The last Post: Taking stock a decade after the newspaper’s closure

Everybody knew The Lindsay Post was in trouble. It went from a daily to publishing twice a week. It got thinner and thinner. Its offices moved from the fine old building that still bears its name to an unexceptional storefront. But when a newspaper serves a community for a century, its death is still kind of unthinkable. Until it isn’t.

The end was brutal in its simplicity. The item in the June 14, 2013, paper begins, “This is the last edition of The Lindsay Post.”

In his statement, publisher Darren Murphy added, “I have been involved with The Lindsay Post in different roles for almost 10 years and we have made numerous attempts to change the business model to try and make this operation sustainable. Unfortunately the market has not been able to support the continued publication of the newspaper.” Everyone who had joked about the Post or claimed never to read it (while never missing an issue) or complained about how there was nothing in it any more had to accept that it was gone for good.

It’s hard to understand just how fiercely competitive the newspaper business was when The Canadian Post started publishing in Beaverton in 1857. When it moved to Lindsay in 1861, there were already two newspapers on the go: the Lindsay Herald and, believe it or not, the Lindsay Advocate. (The latter was founded in 1855, with the intention of “furthering the interests of this Town and County and advocating whatever will, in any way, tend to their well-being and improvement,” a fact unknown to the founder of this magazine when choosing a name.) Over the decades, other publications such as the Victoria Warder, the Lindsay Watchman and the Lindsay Expositor came, went and merged.

When the Wilson family bought the paper in 1895, they changed it from a weekly to a daily. They sold the Post to media giant Thomson in the 1980s, who in turn sold it to Conrad Black’s Hollinger Group in 1995. Osprey Media group took it over in 2001, selling to Quebecor’s Sun Media chain six years later. In 2007, the paper changed its name from The Lindsay Daily Post and cut back to twice-weekly publication. At the end, it was publishing a subscription paper on Tuesdays and a free one on Fridays.

The 2007 reduction was the real signal the end was nigh, says Stefanie Lynch, former business office manager at the Post. “We lost our access to that local daily news. It all came down to saving money to make the paper more viable.”

Over her 26 years with the paper Lynch did pretty much everything that didn’t involve reporting or editing. Starting as a proofreader, she moved on to layout and then distribution and managing payroll and other aspects of the business side. In that time, she worked under 10 different owners and saw previously unimaginable upheavals. When the Wilsons sold to Thomson, the new owners centralized printing and other operations, cutting staff at smaller papers like the Post. Computerized composing meant further job losses. Lynch estimates that when she started with the Post in 1987, there were more than 60 staff; by the time it closed, there were fewer than 10.

Jason Bain started with the Post on a high school co-op placement, becoming a staff reporter in 2004 and editor in 2007. “I saw more change in that relatively short time than some newspaper folks would have experienced over decades.”

When the money was rolling in from ads and subscriptions in the 1980s, no one could possibly have foreseen the internet or its array of free news that would spell the end for so many storied newspapers. “Different corporate entities are going to have different levels of patience when it comes to the long term. The shortfall in print wasn’t being compensated for by the gains in digital. That wasn’t a Post thing, that was an industry-wide thing,” Bain says. Good-faith attempts to attract readers and adapt to digital formats failed one after another, creating an inevitable death spiral.

Social media, with its ability to disseminate ads and information (not to mention misinterpretation and outright untruths) instantly and cheaply was perhaps the final blow. “Like a lot of newspapers in that era, we were into struggles where social media was in some ways winning the war. Clearly the advertiser base (for print publications) wasn’t there,” says Lisa Gervais, a Post reporter who now edits The Highlander in Haliburton.

Classifieds and display ads for local businesses dropped away and readership dwindled. “It was the people who didn’t subscribe to the newspaper who closed it,” says Lynch. After the Post died, people often expressed their sadness to her, but when she asked if they subscribed, the answer was almost always no.

“It just quietly closed. In some ways, that’s a bit sad,” says Gervais. “I think papers were taken a bit for granted — that they would always be there.” With the Post gone, the only local print news outlets left were the twice-monthly Kawartha Promoter, now digital-only, and Kawartha Lakes This Week, which had subsumed the Bobcaygeon Independent and Fenelon Falls Gazette a decade earlier. Seven months after the closure of the Post, KLTW went down to one issue a week.

As someone who was born and raised in the community, and whose grandmother had subscribed for more than 50 years, “working there was personal,” says Bain. “It was a connection. I enjoyed getting phone calls from regular readers who had a bee in their bonnet about an issue.” He still recognizes the names of subscribers and frequent letter writers when he reads local death notices.

Former Lindsay mayor and Victoria County councillor Lorne Chester remembers the first time he saw the Post. “Having classified ads on the front page was interesting,” he laughs, adding that he subscribed as soon as he moved to the area and read every edition. “It was an integral part of the community. I felt a lot more informed when the Post was active. You knew what the issue of the day was.”

He recalls the days when the Post and other local news outlets had reporters at every council meeting. Likewise, he says, it was important to have a daily newspaper to let people know about local events and celebrations such as Lindsay’s 125th anniversary in 1982.

“We reflected the community,” says Gervais, “whether that was the bake sale or the important hospital story or that lovely community story. I think that’s what a good community newspaper should do.”

In the years after the closure of the Post, it became clear that for many local residents, online listings of concerts, fundraisers, plays, church suppers and the hundreds of things that bind a community together weren’t filling the gap. Not only was internet coverage spotty in many parts of Kawartha Lakes, plenty of people were uncomfortable with or didn’t understand how to use online platforms, and weren’t interested in social media. Combined with reduced local news coverage, the results showed up in civic life and participation. “Generally speaking, people are a lot less engaged,” says Chester.

If people have to work to find local news and information, many just won’t bother, or will believe rumour and disinformation in the absence of neutral reporting. “It kind of breaks my heart that we are where we are,” says Bain. “And to see good journalists being abused verbally — no one ever told me what to write or how to write it.”

Now the managing editor of Ontario Out of Doors magazine, Bain has a new perspective on the local media scene. “It warms my heart to see the Advocate working to fill that gap, to hear people talking about reading the Advocate. I think the social justice angle is really interesting — seeing it more as a service than a business.”

The more local coverage, the better, Bain says, when it comes to boosting local connections and helping people understand issues that affect Kawartha Lakes. “Hopefully more folks will recognize the value in the community of quality journalism — of being informed and making good decisions.”