Normally, covering a council meeting is not something that puts a smile on a reporter’s face.
Anyone who has watched a meeting can attest that, in terms of excitement, council meetings can be rather dull. If they were rated like movies are on Rotten Tomatoes, it would be a low rating. However, if you happen to live where there is a dysfunctional council, it can be rather entertaining.
Fortunately for taxpayers, our area councils are relatively stable, level headed and professional. Sure, some have their moments where things get heated, whereas others are, as a reporter from another publication said to me last week, “Like friends gathering to discuss the issues of the day.”
Huron County Council is, generally, one of those relatively low-key councils. Things are level headed, discussion is productive, and the matters before them are handled.
Last week, that council heard a presentation from Jim Seale, programming and community engagement coordinator for Huron County. This presentation focused on the results of the Libraries Transforming Communities project, which was a collaboration between the Harwood Institute and the American Library Association.
One of the major takeaways of that presentation was the county residents feel like communication is ineffective.
In other words, “We don’t know what is going on.”
With last week being National Newspaper Week, it was rather fitting that the communication of information was discussed by council.
Coun. Bernie MacLellan, mayor of Huron East, commented that in the past, “When it was in the (news)paper, people knew it was their responsibility to go and buy the paper and find out what was going on. But now that we have all these electronic devices, not everybody uses the same service.”
Coun. Jim Ginn, mayor of Central Huron, commented that “we live in a society that has never had more ways to communicate,” yet people still complain about being uninformed.
An interesting piece of Seale’s presentation was about trust – or the lack of it – and how much residents trust government.
In short, people are losing faith in government and information, and want a reliable source of information to be created.
According to Seale, people would be more likely to trust such an effort if service groups, local governments, chambers of commerce/BIAs, faith groups and newspapers were involved.
Naturally, being a newspaper guy, this made me smile for a couple of reasons.
For starters, News Media Canada touts that six in 10 Canadians trust printed newspaper or news media website content, and that 54 per cent of Canadians trust editorial content printed in newspapers compared to only 21 per cent who trust social media content. Seeing that another study has found results that chose newspapers as their go-to for information was positive. There are similar stats for advertising, which showed 47 per cent trust newspaper ads, compared to 22 per cent who trust social networks.
Secondly, the comments from councillors during that meeting confirmed something that I have believed for quite some time: social media and email is not the be all and end all that many make it out to be.
In my head, I summarized the entire discussion at council as a group of people declaring that “I posted it on Instagram or I sent a newsletter” is not good enough.
Neither is posting an image on Facebook or Instagram and expecting to see tremendous results.
While I am a big proponent of newspapers, I believe they should be used in conjunction with other forms of communication.
For example, if someone has a news release, merely posting it to a Facebook page is not good enough. Take the time to reach out to local media, and post it on other social networks, like X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram.
For those looking to advertise, not everyone uses Instagram or X or Facebook. Newspapers are read by 83 per cent of Canadians each week – perhaps an ad in the paper will be helpful to promoting your event or sales? There are also other local media outlets that could help spread your message as well.
For those of you reading this right now, thank you for supporting local journalism.
I just want to ask you to do one thing: share your copy of the newspaper with a friend or neighbour, and show them what they are missing.
We all have a role in communicating the news of the day, and giving your copy of the paper to a friend or neighbour is one way of doing that. Think of it as sharing a social media post – except this one won’t be blocked for viewing.
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Mike Wilson is the editor of the Wingham Advance Times. Comments and feedback are welcome at mwilson@midwesternnewspapers.com.
