It’s the end of 128 years of headlines and stories that have shaped the lives of Moose Jaw residents and the city itself: The Moose Jaw Times Herald will cease to publish early next month.
“It’s disappointing. This paper has a 128-year history. I think it’s an important part of this city and this community,” Moose Jaw Times Herald Managing Editor Marlon Hector said. “I think it’s sad for this building, everybody losing their jobs, but I also think it’s sad for this city.”
The newspaper was owned by Alberta-based Star News Publishing Inc., which purchased the paper in 2016. Roger Holmes, the president of Star News Publishing Inc., says the newspaper’s website will also be shut down.
Hector cites the economics of the industry as reasons for the closure.
“The papers rely on advertising to exist and the advertising just wasn’t there,” Hector said.
About 25 employees will be losing their jobs, and the community will be losing a voice.
Hector says they are focusing on finishing strong and making a memorable final month at the Times Herald.
“We are really planning to finish strong,” he said. “It’s a 128 year old history here and we want to celebrate that and we want to honour it, we want to honour the people who have worked there, we want to honour this community that’s really closely tied to this newspaper. We’re going to go out with a blast.”
The last edition is to be published Dec. 7.
Community feeling the impact
“We’re a close knit community, having a population of 34,000 you know a lot of people in the community and you know people who are affected by this,” Moose Jaw Mayor Fraser Tolmie said.
“It’s part of the tapestry of the City of Moose Jaw,” Mayor Tolmie added. “The Times Herald has played a part in recording this city’s history but it has also played a part in this city’s history. It’s a sad day for the City of Moose Jaw to lose this iconic newspaper.”
Rob Clark was the publisher of the Times Herald from 2001 to 2014. He says it’s a major loss to the community.
“Support of the community was second to none. We at the paper were always so proud of that. Anything we could offer help with; anything we could do, stories we could write, that’s what we were there for,” Clark said. “There would be high fives in the newsroom.”
Clark is now the CEO of the Moose Jaw Chamber of Commerce. The closure of the newspaper has also brought back some fond memories for him.
“I’ve sure been thinking back of all the friendships,” Clark said. “We worked hard and we played hard and we enjoyed ourselves through trials and tribulations. I always respected everyone there for the simple fact as to put a daily newspaper together. I think I used to count 400 a day. It was just amazing to put a daily newspaper together and nobody realizes that.”
Clark also says the Internet and quick access to free online news made things difficult.
“My first 10 to 12 years in there, it was fun. And then in the last couple years it became stressful because of the Internet, because of all the free news,” he said.
University of Regina journalism instructor Mark Taylor’s first job was with the Moose Jaw Times Herald.
He says many other small town newspapers face similar problems, but his outlook remains optimistic.
“It’s no secret physical newspapers, especially small town papers, are struggling. I don’t know if I buy into the doom and gloom that we hear all the time,” Taylor said. “It’s another small town paper unfortunately going down, but there’s still a need for newspapers and there will always be a need for journalists who can tell a good story.”
Taylor says one of his best memories of working with the Times Herald was when he got a press pass to photograph The Rolling Stones performance in Regina in 2006. He also says he owes a lot of his success to the Moose Jaw Times Herald.
“I got to go in the front row and I got to photograph my hero Keith Richards, and that’s to this day still one of the highlights of my career,” Taylor said.
A brief Times Herald history
The Moose Jaw Times Herald published its first newspaper on April 2, 1889 by J.N. McDonald. The paper was then called ‘The Moose Jaw Times’. In 1904, the newspaper changed from a weekly paper to a semi-weekly paper, according the archives in the Moose Jaw Library. In 1906, the newspaper became daily.
The newspaper was renamed the ‘Moose Jaw Times Herald’ in the 1920s, following the discontinuation of the Times Morning Herald.
The paper changed ownership several times. It was sold to Hamilton Lang not long after its first publication. In 1894, it was sold to Walter Scott and in 1945 it was sold to J.E. Slaight and then to Roy Thomas. It was then sold to Hollinger Newspapers in 1995, CanWest in 2000 and then to Transcontinental Media Group in 2002.