The Wakaw Recorder office. (submitted photo/Karen Olryd)

By Cam Lee

Media boost

Local newspaper receives federal funding

Jan 7, 2020 | 12:00 PM

A local newspaper is getting a helping hand.

The Wakaw Recorder has received funding through the Local Journalism Initiative (LJI).

The Recorder is one of 94 publications across Canada to receive federal funding to hire new reporters.

Recorder editor and co-owner Karen Olryd told northeastNOW the news was much appreciated.

“We’d had a bit of back-and-forth with the LJI people and phone conversations about what our objectives were and how we wanted to hire somebody, and how we’d go about it,” she said.

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After those discussions, there was no contact between Olryd and LJI for a while, until she received the email that said she was accepted for the initiative.

“I was honestly floored,” said Olryd. “My husband, who is my partner and the other owner, was also floored and it was a sense of ‘Oh yeah, now it’s real.'”

The LJI funding will allow the paper to hire a full-time reporter, something Olryd says they’ve wanted to do for sometime but couldn’t afford. Now she says the extra staff member will lead to increased local news coverage.

“We’ve extended our area of coverage because of this, so we actually have some new areas that we’re going to cover,” she said. “We’ve just been getting in contact with them, letting them know what’s going on and the kinds of things we’re going to be able to do.”

The extra employee will give the newspaper some more flexibility. Olryd said it was difficult making sure someone was in the office at all times, along with doing administrative duties, and covering events.

“There’s a limit, and we’re very stretched,” said Olryd. “This is going to make a huge, huge difference just to be able to have one person who is out there covering all of these things.”

She suggested local media outlets apply for the initiative when the second round of applications starts early this year.

She said the LTI representatives were accessible and easy to talk to, while the application process was straight forward.

“It’s a great opportunity for news organizations in Saskatchewan and rural Saskatchewan because we’re dying out, mostly because of lack of funding,” she said. “We would absolutely try to encourage others to go ahead and apply, because the worst you can get is a ‘no’, but the best you can get is a ‘yes.'”

The new reporter has officially been hired, and she is starting full-time next week.

Private non-community broadcasters did not qualify for the federal funding. northeastNOW for example is part of the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group.

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cam.lee@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @camlee1974