Local news startups tap community spirit to survive where others have perished
Local news fans dismayed by the closing of the daily newspaper in Orillia, Ont., are pledging by the dozens to donate $5 a month to a just-launched news website called OrilliaMatters.com, part of a grassroots movement in Canada to replace silenced community news voices.
“Help support local news! Having a news source to call your own is part of your local identity,” entreats the website, which goes on to list the names of businesses and individuals who have answered the call.
The site is the seventh started by fast-growing online news company Village Media Inc. of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., but the first to directly seek donations.
Pledges have climbed to about $1,600 a month since the site was launched on Jan. 8 — six weeks to the day after the 147-year-old daily Orillia Packet and Times become one of 36 newspapers shut down in the wake of a deal that saw Postmedia Network Inc. and Torstar Corp. swap dozens of papers in November.