Dear Editor:
Feelings of shock, dismay and sadness flooded through me as I read that the Record newspaper and other community papers were being shut down.
I have a soft spot for the Record as I was its first full-time employee.
I understand the papers are being closed for financial reasons. But how things have changed. When the Record was started, it was not for financial reasons. It was because back in 1981 New Westminster resident Ron Loftus decided the city needed a voice — it needed its own paper to record the joys and sorrows of a community — from features, to sports, to arts and very importantly — to keep politicians and city hall answerable to those who pay their salaries.
Ron Loftus was a sports editor at the Vancouver Sun. He worked the Sun’s night desk and during the day he worked at the Record. I have no idea when he slept. But for him it was that old fashioned idea of community and reporting.
In order to get the paper off the ground, Loftus (known as Pogo from his lacrosse days) sweet-talked five friends into investing $1,000 each — eye doctor Irwin Stewart, school board secretary-treasurer Chuck Condon and teachers Drew Knox, Kerry Corbett and Fred Sparkes.
Longtime friend Art Heard sold the ads for that first issue which was written by Loftus and former Columbian reporter Adelle Jack. Loftus’ kitchen table was the office.
Loftus, his wife Darlene, their kids and friends delivered the first 22,000 copies door-to-door. It took a week.
That little paper grew to be much loved back in its early days under editor Maggie Leech who let nothing slip by. Many a time she rejected my articles admonishing me to go back and ask the politicians tougher questions.
Not long after the Record was established, competition came to town in the form of the NOW newspapers. They had papers in Burnaby, Coquitlam and New Westminster. Advertisers could get more coverage for their ad money in the NOW newspapers than in the Record. Still, the Record held its own. But when a third newspaper came to town with sister papers also in Burnaby and Coquitlam, it was too much. There was no way a small independent newspaper could fight two newspapers that had huge resources, money and backing from their parent companies. So the Record was sold to NOW newspapers.
Since its humble beginnings as an independent newspaper, the Record has gone on to be owned by the NOW Times Group, Southam Newspapers, Hollinger International, CanWest Global Communications Corporations and eventually Glacier Media Group.
When I started back in 1982 it was pretty much just me, the editor and part time ad salespeople. Twenty-five years later I found myself one employee in a corporation of thousands of employees around the world.
The value of a community newspaper is that it keeps us in touch with each other — celebrating our wins and losses and bringing us smiles with fascinating stories about fascinating people who just might be our neighbour.
It also holds politicians accountable. Without that, what do we have? It used to be that a reporter could call up the mayor or a department head and ask tough questions. Try doing that as a lowly taxpayer. It won’t happen. The accountability loss is massive.
Years ago in separate incidents, two city department heads and one assistant head lost their jobs partly because of reporting by the Record. Who is going to be the watchdog now?
And lastly, although the media is not perfect, it does try for impartiality and balance — something you will not get with bloggers or influencers or whatever else is left after the newspapers are gone.
In the 1990s and early 2000s the Record won numerous awards both nationally and in competitions that included American newspapers. We reporters were damn proud of our work.
When I think back to the early days, I’ll never forget the day when Loftus gathered his small staff together in his equally-small office, and, with tears in his eyes, said he couldn’t pay us that week and we’d have to wait.
Loftus was a tough guy. You don’t see tears in the eyes of tough guys. A week later we got paid.
This was the beating heart of the little paper that could. But things have changed. The internet has turned so many businesses upside down. Sadly, worldwide, one newspaper after another is biting the dust.
I consider it a privilege to have worked as a reporter and to have interviewed people who opened their hearts to me — the stories of a brother lost at war, a refugee family moving here with absolutely nothing from war-torn Serbia, an adopted child reunited with a birth mother, a man’s solo bike journey through India, a son tragically killed in the prime of his life. This is what a paper is — a record of its community and a tracker of the dreams and disappointments, the joys and sorrows we all share. And a record of how we build and live in a city together.
In the years and decades to come in this Post-Truth era, just remember that there was a time when publishers, editors and reporters believed in their communities, held local politicians’ feet to the fire, sought truth and gave a community its own voice.
Those were the days my friend…
