Westman Journal shuts down operations

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This article was published 30/04/2019 (2324 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Westman Journal suddenly ceased operations on Monday after 17 years in Brandon.

A post announcing their closure — effective immediately — was put up on their website by Monday afternoon.

It simply wasn’t sustainable, said Nancy Johnson, vice-president of Manitoba operations with Glacier Media, the company that owned the newspaper.

Johnson sent out an email in correspondence with the Manitoba Community Newspaper Association discussing the closure.

“General business decline has made it impossible to justify keeping the operation open. Despite the gallant efforts by the Journal’s dedicated team, it has struggled against market conditions since inception and a profitable model was never realized.”

Calls to Johnson to find out more information were not returned.

The weekly paper had been around since 2002. It was independently owned for its first couple years before being purchased by Glacier Media in 2004.

The company cited Google and Facebook as being partially to blame for the closure in an online post, in which they said these foreign companies “command the overwhelming majority of digital advertising revenue, even in communities such as ours.”

It’s disheartening to see the paper shut down, former editor Lanny Stewart said in emailed correspondence.

“The Westman Journal will always be near and dear to my heart, as I spent several years with the publication,” Stewart said. “I know everyone — past and present — who worked at the Journal spent countless hours each week in an effort to create a reputable community newspaper in Brandon, and it saddens me that will no longer be the case.”

The Journal was a source for local news across much of southwestern Manitoba, offering features on notable local individuals in addition to hard news.

Assiniboine Community College journalism instructor Murray Oliver said that the Westman Journal’s closure is indicative of a much broader trend, wherein large portions of rural Canada are turning into news deserts.

“I think it’s really a bad sign for rural Manitoba,” Oliver said. “It’s a dark day for democracy and for people to find out information to make decisions about their communities.”

There are four other Glacier-owned newspapers in the Westman area — the Souris Plaindealer, Melita New Era, Reston Recorder and the Deloraine Times & Star. When reached by The Sun on Monday afternoon, those who picked up the phone at all four locations said they hadn’t received any notice of an impending closure at their newspapers.

Newspapers shutting down is a trend being seen from coast to coast, said Kelly Saunders, associate professor and chair of political science at Brandon University.

Local news is important to the area being covered, she said, as it connects people to their community and provides unique insight a national news source isn’t likely to offer.

“We’re just losing that sense of community, I think, that much more.”

As a veteran of the newspaper business for many decades, Ken Waddell, publisher of the Neepawa Banner & Press and president of the Manitoba Weekly Newspaper Association, said it’s his personal take that it’s very challenging for a community newspaper to survive when it is not community-owned.

“I think the corporate world anywhere in North America certainly is proving that they are not able to handle the business model conditions of a modern newspaper,” Waddell said.

“Successfully cutting staff, cutting news reporters, making all kinds of cuts is not the way to grow your product. In my view, the corporate world has no place in the community newspaper business, whatsoever. They’ve proven, for the most part, that they can’t handle it.”

A post on the Westman Journal’s website thanked employees for their work and dedication, and their readers for their support over the past 17 years.

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