One if by land, Two if by sea, Three if you can pick up a copy at Eddies!

June 5, 2006, will it be the D-Day in yet another great newspaper war for Podunk?

It was on June 6th, 1944 that the invasion of Normandy began, it a much planned attack on an established force (enough of that bit of theatric symbolism, the Daily News of course bears no resemblance what so ever to the regime in place in France of 1944). Some sixty six years later another plan of attack is in place, all be it a little less earth shattering, but none the less still probably the most important skirmish since the nineties in the long running newspaper battles of Podunk.

Not since the debut of Prince Rupert This Week in 1990, will such an ambitious attempt have been made to unseat the Daily News as the paper of record in Prince Rupert.

Since the day that PRTW was bought out by the empire, small but generally unsuccessful offerings have been made to try and tackle the Daily News grip on Podunk. But perhaps this time things may be different. “The Northern Daily” will launch on Monday, June 5 in a Daily format, backed by the powers that be at the Terrace Standard, Interior News and Look Inside. It could be the first real move to offer a competitive force to the Daily News in many a year.

The news of a new conduit of information for the northwest was released in the Look Inside publication on Tuesday, with a story on page fourteen, preceded by a full page colour advertisement of the new dawn soon to come on page ten.

NORTHERN DAILY A NEW WAY TO GET YOUR NEWS
By Shaun Thomas

NORTHWEST- Beginning June 5, residents of the Northwest will have another way of getting the news of the day with the arrival of The Northern Daily.

This new newspaper, which is being done in partnership with Look Inside, the Northern Sentinel, the Terrace Standard and other northern members of the B. C. Newspaper Group, will be distributed free through street boxes and at a number of local businesses from Monday to Friday. The Northern Daily will have the latest in international, national and provincial news from the internationally acclaimed Reuters news service.

In addition, it will offer coverage of professional sports, entertainment and business news from around the world.In addition to the national and international coverage offered by The Northern Daily, we are committed to ensuring that residents of the Northwest continue to see all of the latest local news from communities throughout the region delivered t to their doorstep week in and week out with the continuation of our free regional newspaper.

Look for the Northern Daily at businesses and locations throughout the region June 5, and look for the latest issue of Look Inside Publications in your mailbox next week. Together, we can offer the best coverage of the news that affects the region....... free of charge.

Over the years Prince Rupert has been a newspaper graveyard for publishers, journalists and advertising reps who thought that they had the next best idea. They would launch with much bluster, only to see things fall apart rather quickly and without much of a noise being made, with the Daily news left as still the defining news source in the community.

The best bet for taking on the colossus that was the Daily News was probably Prince Rupert This Week, an edgy but free spirited weekly that really did shake up the community in the early nineties. It of course could not carry on it’s gravitas to any great degree and was but a mere shadow of itself by the time it was bought out and morphed into the Daily News stable and became a flyer wrap on Saturdays and no doubt a fine bird cage liner.

There were other weekly papers that came and went (far too many to try and remember them all, but feel free to list them in the comments if you can remember!), some with potential, and others nothing more than an ad grab for part of the dwindling advertising dollars of Podunk. For the most part though, the Daily News has continued on unworried by the pretenders and unchallenged for its market share. And that of course leads to a rather nice target ripe for another property to come along and try to usurp its hold on the market.

The Northern Daily will apparently be available at news boxes and retail locations around Prince Rupert for Free (avoiding what Mig from hackingthemainframe calls door to door spam) an interesting approach which will put the Daily News into a bemusing position. Should they too now offer their product for free, or keep that sixty cent news stand price as a gold standard for what they believe to be quality local journalism. You never want to demean your brand, but if your competitor is staking out your turf you have to respond in some fashion.

For the early going one can see the Daily News keeping to its course, it is the main news source in the community at the moment. Other local media have surrendered much of the news game these days, radio for the most part having long ago seemingly tossed newsgathering off the edge of a pier as an incidental to doing business in the community. The days of three person news teams and a dedicated sports department too seek out local stories is now almost a myth akin to Marconi. And television news locally still means getting breaking news on a tape (or digital byte) 90 minutes down the highway, hopefully in time for a supper time newscast, otherwise its wait 24 hours and hope that a few folks are still interested.

Almost by default newspapers in Podunk have become the last official record of events in the community, (we run the risk of offending the fine folks of hackingthemainframe, but an on line bulletin board, that can at times get overrun by rumor over fact, is not quite the same as a researched and documented news story).

This perhaps is why the folks behind the Standard, Interior News and Look Inside feel it’s worth that battle to take on the Daily News. If nothing else, it should help bring up quality of the product offered at the Daily News. Competition is wonderful thing, as it brings out the creative juices in everyone and sometimes scares the heck out of them as well.

Over the years the challengers have come at and been tossed aside by the Daily News, the next great newspaper war looms ahead. It will be interesting to view the upcoming skirmishes as the challenger tries to find its feet and the incumbent endeavors to retain its market and place as Podunk’s paper of record.