Saturday, January 03, 2009

The reading list grows shorter on the North Coast


Dedicated readers of the National Post on the North coast will be going into withdrawal soon, as the national newspaper published by the Canwest chain has decided that like many other rural areas across Canada, the North Coast is no longer to be on the distribution route for the daily paper.

In a letter which has been posted at Eddie's News, the National Post advises that due to these troubled financial times and the cost effectiveness of sending the paper to distant locations, the National Post will no longer be available in print form on the North Coast.

The decision to cancel delivery to Prince Rupert is part of an ongoing trend of the paper to limit its distribution to mainly large urban areas and even in those areas home delivery has been severely curtailed, making the paper a news box or newsstand item only.

Launched a number of years ago, the National Post was to be breath of fresh air for the stale Canadian newspaper industry, luring a number of high profile writers at the time to offer up a byline at the new publication.

As the years went by however, many of those writers moved back to their former employers, finding the atmosphere at the Post not in their best creative interests it seems.

The recent moves to limit distribution and focus on the larger metropolitan areas is just another sign of the changing nature of the newspaper business and also an indication of the financial strain that the Canwest empire is under these days whether it be from their large newspaper holdings or the network of television stations that they own across the country.

For those that had grown fond of the paper's content, there is always the National Post website which offers up many of the papers articles and columnists, usually posted well before the paper ever landed on a local new stand.

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