Maple Ridge Coun. Craig Speirs wants to end city advertising in community newspapers.
He said in a recorded meeting that the ads are ineffective, a waste of money, and that the time has come to explore other avenues of sharing government notices.
However, Speirs has no information to back up his claim other than his own anecdotal observations, including a recent post about a local restaurant extending its liquor service hours, and he later backtracked and said the city gets a fair amount of response to newspaper ads on certain issues.
It is a provincial regulation that municipal notices get posted in newspapers.
That law exists because audited newspapers, such as The News, can prove their reach, or circulation, thus providing fair opportunity for citizens to be informed about municipal matters.
According to a 2015 survey by Newspapers Canada, which represents community newspapers in every province and territory in the country, print products had higher media engagement (captivating content and ads) than radio, magazines, billboards and the internet. The same study found that nine out of 10 Canadians read newspapers each week, in all forms.
Newspaper readership, over the past three years, in print and online, proved to be stable. The study also found that “ads in newspapers continue to be among the most trusted forms of advertising.”
The News has a contract with the City of Maple Ridge to provide the notices and legal information pertaining to bylaws and notifications.
By no means is it the city’s responsibility to keep afloat newspaper revenues, no more so would editorial content be curbed to appease such clients.
However, newspapers remain the primary source for much of the information we consume about our cities, and advertisements display a community’s economic vitality.
On Tuesday in the House of Commons, a motion was passed for the heritage committee to embark on an expansive study of how Canadians, and especially local communities, are informed about local and regional experiences through news, broadcasting, digital and print media.
The MPs have committed to no less than 10 meetings for the study.
We hope the committee finds what we already know: that the loss of a strong news industry compromises our shared sense of identity, not to mention democracy.
– Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows News