by Kathryn Hunt
Managing Editor
A major loss in local journalism happened last month, when a deal struck between Postmedia and Torstar saw a large number of small newspapers traded and shut down.
Ottawa will lose a number of local small subsidiary papers, most notably the Ottawa Metro.
What has not been lost in this sweep, however, are independent community papers like The BUZZ: the litte fish in the big media pond. The Glebe Report, the Kitchissipi Times, OSCAR, the Lowertown Echo, and other of our sister publications are still here, and still covering the events and people that don’t make the 24-hour news cycle. Independent community papers survive because of the support of the neighbourhoods they serve. So what can you do to help them?
Get involved. Write in, send us your story ideas and pitches. Sign up to volunteer (see our regular “BUZZ at the Door” column for ideas about how that works). Let us know what you want to see in these pages and talk to your neighbours about what you read. But, equally importantly, we are supported entirely by advertising revenue. You can help The BUZZ by advertising with us and by making a point, when you go to a business that advertised with us, of telling them you saw their ad here. With your support, local, independent papers can outlast all the bigger fish.