By APRIL LINDGREN Founding Director, RJRC This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. April 13, 2018 Who holds officials accountable when cities like Thunder Bay, Ont., rife with political and racial tensions, have no local reporters? (Shutterstock) There’s $50 million in federal government money on the table in Canada to support local journalism in the country’s under-served communities over the next five years. What’s the best way to spend it? Last month’s federal budget announcement is an acknowledgement that access to reliable, timely, relevant local news is a growing problem. Data from The Local News…
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Feb. 2, 2018 By AMANDA POPE Staff reporter A new online survey is asking Canadian journalists working for newspapers with a print circulation under 50,000 to provide information about how their newsrooms are managing and adapting to the turbulent times. Ryerson journalism professor April Lindgren and the not-for-profit National NewsMedia Council – an alliance of the former provincial press councils – are conducting the research. Questions on the survey deal with everything from the number of reporters on staff and journalists’ perception of job security to the use of social media and the major challenges facing local newspapers. “We are…
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January 30, 2018 This is one of a series of features, news articles and videos on the June 2017 conference “Is no local news bad news? Local journalism and its future” hosted by the Ryerson Journalism Research Centre. Watch the full conference panel below. To read more about the conference and local news, visit: localnews.journalism.ryerson.ca. By GREGORY FURGALA Staff reporter Port Alberni is a typical British Columbia coastal town. Situated at the end of a deepwater inlet that meanders through the middle of Vancouver Island, it was colonized by MacMillan Bloedel and other logging companies before its temperate climate, surrounding…