A year ago today, our last print edition of The Niagara-on-the-Lake Local was delivered to every home in town. Forgive a little nostalgia while we look back at that time of coming to the end of one stage of our adventure, and embarking on the next, with Village Media.
The online news organization had a year earlier offered The Local a sustainable news site, supporting us through our last year of print. While our site is still relatively new, Village Media goes back 25 years — its first, SooToday, was launched in 2000, and 30 more have been added since.
This year has gone by very quickly. It began with a tinge of sadness, but also cause for celebration as we began the learning curve of adjusting from being a weekly print edition to suddenly being able to share news quickly, 24/7. We are still occasionally asked when our deadline is by those who want to share their story or news of an upcoming event, but the beauty of being online is there is no deadline! It’s today, it’s now, as quickly as we can get our news online.
However the reason we continue to do what we do has not changed at all. We are still the voice of our community, committed to delivering our local news with integrity, by a great team of journalists our readers know they can trust to be fair and balanced.
Analytics show our online traffic has doubled for us in the last year, and many former and new businesses are partnering with us online, both important signs of success.
We also still feel like a family, enjoying our regular meetings in Virgil, while also knowing and appreciating that we have been embraced by a much larger family that has allowed us to grow. While we continue to focus on the hyperlocal journalism our readers expect, thanks to Village Media we can offer so much more than we ever could in a 24- or 28-page paper. We can publish as much local news as our team can put out on a daily basis, along with all the great stories generated by other sites.
Last night, as an example, we were able to offer, thanks to Village Media, a live, up-to-the-minute vote tracker for our Niagara Falls riding, which we know was well-used. Those who visited the site would have also seen the results coming in for each party provincially, and the election being called just minutes after polls closed, as early or earlier than other news outlets.
While that is significant news we wanted and needed to know, on the lighter side, Village Media has begun publishing a daily cartoon for us, one that is popular with many of our readers.
Another small change we hope you will enjoy is our comment section. It’s not available for every story, and those who wish to take advantage of the opportunity will have to fill out a short form to register. You will see our goal is to provide a safe environment for constructive community dialogue, and to ensure that, comments will be moderated to prevent name-calling, personal attacks, trolling or veiled prejudice of any kind.
We’d love to know what our readers are thinking, so please share your thoughts with us.
A larger but not unexpected change is the rebranding of our website. While we loved our pretty red logo, our regular readers will have noted that the red has been replaced with a new design in blue and yellow, which brings us one step further into this large family that has embraced us. It identifies us a Village Media website and helps to define who we are, but does not change what we do.
Our team of local journalists continues to do a great job of reporting on the news of our community. You can still look for Ben, read Ricky Rap’s latest, enjoy Owen Bjorgan’s much-loved columns, and you can email [email protected] about any news you would like to share with us.
In addition, you can also read the news provided by other talented Village Media journalists, including those following what’s happening at Queen’s Park and in Ottawa, and others telling the human interest stories from their communities — all written by the best of the best, principled, professional, and committed to integrity.
Thank you to all at Village Media who continue to help us grow and improve upon what we can offer our community, and to our loyal readers, thanks for your support and for all the ideas and stories you have shared with us. Please keep them coming!