Friday 16 October 2009

Brant News print

The first print edition of the Brant News was distributed in Brantford yesterday, with readers posting warm reviews online.

Employees of the new and independent weekly include several former Brantford Expositor staffers.

The online Brant News story says the paper's motto is “community first.”

"Brant News’ all-local team of reporters, columnists and photographers invite readers to explore the pages of our informative and colourful new weekly newspaper."

Early comments posted online include:

"Well this should be exciting for Brantford; competition in the print media," said one post. "Even roused the old paper into doing something to compete. Good luck to you Brant News, long may you wave!"

Another reads: "Just saw the first edition. It's a great read and a great look!"

TSF would say the same about the Brant News website. It puts a lot of the cloned Sun Media community newspaper sites to shame.

The launching of several independent print newspapers in Sun Media communities across Canada this year, and the commitment to print by advertisers, employees and readers, is encouraging.

We see it being repeated in 2010.

It is a loud retort to the Quebecor Media nonsense we have witnessed in recent years.

Community print newspapers are not dead, they just need to be liberated from neglectful conglomerates.

13 comments:

  1. Quote: "Community print newspapers are not dead, they just need to be liberated from neglectful conglomerates."
    I couldn't have said it better myself.
    In my humble opinion, there's certainly no decline in interest for newspapers with readable content.
    Doesn't hurt any when it looks so nice too.
    Well done to everyone involved. What a great read!

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  2. Wow what a great website! Easily accessible, large photos, no ads running down the middle. Great design.

    Puts the Osprey Media/Sun Media sites to shame...then again a Grade 8 student could design something better than the crap they have right now.

    Good luck to the Brant News! Kick some ass!

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  3. Their website is an improvement over the Sun Media junk that is floating in cyberspace right now. I'm not a big fan of having a banner ad under the masthead (bumps the local news down the page) but the rest of the website is better than the Sun Media crap.
    It's more user friendly and doesn't have the annoying ads down the centre of the page or the UR (Insert Community here) stuff either.
    Now if you will excuse me, I have to put a story on a Sun Media site and hope I don't get an error message when I make the attempt.

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  4. Well done...website is great, neat and clean.

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  5. http://www.thesudburystar.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2133537
    New publisher in Sudbury.

    I worked with Bruce, good guy overall who comes from a newspaper background. He'll be busy if he's managing both the Star and Daily Press in Timmins.

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  6. Speaking of websites, I noticed the London Free Press, which had a unique website from the other Osprey papers, is now cloned to look like the Sun papers' sites.

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  7. Hey! They DO have a great website! Good stuff! There are videos on here! It's like a local ABC news! Ha!

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  8. The Expositor's been kicking butt for 165 years and we're going to kick yours right out of town, Brant News! Look out!

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  9. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is The Expositor for you. Please give them a round of applause everybody...

    Pathetic.

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  10. I'm sorry but that's just childish.

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  11. Good luck with that, Expositor worker. See, you have to have a staff to compete ...

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  12. Of course we are! We're giving everything away for free. Pretty bad that in order to keep business we have to give it away & get exclusivity contracts signed! What image is this really presenting to our community?

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  13. Hopefully competition will bring out the best from both sides..it's always healthy to have someone keep you on your toes.

    But when it comes to websites at least (haven't seen the Brant News paper version), Brant News is miles ahead.

    Go put both websites side by side... it's not even apples and oranges...more like apples and rocks.

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