The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
I had mixed feelings when the newspaper you hold in your hands dropped down to three times a week last spring. For nearly 60 years, The Reminder hit newsstands at least five times a week. Until the 1970s, we published Saturdays, too, certainly not common for a town of our size. The daily news style became firmly etched in our way of life. We had the sort of media coverage normally reserved for the big city Ð when news happened, you read about it the next day. When the decision to go three times a week was made, I worried we would lose part of the bond we had formed with our readership. And as a reader, even before I worked here, I always felt that we were very fortunate to have The Reminder each and every weekday. Those concerns have long subsided. Just over 10 months after the switch, I'm still impressed with how well things have worked out. More importantly, the number of positive comments I've heard from our readers far outweigh anything negative. Of course there was some unfavourable feedback, particularly in the beginning. One of the most dedicated Reminder readers I know, for example, was none too pleased with the notion of anything less than a daily. Fetching The Reminder from in between her doors Monday to Friday was one of the highlights of her day. She would anxiously take the newspaper down to the basement and read it cover to cover over coffee and a cigarette (all good except for the cigarette part). It was her ritual. But even she has come to love the new format. Her favourite feature of the 'new' Reminder is one I share with her Ð more and bigger pages. In our old, smaller format, our hands were often tied. Photos had to be smaller and stories at times were held for the next day due to space considerations. Another plus is that we now have a bit more time to work on our articles. The constant pressure of being under deadline has been lessened. The result, we hope, has been more in-depth coverage and greater attention to detail. The additional space has also allowed us to introduce new features we had long considered, namely crosswords, puzzles and an editorial page. The only real downside is that our press deadlines don't always permit as immediate coverage as we would like. Still, I think Flin Flon is fortunate to have its paper publish three times a week when some other communities our size have only a weekly. There's always room for improvement, but, call me biased, I'm quite proud of the newspaper our staff cranks out. We hope you are, too. One More Thing... Congratulations to Doug O'Brien on receiving the Minister's Award for Excellence in Community Futures Development Corporation Volunteerism (say that three times fast). Doug has worked tirelessly for the CFDC cause, not to mention numerous other initiatives to improve the community. The award was well-deserved for this true gentleman. Local Angle runs Fridays.
