Newspapers knit small communities by keeping us in touch. Rodger Hanna’s family bought The Tweed News in 1964 – 60 years ago! At the time, it had been in publication since 1887, when it was founded and relocated from Tamworth by Jas. A. Orr and W.W. Little. Since then, Tweed’s local newspaper has seen tremendous changes with both the industry and technology, but what has kept this small- town paper going is its ability to innovate and adapt – due largely to the co-operative spirit of its current owner and staff.
Rodger Hanna, the paper’s owner and publisher, claims that he’s “just always been [t]here. It was a summer job when I was twelve, and after my father died in 1991, my mother, Ivy, and I took it over. She did the books and proofreading, and I just sort of fell into it.”
The paper has three full time employees; Shannon Binder and Lacy Meeks have been there for 16 and 17 years respectively, and Binder credits Hanna as being a “great boss” who is very supportive of family. Hanna and his employees function as a team who do everything collaboratively, but in many ways, they seem like a family. Roseann Trudeau has worked at The Tweed News for an impressive 41 years – beginning “when Rodger’s dad owned the place” – and she says “it’s been fun because I’ve been able to progress with it. I love the challenges and the stress of doing advertising, journalism, and circulation, but the greatest thing has been keeping up with the technology.”
The Tweed News is one of the last independent newspapers in Canada with roughly 3,000 paid subscriptions. Hanna says that “when [he] was a kid, we had printing presses on the premises and printed on site until the late 1980’s. We still have some of the old typeset. Then, for about twenty years, we moved the printing down the street to where Gaylord Hardwood Flooring is now. However, over the past ten years we have gone through four different printing houses, and we now print in Toronto. The goal now is simply trying to survive.”
And survival has meant change. In the beginning, type was set by hand and a few hundred copies were run off on a small Washington hand-press. The paper became known as The Tweed Weekly News and Hastings County Advertiser in 1900 when the name was changed by then publisher W. J. Taylor. In 1928, the paper absorbed Tweed’s other village newspaper, The Tweed Advocate. Today, the paper is one of the last holdouts from Postmedia’s conglomerate of provincial and national newspapers.
Hanna sees the role of the newspaper as something that “brings local information to the community, that it documents history, and creates some accountability.” Copies of the paper dating back to 1932 are stored on the premises, and older copies dating back to 1887 can be found at the Tweed & Area Heritage Centre. The paper focuses on local events, service organizations, Council reports, “Bygone Days”, Classifieds, and sports – in particular, the Tweed Oil Kings, Tweed’s OESHL hockey team – as well as editorials and columns by local contributors. The paper’s regular contributors currently include the Tweed & Area Heritage Centre, “Naturally” by George Thomson and Elizabeth Churcher, and an art column by Paul Kite from Quinn’s of Tweed. The publication aims to “be positive and non-controversial because we all live in the area,” says Hanna. And anyone can submit a “Letter to the Editor.”
However, Hanna says that the paper would not have survived without side-line printing, which “helps to pay the bills,” together with a gift shop. Tweed News Publishing Company prints flyers, posters, wedding invitations and booklets which is an important service in a small town. As well, its storefront gift shop is currently the only one in the village and it hosts a wide range of office supplies, creative giftware, books, art supplies, clothing, furniture, and décor items.
Hanna says that, “we’ll be 140 in three years, and I’d like to think that we’ll get there.” The future of locally owned independent newspapers is a precarious one given current trends and financial pressures, but the owner and staff of The Tweed News are committed, entrepreneurial, and resilient. Supporting local journalism is a key to maintaining a healthy community voice and a local cultural mainstay.
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