It seems like the end of an era. After more than 80 years of publication, Kamloops Daily News printed its last issue on Saturday.
The newspaper’s owners, Glacier Media, had given its employees 60 days notice the previous Monday.
Nearly 50 people are losing their jobs, including 34 full-time employees.
Kamloops This Week, which formerly belonged to Black Press and now belongs to Aberdeen Publishing of Kelowna, promptly said it is moving from two issues per week to three.
Although the Clearwater Times was printed in Clearwater during its first few years, it then was printed by the Daily News in Kamloops until Black Press took over this newspaper in 1997.
Former Times owner Frank Tonge used to talk about the difficulties involved in printing the paper here.
Just putting out one issue could involve many hours of work.
In winter, there was a constant struggle to keep the temperamental linotype machine warm enough to operate while the corners of the print shop were freezing cold.
After the Daily News started doing the job, Tonge recalled taking the flats with the pages to Kamloops for printing, going for a cup of coffee, and having the job done when he got back.
Now the Times is printed at a Black Press facility in Vernon. We send the pages electronically to Vernon and then a local driver picks up the printed Times and Star/Journal issues and brings them back to the North Thompson.
Even the Kamloops Daily News gave up having its own printing plant several years ago.
Although one gets the impression that the immediate cause of the Daily News’ demise was an inability of union and management to get along, there can be no doubt that it is also symptomatic of the bigger changes happening in the news industry.
In fact, the rise of technology is changing everything, not just the news industry. Possibly it is more apparent in the news industry because it deals within information, but forestry, tourism, agriculture and so on all seem to be having revolutions every week.
It is hard to predict anything anymore except there will be change, change, and more change.
It really is the end of an era – and the beginning of what we hope will be an exciting and rewarding new one.
