Les Bonnes Choses

I've heard it said that the London Free Press "is a rag". Now, I've read it, and I can't really complain about the level of literacy of the writers. Really, the biggest complaint I'd have is that there's very little to it - a large part of it is taken up by full-page car ads, or else classifieds and obituaries. Now, I don't know how much the freeps are to be blamed for this. After all, this is London, Ontario. It's a regional center for a sleepy region. Of course, this is a chicken-and-egg situation: small-c conservative Londoners have a reputation for not being especially interested in anything. Aside from small pockets (most of which I seem to have my hands in, indirectly at least through Rebecca and her network of musician friends), we don't have a thriving arts scene - as evidenced by the lack of performing arts center, and the fact that Orchestra London and the Grand Theatre always seem to be teetering on the edge of oblivion. But when the only time these organizations come to mind is when they're in the news because they're broke, it's not hard to imagine how they came to be that way, and how the situation is likely to continue. The only thriving arts venue seems to be the JLC, which seems to be getting by quite nicely on the back of mainstream entertainers - of the sort that one might expect to read about in the paper. Which brings me back (or rather, awkwardly segued back) to my original point about the Free Press: aside from the Banditos trial, the only other newsworthy content to be found usually concerns the most recent performance at the John Labatt Center. So when I get a phone call from a telemarketer on behalf of the Freeps, I feel uncomfortable with telling them, "look, your publication is crap. The only thing I would be interested in is the Sudoku puzzle, which I can get online for free anyways." Instead, I tell them (truthfully) that I'm moving out of the city. I will add that this excuse works quite well for many phone pitches, especially when you're moving out of the country.

I know that newspapers everywhere are folding - pun originally not intended, but then deemed clever enough to be claimed as deliberate. There are many reasons: alternative internet news sources from all over the world, decline in ad revenue because advertisers are also going to the internet where the eyeballs are. And in the case of the Freeps, they also have to deal with the fact that their publication really doesn't provide much that can't be provided by a larger, better staffed paper like the Globe and Mail that also circulates in this area.

150 years ago, there were thriving shipyards all over Canada, and the Canadian shipbuilding industry, with access to our vast supply of cheap lumber was thriving. By 1870, however, steel-hulled ships had come to dominate. If you were a manufacturer of wood-hulled ships, you had a couple of options. You could drag your heels, and keep cranking out the same product that nobody wants. Or, you could find something innovative to do with your workers and suppliers, possibly even creating a new industry. The first person to figure that out is going to come out all right.