The final front page of Kamloops This Week
As Kamloops This Week winds down after 35 years of operations, a group of now former employees are working to establish a new newspaper in the City.
They’re looking for financial donations and in-kind business advice, possibly even angel investors to provide some initial seed funding to keep the paper going.
Longtime KTW reporter, and Kamloops native, Jessica Wallace says the idea is still in the very early stages.
“We have been hearing from so many people around the community about what the paper means to them, “Wallace said on NL Mornings.
“And actually somebody came forward and said, ‘hey, I’ll give you $10,000 if you’ll keep a newspaper going in Kamloops’ and we went, ‘huh? wow. This is amazing.'”
Wallace says the public plea – which is on page A2 of the final edition of KTW that is out today – is meant to see if there is other community support for the idea.
“It doesn’t even have to be financial contributions, I mean $10,000 sounds amazing but not everybody has that kind of money, “Wallace said.
“Maybe its some business advice as we’re journalists not business people. Maybe its a warehouse if you have some extra space where we could distribute the paper for a little bit while we figure out a place to go while we clean up Kamloops This Week on Dalhousie.”
👀 👀
Spotted on Page A2 of the final edition of @KamThisWeek which hits #Kamloops doorsteps tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/ScGEUprVea
— Victor Mario Kaisar (@supermario_47) October 25, 2023
Wallace admits she isn’t sure if the idea will come to fruition. She pointed to efforts to try and switching KTW to a type of non-profit model, efforts which could not be resolved in time to keep the paper operational.
“We’re trying,” she said. “We all know that we can walk away and get other jobs but at the end of the day will we all still believe in what we’re doing.”
“We feel that this is a very valuable community service. So in our minds, before we all walk away, we wanted to go to the people and say, ‘is this something that you want here? and if so, maybe help us get it off the ground.”
On top of putting about 30 people out of work, the closure of Kamloops This Week also means the City of Kamloops will be without a physical newspaper for the first time since 1884.
People interested in supporting this new venture are being told to reach out by email.
