National Newspaper Week is a time to thank readers, and also to ask for their continued readership and support.
National Newspaper Week, Oct. 1-7, is promoting a campaign called Now More than Ever asking Canadians to show their support for the news media industry.
“The role of newspapers has never been so crucial,” said Bob Cox, chair of the board of directors of News Media Canada, in a press release.. “Every day, newspapers work to bring Canadians from coast to coast to coast real, trusted, truthful news – which is as vital to democracy as clean air, safe streets, good schools and public health.”
He said newspapers do not have a readership problem and pointed to recent research that shows that eight in 10 Canadians and 85 per cent of millennials still read a newspaper every week.
The Nanaimo News Bulletin, with our mandate as a community newspaper, is determined to not only report news that is significant, interesting, new, accurate and objective, but also to share community news that might otherwise be missed about dedicated people making Nanaimo a better place. We try to promote and attend every community event we can. Festival season is an example, as we do our best to share our excitement about events such as the Silly Boat Regatta.
“Getting the word out to our community; we have such a large demographic, age-wise, of people that we’re trying to reach, that it’s important to cover all of that,” said Tracy Berg, in charge of resource development at Nanaimo Child Development Centre.
Run for the Cure volunteer run director Sylvia Shedden, in an e-mail, thanked the Bulletin for its continued coverage of that annual fundraiser run/walk.
“We are grateful to the Nanaimo Bulletin for supporting the Canadian Cancer Society CIBC Run for the Cure every year,” she said. “The Bulletin staff have featured a run participant every year in the week leading up to the run in order to get the message out about breast cancer and the upcoming run.”
We value, too, our partnerships with different organizations and agencies in town. The News Bulletin has been a longtime partner with Crime Stoppers, publishing information monthly in print as well as other unsolved crime stories as they happen on our website.
“The success of our local Crime Stoppers program is largely attributed to publications like the Nanaimo Bulletin, said Const. Gary O’Brien, Nanaimo RCMP Crime Stoppers co-ordinator, in an e-mail. “It has and continues to be, year in and year out, a tremendous supporter of Crime Stoppers through publishing warrants, promoting unsolved crimes and alerting the citizens of Nanaimo to crimes of interest. The Nanaimo and District Crime Stoppers program is proud to partner with the Nanaimo Bulletin as they do their part to keep criminals and crime in check throughout Nanaimo.”
The city has a vibrant arts and culture scene, but like anywhere, it’s scattered around and the Bulletin has dedicated coverage every issue spotlighting what’s going on.
“From the perspective of our organization, it’s crucially important to have a local newspaper and professional staff writers who take an interest in art, artists and the work of the gallery,” said Julie Bevan, Nanaimo Art Gallery executive director, in an e-mail. “It is so valuable to have voices at the newspaper, who can connect the dots, and share not only the details of our activities, but think and write in a sophisticated way about the impacts and the relevance of our program to the communities we serve, from a big-picture perspective.”
This National Newspaper Week, Canadians are asked to sign a pledge of support at http://newspapersmatter.ca and try to send a message that newspapers matter, now more than ever.
