鈥淚 don鈥檛 need newspapers because I get all the news I need from the Internet.鈥�
Well, that鈥檚 the same as saying 鈥淚 don鈥檛 need farmers because I get all my food from the supermarket.鈥�
That鈥檚 the word coming out of North Dakota community newspapers recently, papers like ours, who are finding out they are still pretty relevant, in spite of all the online noise.
It鈥檚 about credibility, I maintain dear diary. If anybody can go on Wikipedia and make any addition or editing change they feel, in their own assessment, improves the information, then they get at it. And, then some other people will actually believe what they read there. Crazy huh?
That鈥檚 just one obvious example of lack of credibility within the Internet universe
For the past several months, North Dakota鈥檚 newspapers have been promoting their products with various contests and attention-getting statements like the one I just repeated at the top of this column.
Let鈥檚 face it, the demise of newspapers has been a topic of conversations since the 1960s. First it was television that was going to wreck this type of news source, then it switched to the cyberworld as the product of our demise.
Newspapers simply joined the online fray, bringing along their credibility factors. Different formats can be used, but what it boils down to is that 90 per cent of the population still reaches for the newspaper, either in ink and paper version or an online version to get their information and I鈥檓 always happily surprised to see that even today, it seems more than half of the television and radio newscasts are using 鈥渏ust breaking news reports鈥� that are, in reality, found in yesterday鈥檚 newspaper.
Community newspapers are even more popular in smaller communities and that includes senior high school students as well as senior citizens. Covering local 鈥渟tuff鈥� is what community papers do, and most do it quite well. Internet enhances the product and access to it.
The locals don鈥檛 necessarily want to read the National Post or Globe and Mail, but they鈥檒l usually take a peak at the 鈥渓ocal rag鈥� to see who鈥檚 doing what to whom at the city council table or what team beat their hated rivals from down the road in last weekend鈥檚 hockey or baseball tournament, and who scored in the second period or drove in the winning run.
So, while we in newspaper-land still jostle around, finding a comfortable space in the cyberworld, rest assured, we鈥檙e still reporting facts as we see and hear them, not as what we鈥檇 like to see and hear, or what someone else told us that might be true because someone else sent them a tweet or spread the latest rumour on Snapchat or Facebook.
Now on to our second topic.
We just want to spread some news about the oil industry.
Fairly recent surveys taken within the industry (and yes, they were credible) dropped Alberta down the scale when it came to attractiveness for investment in the oil and gas industries.
Out of 126 global jurisdictions, Alberta now ranks No. 38. It used to be listed at No. 16.
North Dakota, the latest darling in the oil production game with over one million Bakken barrels of oil being pumped out during the peak periods, was listed at No. 9.
And Saskatchewan? Well, we came in at No. 8.
So, let鈥檚 celebrate the fact we have the right investment climate and political structure to make things happen again when some sensibility and stability is restored to the oil sector. 聽
