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Editorial: News straight from the source

Exclusive: Murder charges are stayed in the death of an elderly Halfmoon Bay man. His widow, who had been charged in August with second-degree murder, is believed to now be in Germany.

Exclusive: Murder charges are stayed in the death of an elderly Halfmoon Bay man. His widow, who had been charged in August with second-degree murder, is believed to now be in Germany.

Exclusive: Three dogs are mauled by cougars in separate attacks in Langdale, Roberts Creek and Pender Harbour. It’s a miracle that all of the dogs survived.

Exclusive: Two Pender Harbour teens rescue a 90-year-old man who had been stranded on a logging road in his disabled SUV for three days. Fortunately, he had a copy of the Harbour Spiel to read and kept his cool throughout the ordeal.

Exclusive: A doctor at Gibsons Medical Clinic goes public with concerns that there will be a shortage of flu shots available in the community this season. Vancouver Coastal Health says local pharmacies will be able to handle the overflow, but now it’s on their radar because the public is aware …

We could go on, and frankly on, but the point is that you probably wouldn’t hear about these stories, and many others like them in a given week, except perhaps as unconfirmed rumours on social media, without your newspaper of record.

It’s National Newspaper Week, the one opportunity we take every year to toot our horn a bit as your source of information about the Sunshine Coast (along with our pals across the street at The Local) and to highlight some important realities.

Chief among those is that it’s not about us. It’s about the local businesses that support us with their advertising dollars and make it possible for you to receive content of the highest quality we can produce. They need your support because they face the same challenges the newspaper industry is struggling to overcome. For retailers, it’s online shopping from outfits like Amazon and Ebay. For newspapers, it’s Google and Facebook consuming 75 per cent of the online advertising revenue in Canada. These U.S.-based behemoths give back nothing to the community. Unlike your local merchants, they don’t pay property taxes or donate to sports teams or help the food bank or sponsor festivals. And they don’t cover the cost of staffing council meetings or all-candidates forums or art shows.

Think about that next time you have a purchase to make.

Our part is to inform you and keep you aware of what’s going on right here, right now. Keep the wonderful feedback coming. You can also go online to newspapersmatter.ca and consider signing the pledge – that is, if you think newspapers do matter.

And to paraphrase our favourite birdsmith, Tony Greenfield: Good reading.