News industry in WR and beyond

[plam]

The general business news thread talked about the Record a bit. Probably worth having its own thread (though maybe we don't talk about it all the time).

In New Zealand, there are two big chains: NZME and Stuff. Stuff was owned by Australian capital until a year ago, then sold for $1 to its CEO just after the lockdown. Seems to be doing well now although they don't disclose financials.

https://thespinoff.co.nz/media/15-06-202...-thriving/

Stuff also pulled its content from Facebook.

Journalism is interesting in that it combines the general capitalist problem with being owned by hedge funds (in NZ, this is also a problem for bus operators) and the general 2000s problem of the advertising-based attention economy. And yet it's critical for democracy to function. And as much as we post about local topics here, we don't have the resources that one would have by having, say, 10 full time employees.

[tomh009]

These are indeed challenging times. However, I should point out that none of the major Canadian newspaper groups (Torstar, Globe, Postmedia and Quebecor) are owned by hedge funds.

[nms]

There have been several local media startups that are covering some of the gaps that the Record family* is missing:
(This list came from searching "local media Waterloo Region" in Google)
- Best Version Media distributes several "Neighbours of..." print magazines targeted to certain neighbourhoods (though they seem to be based in Peterborough with publications all over the place)
- Baden Outlook (monthly, print?)
- CambridgeToday.ca (online, via Village Media with similar ...Today.ca pages across Ontario)
- Community Edition (offshoot of Laurier's Cord)
- Embracing Change Magazine (monthly, print)
- Inside Waterloo (TBD)
- KWNow.ca (online)
- KW Minute (weekly mailing list)
- TL:WR (weekly mailing list & more from Alex Kinsella)
- Waterloo Region Rural Post (online, print, EIC is former Woolwich Mayor Todd Cowan)
- and one might suggest our dear little waterlooregionconnected.com does it's own bit to keep the community connected

I skipped TV, radio and podcasts since I am not as familiar with them with the exception of CBC Radio. What local podcasts do you follow?

There are also online portals such as the various Facebook Neighbourhood groups and the Next Door app, though both seem to trend towards either Buy & Sell posts or Neighbourhood Watch types posts reporting on either human or wildlife activity.

*The Record Family includes the following, most of whom were at one point independent newspapers:
- Ayr News
- Cambridge Times
- Community News (Drayton)
- Grand Magazine
- New Hamburg Independent
- Kitchener Post
- Waterloo Region Record
- Waterloo Chronicle
- Woolwich Observer

On a side note, Waterloo Region has had somewhere between 40-50 distinct print publications with some first appearing somewhere around 1840.

[jwilliamson]

Imprint and Iron Warrior both have a bit of local news coverage. They obviously focus primarily on news that students might be interested in.