Many in the world have just celebrated Lunar New Year. It is celebrated with fireworks, lanterns and candles symbolizing the end of the darkness similarly to other solstice celebrations. The festivities lasted two weeks and were finished with a special lantern festival (February 5) which signalled the end of the New Year celebration period.
Our days are getting incrementally longer, and our moods are lifting. I am cautiously optimistic about 2023. I remember sitting at the Sage Pub at midnight December 31, 2019, with my family toasting to things getting better, completely blissfully unaware of the global pandemic that was going to completely shift all of our lives.
One thing I’ve learned about human nature is that people don’t like change. But that is what a new year is, isn’t it? An opportunity to wipe the proverbial slate clean and start fresh?
When people remember the good old days, it’s often an illusion. Many things have improved for many people in ways that have not registered in our consciousness.
We don’t need to do things just because it’s the way it has always been done. Yet here I am working for a print newspaper, a media that started in 1609.
I love print because it’s not easy be it’s worth it. There is time and thought and procedures and production that goes into every letter on the page. Once it’s published, we can’t edit it. We can’t un-circulate the issues.
Print is also consumed in a different manner than digital, often over a cup of coffee, sitting comfortably with an intention to read it all the way through. We put clippings on our refrigerator. We collect photos of loved ones when they’ve “made the paper.”
About 20 per cent of seniors have no internet at home, and those that do have it aren’t keen on sharing data online. For advertisers, it has the greatest amount of integrity attached to their message. Everyone with a social media profile believes they can reach their audience without external marketing but I have witnessed over and over again, the power of print advertising.
Closing the Oliver office raised more than a few eyebrows, but every decision made is for the survival of local journalism. We struggle like many to fill our positions and we also face rising costs and ever greater competition from a plurality of digital sources. It’s too easy to regionalize to save money and give up on the stories that make community journalism so special. We live and work here, and these are our towns. It is a vital thread that connects all of us here.
How do we save it? Well, make a point of reading the paper in print or online. We distribute our print product as widely as possible and of course our digital product is available globally. Share your tips with us using [email protected]. Write letters to the editor at [email protected], and let us know about community events you are planning.
Most important to our survival is the sponsorship of our advertisers. We are grateful for those who reach their audience through us and keep us in business.
We do well when our local businesses do well. Support us and we can continue to offer advertising to charities at cost. We can continue to cover all of the special events that make our towns special. We can dive into stories that are important to all of us.
Change is good, as long as the changes we make serve us and community in the long term.
