Stop the presses: Telegram printing staff brace for closure of N.L.'s last press
Last paper copy of Telegram expected to print Friday evening
It's a deadline journalists and printing press staff in Newfoundland and Labrador are dreading: the final paper edition of the Telegram, the largest newspaper in St. John's.
After Aug. 23, a printers' union representative tells CBC News, the presses will stop for good, ending an era that spans nearly 150 years.
"It's just so widespread," says Nathan Roberts, a press operator and Unifor treasurer. "I don't think most of us have completely understood what all of this was going to mean."
Roberts rattles off SaltWire Network's list of clients. When workers turn off the press for the last time Friday, it'll mean community publications like the Shoreline, the Northeast Avalon Times and the Newfoundland Quarterly will have to turn elsewhere.
Postmedia received the legal green light to acquire SaltWire Network earlier this month but didn't buy the printing press.
"It's the largest one in the province, and the only press capable of printing large volumes of newsprint. There are likely going to be a lot of customers that end up having to go out of province," Roberts said.
"Our understanding is that everything is is meant to be sold off, and if it's not sold, it'll end up being sold for scrap."
The takeover of the insolvent Atlantic newspaper chain is expected to close next week. Roberts says he hasn't heard any reliable information about a potential buyer for the press. After 12 years at the shop, he's preparing to look for a new job next week.
"The last few weeks, the hard reality sort of hit," he said. "We're kind of wondering where we're all going to end up."
The printing industry has continually shrunk over recent decades. The Telegram long ago absorbed the former Robinson-Blackmore chain of community papers, and the Newfoundland Herald ceased publishing almost two years ago.
Big blow for local news
Journalists, too, are fearing the prospect of a future without a local paper, as fears over Telegram newsroom job cuts percolate, now that Postmedia is poised to take over.
"When they've purchased their papers across the country, they've closed many of them, they've cut staff and they've moved significantly to digital and online news," said Doug Letto, a former CBC News producer and anchor.
"Newspapers have been facing a strong headwind for a very long time."
The problem for Letto isn't the loss of the physical edition itself, but how such a change will affect bodies in the room capable of chasing down local stories, investigating corruption and holding politicians to account.
"The conversation for a long time has been around this idea of the 'death of print,'" said Ashley Fitzpatrick, a reporter with Atlantic Business Magazine.
"I think what everybody's really holding their breath and waiting to see is what's going to happen with those journalism positions, what's going to happen with the newsgathering capacity … an environment that has more than one reporter at a news scrum is really important."
Fitzpatrick notes reporters are the sources of local information that simply can't be Googled — there's no replacement for community journalism, she said.
"If you're in a rural or remote community, I mean, you've seen this kind of an environment for a long time, where those reporters are just not available to you. And we need to be more vocal collectively about saying we want to see more of that and finding ways in particular to support that presence."
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With files from On the Go
