E17: Roll-Up Those Newspapers

Monopolies Killed My Hometown

Today's episode is all about local newspapers. I've had a long history with them, every Saturday my Dad would buy 4 different papers and we'd all sit around and read them. When I was 9, inspired by adding to my hockey card collection, I called and got myself a paper route delivering the Chronicle Herald. Little did I know, I was going to be running my own little business.
More importantly, I want to talk about some of the common stories about why local news died, and I want to add a couple of my own to this list. In my mind, the biggest culprit was companies buying up and consolidating all the local newspapers, in Amherst's case this was Transcontenintal Media Group.

This episode was inspired by my Grandmother and the scrapbooks she kept full of all newspaper articles mentioning anyone in our family. I found a scrapbook from 1943-1945 that was full of articles about my Grandfather from when he was a labour leader at the Canada Car and Foundry plant in Amherst. This plant manufactured airplane parts during WWII.

I hope you enjoy this episode, and I wish you all a Happy Holidays and a successful 2023.

Links from today's episode:

• Transcontinental acquires 3 more eastern papers
• Transcontinental sells four printing plants and 27 newspapers in Atlantic Canada
• Amherst Daily News ends 120-year run as daily paper
• Nova Scotia's Saltwire Network consolidates newspapers, turns some dailies into weeklies
• The Truth About Google, Facebook, and Small Business - American Economic Liberties Project Report
• These local newspapers say Facebook and Google are killing them. Now They're fighting back.
• Are Google and Facebook killing advertising?
• Transcontinental history, 1996-2005
• Transcontinental history, 2006-2015
• Irving-owned New Brunswick newspapers to be sold to Postmedia
• Australia's news media bargaining code pries $140 million from Google and Facebook
• Everything to know about Canada's Online News Act hearings

One note: It turns out I mis-remembered one of the stories. My grandfather didn't go to the Newspaper office because he had the chicken pox, there was another story about him having his appendix removed.