There are creative solutions to helping small towns get journalism to tell their stories. If Abbas is getting any financial help, that would be pennies, which no longer exist in Canada, compared to what Postmedia and TorStar get to close local newspapers such as the Tilbury Times.
Canadian journalism notebook: Huge loss with closure of HuffPost Canada and HuffPost Quebec
CanadianCrossing.com journalism coverage
Your humble narrator has had a really nice journalism career. If I were on Canadian soil, I would try what Abbas is doing. Writing about these efforts is the best I can do.
Canada shouldn't let the fate of hundreds of small newspapers and those Canadian towns rest in the greedy and large hands of newspaper companies not interested in Canadian journalism in those small towns.
photo credit: Tilbury Times
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