Monday, May 18, 2009

More media changes... New Publisher to arrive for Northern View


There is some interesting reading from the Ashcroft Cache Journal this week, as Tuula Opheim, the current publisher of that publication from the Black Press chain, announces to her readers that she is off to Prince Rupert to take on new challenges as publisher of the Northern View.

It will prove to be the second time since the start of the year that a Prince Rupert newspaper sees change at the top, following the developments of the Daily News from February which saw a number of changes come to the Daily paper in the city.

The May 12th edition of the Northern View outlined some of the details behind the departure of Co Publishers Mike Slubowski and Barb Burton, who have decided to concentrate on their print shop business, Stuck On Designs.
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Interestingly enough the arrival of Ms. Opheim comes a few months after a rather public dispute between The Northern View's Mr. Slubowski and the City's Parks and Recreation Director Michael Curnes, as the two engaged in an animated bit of finger pointing over the reasons for the recently cancelled Prince Rupert Trade Show. It made for a rather loud discussion that played out on the pages of the Daily News over a couple of days in February.

One might speculate over whether that particular scenario may have raised a few eyebrows at the Black Press head offices, wondering perhaps if it played any part in the recently announced changes to the Northern View.

The Northern View gained its genesis from a publication called Look Inside, which was also a weekly publication that featured items of local interest. Since those early days of 2006, the name Northern View was given to the publication upon its inclusion in the Black Press chain, over the years it has increased its free distribution to over 23,000 homes across Northwestern British Columbia.

It has offered up an alternative news source to the Daily News ever since, continuing on with the work pioneered by Prince Rupert This Week and a number of other less successful weeklies back in the early nineteen nineties.
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Among some of its more progressive steps has been the introduction of a web home for the paper, providing instant updates on Breaking News and providing a weekly paper with the opportunity to regularly scoop the Daily paper with the key stories of the day.
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Less impressive has been the sister publication of the company The Northern Connector, which seemed to feature an unusual number of questionable political advocacy ads during the recent provincial election campaign, leaving readers to wonder about the concept of a balanced approach to the business of information delivery and if perhaps a bit of corporate bias had not slipped into the days news.
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It will be with great interest that locals watch as Ms. Opheim takes to her duties and how if any, change is brought to the personnel and content of a familiar part of the Northwest routine.

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