This morning I dropped by a corner store I hadn't been in recently, and couldn't find where they're keeping their newspapers these days. I had to ask, and while I was looking around for The Globe and Mail, a man jokingly said it was on the side with the "pagan" papers--those in English.
I laughed and said we get Le Devoir at home, but because it's cheaper in my neighborhood to buy The Globe in a store, we don't get it delivered.
Ah yes, he said. He and his wife get La Presse daily, but he picks up the Journal de Montreal on Mondays for the sports.
Small matters: sports, the vagaries of newspaper delivery routes. But as I started home, I reflected on what a good thing it is to have several newspapers to choose from. Even if much of the news is the same, there are differences in coverage and emphasis. Strong, differing editorial voices should be heard too.
Only two of the four newspapers we spoke of this morning are in reasonable health, however: La Presse has just exacted major concessions from its unions in order, management says, to stay afloat financially. The Journal de Montréal locked out its employees nearly a year ago over similar issues of salaries, hours and convergence of tasks. (Check out the locked-out employees online newspaper Rue Frontenac .)
Le Devoir, however, is counting down to its 100th anniversary with brio. Its circulation--never very large but concentrated among Quebec's educated leaders which gives it influence far beyond that Le Devoir's stats might indicate--is actually growing. And the Globe appears to be doing quite well, thank you very much, continuing to have correspondents in Washington, New York, China, India and Africa, as well as bureaux in several Canadian cities.
Moral: quality of content matters in getting and keeping readers. Publications aiming at the lowest common denominator are frequently doing worse in this time of media trouble than are those whose standards are higher
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