Opinion: A turning point for local media and what comes next

Your weekly opinion column by owner/founder of Border Pulse – Dan Gray

This is a difficult week for the region.

It marks the moment many communities across Canada have already faced, the end of print news as we have known it.

I have spent nearly a decade writing about this shift, in columns, conversations and coverage across multiple communities. But today is not about rehashing that argument. It is about what comes next.

Because without the paper, I would not be here.

In July 2024, I was brought to Lloydminster to cover provincial issues on both sides of the border. I came with more than a decade of experience, including digital and breaking news, an opportunity to blend the old with the new.

For 15 months, I had the chance to learn this community. To understand how it ticks, what matters to people, what questions are being asked, and just as importantly, which ones are not.

While one reason was given at the time, it has become clear the layoffs that followed were driven by financial pressure, something many newsrooms across the country are facing.

Despite that, I remain grateful. That opportunity showed me something important, a gap in coverage that needed to be filled.

The Border Pulse was built from that realization.

At its core, it was simple. No one was consistently asking the questions that matter to working people, or delivering the information they actually want, when they need it.

That idea became the foundation for the region’s first hyper-local, digital-only information platform.

When I launched, I set what I thought was a realistic goal, 60,000 to 80,000 monthly views at five months in.

The community had other plans, and I am both extremely grateful and, at times, a little overwhelmed. The last 30 days alone have brought in more than 180,000 views.

Public-facing data now shows The Border Pulse as the region’s most consumed local digital news source. Behind the scenes, the numbers tell the same story, more than 650,000 page views, 14 million social views, approaching three million engagements and a growing audience of over 8,300 social media followers.

That growth does not happen without trust.

And it reinforces something many had started to doubt. There is still strong demand for boots on the ground journalism. For showing up. For asking the five W’s. For delivering information in as close to real time as possible.

I will always value my time at the Meridian Source. It played a role in bringing me here, and I genuinely wish them the best as they continue forward in a digital format.

But I want to be clear about something.

For all the times my suggestions were turned down, and for all the times I was told this would not work, that it could not compete, that it would not survive, I knew the landscape had already changed.

Because I had already seen what happens when you choose to ignore it. As I said at the start, I have read this book already.

What was once the region’s print paper is now becoming the second digital-only news organization in the region.

In my opinion, this community is unique. There is room for multiple voices, multiple platforms and multiple approaches to telling its stories.

Print may be gone, but local journalism is not.

If anything, it is evolving, and the future remains wide open.

Read more: Opinion – Why say thank-you