One of Kamloops newspaper's first reporters reflects on closure
A lot of people are saddened by the recent news that Kamloops This Week, the city’s only print newspaper, is closing the paper and the website by the end of October after 35 years of publishing.
“Due to myriad challenges, including market conditions and unrelenting rising costs, KTW will close, leaving Kamloops without a newspaper for the first time since 1884,” reads part of the announcement on the website posted Oct. 17.
Heidi Frank was one of the original reporters for the outlet. It was the first reporting job she got after completing journalism school so many years ago, and she has special memories of her time there.
“When I worked there we actually did cut and paste,” she said. “We didn’t do it on the computer, we did it by hand. We’d cut the paper, run it through a machine and put glue on it and line things out with a blue pencil.”
Frank said the loss of the last print newspaper in Kamloops is a “terrible loss of community connection,” will be a hardship for seniors, and is a sign of things to come.
“I loved that it was a good newspaper,” she said. “Reporting was my first love, every week I would interview someone special in the community. These kinds of stories can bring a community together.”
Frank herself enjoys reading and flipping through newspapers but suspects they’ll be harder and harder to come by and is saddened for the senior citizens.
“As far as newspapers go what a beautiful time it is to sit and relax when we need to relax more than ever,” she said. “I think it’s going to affect the elderly because they still want to hold papers in their hands. Some don’t have internet and don’t know how to get the news unless it’s delivered to their doorstep.”
“I think this is the future and it saddens me because sitting at the kitchen table with a beautiful cup of tea going through the newspaper will be lost. I think it’s a sign that people don’t want to sit down and read anymore. I see that people are so impatient with things and they want things now.”
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While Heidi still has “happy memories” of working as a reporter for Kamloops This Week, the newspaper hasn't said what is going to happen with the remnants of that work, the physical archive of printed work as well as the website archive. The editor did not respond to messages in time for publication.
The Kamloops Daily News archive remains live here.
The final print edition of KTW will be published on Wednesday, Oct. 25.
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