National Newspaper Week, which runs from Oct. 6 to 12 this year, is an annual opportunity to recognize the critical role that newspapers play in an active and healthy democracy.
Foreign interference in a Canadian election. A rigged procurement system that cost taxpayers millions. The complex roots of the affordable housing crisis. Those are some of the stories that shocked and sobered Canadians over the past year – important investigations that were broken by some of this country’s largest newspapers.
But it wasn’t just Canada’s major publications that dug up stories that mattered in the last year.
The Eastern Door, which serves the 8,000-person Mohawk community of Kahnawake in Quebec, revealed the names of priests who had sexually abused Indigenous children there and in Spanish, Ont.
The Brockville Recorder and Times in eastern Ontario probed the actions of a police officer who recorded the rape of an unconscious woman on his cell phone.
The London Free Press in southwestern Ontario wrote about what that community lost when a white nationalist mowed down the Afzaal family with his pickup truck.
Day after day, week after week, Canada’s newspapers publish content that counts, both on the national stage and close to home. All of the aforementioned stories were nominated for major journalism awards in the past year. But some of the most valuable information newspapers generate is local – coverage of town council, city bylaws, who’s running for public office. In other words, content that is vital to the health of our democracy at all levels.
That is an increasingly valuable commodity in a world where misinformation is rife. Unlike artificial intelligence, newspapers produce content that is researched and verified before it’s published. Unlike partisan echo chambers online, newspapers present accurate, fair and balanced information about who, what, when, where and why things happen in communities.
That is why Canadians continue to look to newspapers for credible information they can trust. And that’s something we should all celebrate in National Newspaper Week.
Lucinda Chodan is the former senior vice-president, editorial, for Postmedia Network.
