These are the best and worst of times to be in journalism.
Never in memory has our work been so necessary for public health. Never has it been so important that it be accurate and trustworthy. Never have audiences been larger or more accessibly reached. Yet never has journalism been so diminished and devalued by those who find its endeavours threatening or disquieting.
There is an economic challenge that journalism hasn’t faced in memory, either. Time was you had to be an idiot not to make a profit from good media; now you have to be a genius to do so. The global pandemic is unprecedented in scope, but it is only the latest disruption to the craft of journalism. Various technologies since the printing press have prompted reconsiderations of how media are delivered. An awakening of engrained media biases has spurred a smarter inclusiveness among many outlets. And this era of abundance of free digital information has ruptured business models.
The pandemic will no doubt change our business and prompt news organizations to review how they can serve audiences differently.
This is the first of my two requests. I want from our business audience how we can improve our function in this community, what jobs we can do for you, how we can make ourselves most relevant in not only this uncertain time but also in the period ahead when we will be rebuilding.
I want you to take about 10 minutes now for us at Business in Vancouver. Identify two or three important roles we could play to help your operations. Write me at [email protected]. We have more than a quarter-million readers each week; I’ll be disappointed if at least 1,000 of you don’t write, because I know you have some time, and I certainly know you have some thoughts. Expect a few of you to get a response with a request to join some advisory groups to build greater engagement.
It’s a cliché that every crisis affords an opportunity, but amid our blanket coverage of COVID-19 is an opening to re-evaluate the elements of our journalism, the offerings of our advertising and marketing support for clients, the qualities and ambitions of our dozens of events and the particulars of our subscriptions and other programs to reward our loyal audience. This is why I want your involvement to help shape what we do.
We are not alone as a business in distress this month, and we have taken the extraordinary measure of asking for direct reader support to backstop our operations. It is my second ask: that if you are able, donate directly at biv.com either with a one-time contribution or a monthly amount that includes benefits now and soon.
We have taken this step as we have taken down the digital paywall during the pandemic to show you our weekly newspaper in a digital replica free. We did so, in part, because we can’t deliver into many downtown buildings at the core of our subscriber base, in part because we want our information to be freely available in this crisis, but also to demonstrate what we do today and what your input and support might enable us to do tomorrow.
We have an excellent team (and I’ve worked with many excellent teams, so can attest credibly), and if it can alter its focus to more appropriately address what you believe is needed, then it will serve an enormous purpose in this very dispiriting time. It would, I hope, make you feel BIV is more significant for you – that you would see yourself in it more clearly. Some of the questions you might want to answer: Which sectors of business need more (and less) coverage to reflect our market? What types of events should we stage to serve the community? How much thought leadership and commentary might we commission and present? How can we serve smaller businesses as advertisers without undermining our model? In short, how do we get you to read and use us more? Obviously, there are many more questions of your making.
I plan to share some of your views online in columns in the next few weeks (anonymously, unless you tell me otherwise) to help you see what we’re learning and what impact it might have. Now, please, get yourself to the keyboard. •
Kirk LaPointe is the publisher and editor-in-chief of Business in Vancouver and the vice-president, editorial, of Glacier Media.
