With the closing of Cobourg’s only daily newspaper in November of 2017, many have struggled to find out what’s happening. A group led by Journalists John Miller and Rob Washburn started Northumberland Hub to try to provide a way of steering people to alternative news sources but that closed in February, 2019. At the risk of leaving out useful sources and expressing an opinion, I thought it’s time to recap how to get news updates if you live in Cobourg. If you are reading this, you know that Cobourg News blog is part of that but it does not by itself completely fill the gap. The short answer is that instead of relying on a single newspaper for everything, you now need multiple sources – mostly online.
News sources come in various forms
- Word of mouth – this has been with us for millennia – be sure to talk to your friends and acquaintances
- Printed Media
- Web Sites
- Emails – usually notifications of content on web sites.
- Social Media – primarily Twitter
- Radio and TV
Printed Media
There is now no daily printed media – the remaining Newspaper, Northumberland News, is weekly and understaffed. The limited hard-working staff cannot cover everything and some services like a comprehensive event calendar are missing. It’s financial viability seems to depend on the fact that it’s a vehicle for distribution of flyers. Snap publishes monthly but has a narrow focus on Social News.
Web sites
Apart from Cobourg News Blog, here are the sites worth adding to your bookmarks/favourites – I have left out sites who rarely update and those with news repeated elsewhere – Sorry. There is currently no “hub” or “portal” that links to all recent articles.
- Todays Northumberland – owned by journalist Pete Fisher and Steve White but featuring additional authors, this site is first for Police news and accidents but does include other news, notably Sports. Covers a wider area than Cobourg.
- Cobourg Now – one of a group of sites covering news in Northumberland. Owned by Jay Robinson and featuring a number of authors. News can be sorted by category.
- Northumberland News
- Northumberland 89.7 – Local Radio station but also with news items online.
- Town of Cobourg News Page
Emails
Many think that Cobourg News Blog is an email but of course, it is not – it’s a web site and the email simply advises of a new entry. This format is followed by a few other sites – you can sign up for emails to these news sources – signup page shown:
Social Media
Although some twitter users (e.g. Donald Trump) want to make news, and others want to comment on news, others disseminate the news. Here are some accounts you might want to follow:
- Cobourg Police @CobourgPolice
- Robert Washburn @rwash – broader than just Cobourg
- Town of Cobourg @TownofCobourg
- Cobourg Transit @Cobourg_Transit
- Northumberland News @north_news – broader than just Cobourg
Not always suitable for News but there are some sites worth “following”:
- DBIA – Downtown Cobourg
- Town of Cobourg – Good for announcements
Radio and TV
The truly local radio station Northumberland 89.7 has a significant amount of local news but so do two local stations in the My FM network: 93.3 and 107.9 Although “Your TV” (Cogeoco) has a local presence, they don’t provide a news reporting service but do provide interviews and other related coverage. [This paragraph changed from the original – thanks to readers pointing out the omissions – JD]
Other Services
Newspapers also provide other services such as classified advertising (try Kijiji), obituaries (try MacCoubreys), event and movie listings (try this Calendar), advice columns, opinion columns, letters to the editor and more. These are now mostly also available online but since they are not news as such, the only current local publisher of these (to some extent) is the remaining print newspaper, Northumberland News.
Unfortunately, to know what’s happening, you now have to rely on multiple sources. Newspapers that were a one-stop-shop have closed through lack of support – we now need to change.
Additional Links
- Northumberland Hub to shut Down – 12 February 2019
- Northumberland Today to shut Down – 27 November 2017
Print Article:
Looking over John Draper’s list of possible sources of local and other news, it’s abundantly clear that the state of local news and public discourse is at an all time low … something that should be of great concern to all of us. Local news is the best and safest topic for discussion between neighbours, letters to the editor, randomly submitted opinion essays. For many a discussion regarding religion and politics is not. Local news is the best way the electorate can be kept informed about the behaviour of their elected representatives, and decide who will get their future vote. Without random discourse between those who form a community, that community looses it’s coherence, sence of a shared self. It may continue in its built form but no longer in its social or functional form. I grew up, some 70 years ago in a middle-class area in Montreal. There was a morning and evening English language newspaper and my father subscribed to and read both. For entertainment my parents joined up with other couples and played bridge, in respective homes, usually t
wice a week. Not every one owned or needed a car and every once in a while someone would call Saturday morning and ask if we would like to go for a Sunday drive. The discussion was always about the local news. The adults would always sing the old songs as we drove back to Montreal in the late evening. To communicate with someone you actually talked directly to them by phone or wrote a letter. Now of course we seem to willingly use every means possible to distance ourselves from each other … and physical neighbours quickly become “others”. As we work to get out from under the heal of the personal automobile (regardless of the means of propulsion, one third of the energy consumed by a automobile is in its production and disposal) hopefully we will work to restore it’s social fabric, an important part of which will be a reliable, convenient and comprehensive source of local news.
As a PS to my comments above, most of my fathers’ newspaper reading took place as he traveled back and forth to work by streetcar … another point in favour of public trsnsportation.
myFM 93.3 and Classic Rock 107.9 both write, produce, broadcast and post 10 LOCAL news articles each day and have news on the hour and the half hour and post their stories, with sound clips on gonorthumberland.ca You can’t get better than that!
107.9 and 93.3 do have significant local news. I apologize for the omission.
Radio and TV
Only one station is truly local and has a significant amount of local news and that’s Northumberland 89.7.
Is that a fact???
myFM 93.3 and Classic Rock 107.9 both write, produce, broadcast and post 10 LOCAL news articles each day and have news on the hour and the half hour. You can’t get better than that!
Tnx again John for once again providing a wonderful community service totally uncompensated. Much appreciated by many.
I suggest we start paying the only source of news in Cobourg John Draper he is kind, caring and informative.
Wouldn’t take much time at all to set up a Patreon to support the site.
I miss Northumberland Hub’s morning email list of headlines from the various websites. A nice easy one stop shopping for local news.
I’ll bet those sites miss it as well as I’m sure it generated a fair bit of traffic.