Rural Routes, Blog Version

For years, a Saturday edition of the Winnipeg Free Press has been part of our tradition.

It still is, despite an obstacle that has been put in our way.

The local grocery store no longer carries the daily newspaper.

My husband travelled to the next town and the next grocery store, but there were no copies of the Winnipeg Free Press there, either. Delivery has been discontinued, he was told.

Eventually, by driving twenty-five miles instead of the usual four (double those figures for the round trip), he was able to find a paper for sale.

Ah, but it’s easily accessible online, I hear someone saying.

Indeed it is. But for some readers, whose computer skills are entry-level, accessibility has a different meaning.

And there are those of us, even though we do access news online, who prefer the experience of old-fashioned newsprint. Especially on a weekend when we have more time to read past the headlines.

DAILY GRAPHIC

My first job as a community news reporter was with the Portage Daily Graphic in Portage la Prairie, MB. Vopni Press also put out a weekly paper. At one time that weekly was called the Manitoba Leader; then it became the Portage Leader. After the acquisition of the MacGregor Herald, it became known as the Portage Herald Leader, which is where I came into the picture. Some time later, it became the Herald Leader Press, after the Gladstone Age Press was purchased. “Portage” was replaced by “Central Plains” and somewhere along the line the “Press” was eliminated.

Nowadays it is the Central Plains Herald Leader, a free publication to all within its catchment area.

At some point, the Daily Graphic ceased to be a daily publication. And just within the last couple of weeks, it was announced that publication would cease altogether. The Central Plains Herald Leader will continue.

I feel outdated.

COMMUNITY NEWS

Earlier this year, I talked to an area high school teacher who wondered about the future of community news.

He had been researching old newspapers and found all these interesting bits and pieces from their pages – the cat in the tree saved by the fire department, the huge carrots grown in someone’s garden, the ‘best pickles’ winner at the country fair, the local wedding that had to be postponed when an April blizzard hit, the fire that destroyed the theatre.

“Who would now be capturing these moments for the future?” he wondered.

We can get international news at the click of a computer key. We can find out what the weather is in obscure places all over the world. We can watch news twenty-four hours a day, if that is what we want to do.

But as local newspapers die, what replaces the role they played in community life and history?

Good question. I don’t know.

I am optimistic, though, that individual communities will find ways to make their stories heard and archived. I can already find examples of newsletters and Facebook groups that exist to do just that.

SPEAKING OF CARROTS

This came from the Portage Daily Graphic sometime between 1975-1977, the period I worked there. The Yosh referred to in the file name is Yosh Tashiro, longtime photographer for the paper. It was not his carrot, of course. It was Elsie Hunt’s carrot.

Yosh’s carrot

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