Burnaby Beacon makes it to second anniversary, then cuts staff loose

 The Burnaby Beacon, at least in its current form, is no more.

It is the latest move by Overstory Media Group (perhaps its OMG abbreviation inadvertently tells part of the story) to stem its losses in a brave but apparently foolhardy attempt to resuscitate community journalism online. The Beacon’s two remaining staff members have been laid off.

Much has been said about Overstory’s promises and ownership, particularly when it laid off half the staff at its flagship online outlet, the Capital Daily in Victoria. That move came just before it was announced that there was a unionization drive underway.

The Beacon served Burnaby - a difficult community for local media. When I was a student at Langara journalism school, we were told by program director Nick Russell that “Burnaby was the graveyard of weekly newspapers.” Many had come and gone by that time (1977). Another one started up soon thereafter, and one of my classmates even took a job there. That newspaper and its staff are long gone, although the Burnaby Now, which was a successor to the Burnaby Today, owned by the Daily Columbian, is still going. In one form or another, under various owners, it has hung in there since the 1980s.

In 1977, first-year students at Langara took a course on the weekly (or community) newspaper and we visited various newspapers to talk with owners, editors and other managers. Most of the papers we visited are gone or have merged with others. These include The Courier and the Richmond Review, which had stellar operations for decades. A few, notably the North Shore News and Abbotsford News, are still in business and doing as well as is possible under the current conditions - which include a dramatic shift in readership patterns, limited loyalty to the community (and by extension the community news outlet), and fewer in-demand reader features (notably classified advertising).

I worked in Burnaby for The News Leader during the mid-1990s, and it was the toughest community I ever worked in - not due to the people, story possibilities or conditions in the community, but to the indifference. The newspaper also served New Westminster, which was the complete opposite - people were very engaged and glad to be interviewed.

It needs to be said that The Beacon was one of very few media outlets to challenge Dr. Bonnie Henry over aspects of COVID-19 management during the lengthy and challenging lockdowns. None of the major media outlets seemed willing to do so, although Penny Daflos of CTV News did ask some harder questions than most of her colleagues.

That’s why having a diversity of media outlets, big and small, conventional media or online, is so important. Otherwise a lot of information would never be shared with readers and viewers.

I wish all the best to Simran Singh and Srushti Gangdev, the two writers who are now searching for work, and other former colleagues of theirs such as Dustin Godfrey who were laid off earlier.

Dustin posted a great tweet, which is so relevant to this situation. “if a tech bro says he has the cure for local media, keep a parachute on hand.” This tweet came three hours after he congratulated The Beacon on its second anniversary, which turned out to be the day the lights were turned off for the remaining staff.