My last day with the Richmond News and Delta Optimist — as well as in the newspaper business — was surreal.
It was a sad day for me. I started this path at Pacific Press at the Vancouver Sun and Province in 1986 during the heyday of newspapers. It was a massive four-storey building that took up the entire city block at 6th and Granville in Vancouver.
It really was like the movies show, you felt the vibe as soon as you walked in the front doors.
Reporters and photographers rushing in to get their pictures developed and stories written before the daily deadline. The hum of the presses running and the shuddering when they stopped.
I was there for an actual “STOP THE PRESSES!” moment, I was working beside the Sun’s publisher’s office when he made the phone call. Everything was so very exciting and I loved every minute of it.
Things changed and I ended up in community newspapers with Glacier Media. Not quite the same vibe but exciting in a different way.
Sitting by Eve Edmonds’ office and listening to the collaboration between her and the editorial team. Hearing Lesley shout out “I just sold page 2!” right before deadline. The publisher watching over everything and ensuring all was seamless. It was a much more tight-knit group than with the big dailies.
With the increasing advance of online readership, community newspapers have been slowly eroding. COVID-19 and Bill C-18 certainly didn’t help.
The days when kids see their picture in the paper when they or their team won a big event and then cut it out and put it in a frame are almost gone (I still have many of those from when my son played hockey).
Journalism as a whole is taking a huge hit. Fact checking is becoming a thing of the past, now anyone can publish anything online and so few people bother to actually learn if it’s factual or not.
My department has always been circulation/distribution and it often gets overlooked in the excitement of editorial or the high-pressure job of sales. Many people don’t realize how much of a difference we make, but we do make a difference.
We make sure all the work that editorial and sales put together ends up on doorsteps and in businesses.
Local news and sports get in the hands of the community through distribution. It gets there through the incredible work of hundreds of drivers and carriers.
I’ve seen young carriers I hired move on to other jobs and then vouched for them when they applied for private schools, scholarships, medical school, etc.
I’ve seen pictures of clients from local day programs and how happy they are to be out serving their community.
I’ve heard from parents of special needs children and how much it means to them to gain independence and interact with their neighbours.
I’ve seen routes that have been in families for years, either sibling to sibling or a parent takes over and keeps it for many more years, some for more than 30 years.
I’ve had recent immigrants who couldn’t find anything else, work so very hard and then move on to something bigger and better.
I even had a former editor for a newspaper in the Philippines working for me until he found something more in his field. I have seniors who love the social aspect of getting out of the house rain or shine.
These are the faces of distribution and I will miss them.
Most of all, I will miss the amazing people I have worked with in community papers for the past 11+ years. Great friendships were forged and will be there forever.
I stayed until the bitter end, it’s been a good run.
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