A word of advice with my goodbye

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/12/2021 (1417 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After more than five years at The Brandon Sun as publisher, my wife Suzanne and I are returning to B.C. to be closer to our families.

I’m not very good at goodbyes. But I wanted to take the time to say that it has been an honour and a pleasure to serve as publisher of a newspaper that has been an institution in Westman for nearly 140 years. I also wanted to offer the community a few parting thoughts.

I, personally, have been in the business for 40 years and can honestly say that for the most part, my time in Brandon and at the Sun has been enjoyable. I feel fortunate to have experienced firsthand that “Friendly Manitoba” is not just a saying on a licence plate.

The Brandon Sun has endured a lot of ups and downs in its 140-year history. However, the challenges facing the industry today are like no other. The advent of social media has made for easy access to “news” be it factual or not. For the most part, people can take the negative messaging and process it with a grain of salt. But others choose to believe what they read, whether it’s fact-based or not.

Your Brandon Sun has changed with the times — and continues to do so — and I’ve heard both positive and negative commentary regarding these changes. I can say that a business is only as strong as the support it receives.

The readers in Westman are amazing and have continued to support the paper through the purchase of subscriptions or copies off the newsstand. However, there are a number of businesses out there who could use some work on the “shop local” rhetoric. But I’ll leave it at that.

For those advertisers who continue to support the paper, we thank you for that support. After all, if we don’t have the advertising, you don’t have a paper! For those who have moved on, supporting out-of-country-based social media outlets, you get what you pay for. Even our various levels of government have moved a large part of their advertising dollars out of the country. It’s worth reminding readers and advertisers that local community-based papers, such as your Brandon Sun, still get results and have traction in the community.

Of course, social media has its place in the promotion of business. We use it, too. But I would urge local businesses not to take all of their marketing dollars out of traditional media because someone tells you it’s the way to go. Get the facts and explore what you have locally in terms of media outlets and their effectiveness.

Over the past few years, I’ve heard more and more that the government is controlling the media with dollars. Federal wage subsidy grants helped all businesses, not one industry over another. And like most businesses who received the grants, the dollars we received from the government, while appreciated, didn’t even make up half a percentage point of our total operating costs. If you want to talk about taxpayers’ dollars subsidizing the media, check out CBC. There are a billion reasons (give or take) to question what’s wrong with the funding model there.

Local businesses have been struggling, especially since COVID came to visit, and they too are up against non-local entities such as Amazon. Please remember, it’s local businesses that contribute to minor hockey, girl guides, scouts, Rotary — the list goes on; not Facebook, Google, or Amazon, to name a few.

If you want to keep community organizations, local shopping options and your paper, please, support local.

We wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!