Feature Article January 30, 2002
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Whither the Gazette?by Jeff GreenWhatever happened to the Frontenac Gazette?
I dont know how much interest Frontenac News readers take in the Gazette. It is delivered throughout the south and central parts of our distribution area. However, as a volunteer with The News for the last year and a half, I took great interest in what the competition was up to.
The Frontenac Gazette came into existence at precisely the same time Sara Carpenter and David Brison took over here at The News, and thwere has been a kind of quiet little newspaper war ever since. I will go into that history in a bit; but first things first, where is the Gazette?
This January, our mailboxes, and fireboxes, have been filled on Tuesdays with The Kingston Heritage. Buried near the back of the Heritage, The Frontenac Gazette banner can be found, above a lonely article about Sharbot Lake or Verona. That is how important the rural outback, which seems to be all points north of the 401 highway, is to the publishers of The Herald or Gazette, or whatever they want to call it this week.
I doubt if The Gazette is really gone, however. I think they are just retrenching, saving money by hiding out until advertising revenue picks up later in the year. It is no easier for The News to meet its expenses at this time of year than it is for The Gazette, but there are still stories to be told, and we are doing our best to tell them year-round.
I am reminded of the circumstances surrounding the sale of The News to David and Sara. At that time, there was a competing bid for the paper, from the Cembal publishing group out of Marmora, publishers of the Land O Lakes Sun and The Kingston Heritage, which at that time included a four-page insert called The South Frontenac Gazette.
Board members of North Frontenac Community Services (NFCS), the owner of The News at that time, received many phone calls from concerned readers, urging them to accept David and Saras offer over the Cembal groups, because they believed the Cembal group was only interested in purchasing a market, whereas Sara and David lived locally, and were committed to building a community newspaper.
As soon as their offer for The News was rejected, the Cembal group began publishing The Frontenac Gazette. Sometimes it is a stand-alone paper; sometimes it is a four-page paper with material from The Heritage filling it out. While there is nothing wrong with the journalism within its pages, and nothing wrong with sending a free paper to peoples mailboxes, it has become obvious over the past year and a half, in my unbiased view, that NFCS made the right decision.
The Frontenac News, for all its weaknesses, is devoted to publishing articles by and about the communities in its distribution area. This is made possible through the commitment and courtesy of its advertisers, who have a stake in the community as well.
It doesnt really matter why an article is written; articles are either interesting and informative, or they are not. However, it does matter if a weekly newspaper is committed to publishing weekly, and if a community newspaper is committed to the community it purports to serve. The Frontenac News takes a break for two weeks a year, over Christmas and New Years, but we publish on the other 50 Wednesdays, no matter what.
I dont know if you found a Frontenac Gazette in your mailbox on Tuesday of this week; you might have, but then again.
How can you trust a newspaper if youre not even sure its going to be published from week to week?
