Hometown papers more important than latecomers like National Post‏

Eleven years, $100 million dollars down the drain and it never made a dime.
The self-proclaimed small c-conservative National Post, started in 1998 as a pet project by former media tycoon Conrad Black, has been in some tight spots before but none so tight as the situation last week that nearly made the Post toast.
To listen to the national media during the last few weeks, the Post has been hanging on by a thread, with every issue hitting the streets potentially its last.
The Post’s editorial board spelled it out pretty well in Saturday’s edition:
“For the past two days, Canadians have been subjected to a barrage of media reports predicting the imminent closure of the National Post.”
To say the least.
“The frenzy of the past couple of days was based on the possibility that the courts would reject a deal to reunite the National Post with the rest of Canwest’s publishing assets after a four-year absence. Yesterday, a Toronto court put that notion to rest and approved the transfer, thus ensuring the long-term existence and stability of the National Post.
“Under the umbrella of the publishing group, we look forward to a long — and soon, prosperous — future in which we will continue to do all this and much more.”
On Friday a lawyer for CanWest said the National Post has never made a dime and the creditors of the parent company don't want to on the hook for it’s losses anymore.
“If the bondholders on the [parent company] side thought they could squeeze one more nickel out of it, they would have,” CanWest lawyer Lyndon Barnes told reporters. “There is just no money to continue beyond today.”
It’s a bad time for newspapers.
Sales are down, costs are up, people are getting their news from TV or the Internet and business is definitely not booming.
If there is a safer market in the newspaper world, it’s small town community newspapers like this one and dozens of others across this country. Why?
Because they’re small. Who wants to buy a newspaper in Toronto or Vancouver or Edmonton when they can watch the news on half-a-dozen different local channels 24 hours a day?
But there is a Canada beyond Toronto or Vancouver or Edmonton. Most people in Canada get their news from little community papers. These papers are the workhorses, the heavy lifters, the backbone of their communities and this country.
If the big papers ever poke their noses in around here, it’s only because something really bad happened. They’re never around for the good things local papers report on every day.
The Leader’s been publishing for over 100 years. It’ll still be coming off the presses next year and the year after that. More than a city council, more than a bus service, a local paper holds a community together.
But if a big paper like the Post folded tomorrow, it would cause more of a ripple than a wave. There are more than enough newspapers to fill the void, and TV news too. And don’t forget the Internet. And radio.
I have my doubts the 11-year-old National Post will see it’s 12th birthday. Meanwhile, while we watch for this paper to fold any day, you have to wonder the owners of that money pit, already in the hole for $100 million and going deeper, keep it rolling off the presses anyway.