Monday 30 November 2009

Voice's voice

The Hinton Voice in Alberta, one of Canada's newest independent weekly newspapers, posted this comment on TSF today. It reads:

Just a clarification on the Hinton Voice - this start-up is owned and operated by Robin Garreck and Sarah Burns (we are both former Hinton Parklander employees).

With that said, Tyler (Waugh) is a great community newspaper guy and his editorial background and overall knowledge are a definite asset.

The Hinton Voice started publishing in June 2009 and we are doing great. We've received ongoing support from some businesses who wanted to see a more community-oriented approach to their local paper and who appreciate the fact that the profits stay here in Hinton and are not siphoned off to some corporate headquarters out of province.

Customers and readers have also appreciated the quality of our printing . . . and we feel a debt of gratitude to Roger Holmes and his good people at Star Press in Wainwright, AB, whose consistent work quality and continued guidance have been a great help.

The Hinton Parklander went total market coverage in September, but we stuck to our guns with a paid circulation on the belief that there is value in what we do and that people will pay for it . . . that has continued to be the case.

Subscriptions continue to grow steadily, with the Parklander move to a free paper actually pushing people to our office for subscriptions when Quebecor refused to refund money for those who had already paid for home delivery.

Just as an update, we won the Newcomer Award at the Chamber Small Business Awards in October and we were recently awarded the contract for a writing and design project for early 2010 that will be a welcome boost to the bank account.

It has been a lot of hard work, but we feel it is paying off.

Anyone who wants to check us out online can do so at www.hintonvoice.ca (we are planning to do some redesign work in the coming months) or check out our Facebook page.

Anybody who really wants to support these independent movements can buy an ad or get a subscription.

We are happy to hear the news out of Strathmore . . . and wish Mario (Prusina) and his crew all the best. We want to thank TSF for connecting the people who care about accountable journalism, whether they be large daily papers or small weeklies like us.

We hope you reconsider changing your focus back to primarily the Toronto Sun and instead keep your network available to all of us trying to keep the spirit of your 'Day Oners' alive.

All the best,

The Hinton Voice

Thank you for your update.

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