By Rick VanSickle
I’m sorry, but this story has nothing to do with wine. It’s far more important than that. It’s about the death of a newspaper and a story that only I can tell in the only place I can tell it.
I was there the day the Whitehorse Star died. I was at the epicentre of the final week, the final edition, the silencing of the roaring presses for the final run after 124 years. I saw the tears, I hugged along with everyone else. And when there was nothing left to do, after all the tears, we laughed, oh, boy, did we laugh.
This is not a story about me, I’m just a storyteller who happens to have a unique perspective on a momentous event. This is about people displaced, a craft that is dying, and communities across this county that are losing the most fundamental pinnacle of a democratic society — access to unfettered, independent journalism.
Newspapers are closing all around us, that is not news. They will all soon be gone, at least in the physical iteration that they once were. There was a time that every small to medium sized town across this country had a web printing press (or two, as was the case in Whitehorse), spitting out the daily news, entertainment, opinion, sports, and advertising.
Ink on paper was the vehicle that brought the news, independently reported on by talented journalists, photographers, and opinion writers with a team behind them that designed the pages, proofread them, hustled for advertising, and got them to your corner store and even your doorstep.
Those were heady times, and looking back, we took them for granted, we did not see the end coming. But let’s face it if the Whitehorse Star can’t make it work anymore, no one can.
Countdown to the end …
I left a folder on the desktop of the Macintosh computer the Whitehorse Star assigned me as I helped them in their final week of publishing a paper forever. It’s titled VAN SICKLE alias. It contains the 24 feature length stories I was tasked with editing, sourcing art (photos), and writing headlines and cutlines as the Star pushed hard for a special final edition. It contained heartfelt reminiscences from former employees and writers for the Whitehorse Star and those who made it to the end of days. It was a poignant body of work that spanned decades of experiences with tributes only those who were there could write. It was a snapshot of the Yukon from those of us who were there.
It is not likely that folder will ever be opened by anyone again, but it’s there just in case. The desktop Macs will soon be gone, repurposed for a healthier business. The desks, the very same ones I sat at it a quarter century ago, will be sold, filing cabinets will be gone, layout desks hauled to the dump or chopped up for firewood … all of it will be dispatched in the coming weeks, including a Goss Community web press that no longer has a reason for existing that will likely sold for scrap metal. All that will remain will be the ghosts of an industry on life support.
I was taken aback by the diminished size of the papers in the waning days, the once bustling but now empty newsroom, the soul-crushing limited staff who hung on until the very end. There was Jim Butler, (above with me after the final edition was printed) the longest serving continuous editor of a newspaper that I know of, Michele, Melanie and Jessica Pierce, the final co-owners of the Star who did everything they could, including dipping into their own pockets to keep the paper running. There was Vince Fedoroff, a legend in Whitehorse and one of the best photographers I have ever worked with (and I’ve worked with some of the best), Don Campbell, the head pressman whose job I once had before moving to the newsroom, Judy Gibbons and Micky Morgan in advertising, Joni Pierce, John Stuckey, Audrey Lougheed, Denise Gibbs, Marlene Hyssop and Xlu Yun Leung in the circulation department, Chuck Tobin, the last and recently retired reporter, Elena Kozhevikova, production assistant, Morris Prokop, sports editor, Eric Murphy, wire editor, and, last but not least, Rhonda Glenn, the ever-smiling receptionist, who was the friendly first line of defence before anyone got into the building (including me).
They are forever remembered in a full-page tribute in the last edition of the paper printed on May 17, 2024, 124 years after the first paper was published in the year 1900.
They will disperse, they have dispersed, and while some have found new work unrelated to newspapers, others will enjoy some downtime and figure out the road forward after the jobs they once had are gone and never coming back.
Five former employees, including Butler, are joining a new online publication called the Yukon Star founded by former Star editor Max Fraser that is attempting to rise from the ashes of the Whitehorse Star with an online/paper hybrid product. It’s an ambitious plan with the right people behind it, but it can never be the same as ink on paper. It can never employ the number of people that were needed to produce a newspaper every day. It’s to be seen if it can cover the news like the Star covered it when advertising was robust and there were reporters aplenty to cover it all.
In the final week, shockingly, there was only Butler, the wire editor and the sports editor left to cover the capital city of Whitehorse and the entire Yukon territory. Butler put in long days doing his job, which in the waning months of the paper’s existence after Tobin retired, included editing copy (mostly his own), covering city hall on Monday nights, the Legislature, courts, breaking news from wherever, answering newsroom phones, planning the day’s editorial coverage, writing the editorial, plotting out the final edition and every other detail big and small that goes into every edition. He was superman but without the cape, operating out of the same corner office for most of his 43 years. I deeply respect and admire Butler’s tenacity to see the Whitehorse Star through to the end. I do not see how he did it, how he kept his cool, and wrote so eloquently down to his last words. It’s easy to get depressed, to be jaded, to be void of joy, but Butler took it the finish line with dignity and respect to his trade, one that is on the fast track to oblivion.
There were moments of levity in the final week as many former employees flew into Whitehorse to offer both help and, perhaps more importantly, support those who worked so hard to keep the Star alive. There were those ubiquitous stories of the “glory” days, confessions of long-ago forgotten shenanigans, the yelling and screaming that goes hand-in-hand with a deadline driven publication. And, of course, the beers, mostly near-beer now, once the paper rolled off the press.
It’s the tangibles that will be missed most for my former colleagues at the Star. The smell of ink on paper, the thrill of cracking open a freshly printed newspaper, the anticipation of turning the pages and seeing your byline. The scoops, the spectacular photos, a perfectly in-register full colour ad, the silence that follows deadline when the phones go dead and, well, proudly walking the streets of Whitehorse with a spring in your step knowing you gave it your all for your community. The good, the bad and the ugly.
The slow erosion of community newspapers is almost complete now. The Star is the proverbial canary in a coal mine. No one thought it would ever fold, especially not the current co-owners who inherited the venerable paper from their mother, Jackie Pierce. Jackie bought the paper from Paul Erlam, who was in Whitehorse with his wife Maryann (another ex-Star staffer), for the final days last week. He inherited the paper from his father and mother, Bob and Rusty Erlam. Bob and Rusty bought it from Harry Boyle … and on down the line all the way back to 1900. It’s all too much to comprehend, it’s too soon for all of them.
Newspapers, the ones still around, are being replaced by online publications. Its core readers are getting old now and the next generation gets their information elsewhere. Advertisers have been fleeing these antiquated sinking ships for years.
Editors, photographers, graphic designers, entertainment and lifestyle writers, circulation employees, press workers — they have all been replaced by technology and all-purpose reporters who spend more time creating videos, taking their own photos, posting for immediacy and not necessarily context, research, and balance than they do on the substance of the story. And, sadly, they are working in isolation — writing from home offices void of the banter, camaraderie, and the inspiration a newsroom brings to the table.
There is no time anymore for institutional reporting. Reporters are being guided away from city hall meetings, leaving bureaucracies unchecked. They don’t have time for trials where punishment is doled out as a deterrent for would-be criminals to think twice before committing a crime. Provincial governments are doing their bidding without scrutiny, passing laws without media opposition from the very people who pay them their salaries — us.
We are near the end for newspapers; gone, too, will be assigning reporters and photographers to spending weeks or even months on a special project that would run over several days as a series and keep readers spell-bound and eagerly anticipating the next part. Investigative reporting is all but exclusive to only a few daily newspapers still barely hanging on in this country. Diverging opinions on the op-ed pages will be null and void and if online publications even allow for freedom of expressive, it will likely either be small the “c” conservative or small “l” liberal readers it chases, choosing extremes rather than diversity. It’s where we’re going, hell, where we’ve gone, and there is no turning back.
Where it began …
I’m one of the fortunate ones. I lucked into a job at the Whitehorse Star. I was there at the right time when I chose journalism as the career I wanted and knocked on the door of the Whitehorse Star. Of course, they weren’t about to hire a 23-year-old with no experience as a reporter, but they did need help in the presses. I took the job offered to me by Paul Erlam, worked my way up to head pressman, offered to write about amateur sports “for free” at night, listened and learned from my editor at the time, Jim Beebe, and finally made it to my dream job; I was a reporter, then sports and entertainment editor at the Whitehorse Star. This was from 1978-1985 with a little time spent across the street at the Yukon News, a freelance gig at CBC Radio in Whitehorse, a few trips south to test the waters, and finally getting my next big break in 1986 when I was hired by the Toronto Sun to work on the copy desk.
That took me to 20 years at three different Sun papers, 10 of those at the Ottawa Sun, where I ultimately became editor in chief. I spent a few more years after the Sun at the St. Catharines Standard and finally, as newspapers were beginning their slow, torturous decline, at a Postmedia “sweat shop” office in Hamilton editing pages for various newspapers across the country from my basement in St. Catharines.
I saw the best of times, a million-dollar budget in Ottawa with 50 staff, and the worst of times, part of a team that replaced editors across the country and putting out papers in cities we knew nothing about. It should be noted that the Ottawa Sun no longer has its own newsroom, or its own press or its only building and has a fraction of the number of editorial employees it once had.
I booked my flight to Whitehorse almost immediately after hearing the Star was closing. I offered to help my friends Jim Butler, Vince Fedoroff and the Pierce family with whatever they needed doing. It was my privilege, my honour, my responsibility and the least I could for a newspaper that gave me everything, for a community that embraced me, nurtured me and gave me wings to pursue that in which I always wanted to do from the moment I heard Paul Koring (Globe and Mail, and back then the publisher of a hard-hitting but short-lived Whitehorse newspaper) talk about the noble pursuit of journalism after he came to the Carcross Community Education Centre, where I finished high school.
How it went …
I retired from newspapers the day the first wave of COVID lockdowns were announced in 2020. Prior to that, the last time I worked in an actual newsroom was for Postmedia around 2018 as my job did not require me to be in an office.
While the Star newsroom was quiet, primarily just Butler and I there during the final week for news. It was busy and eerily routine for the Monday and Wednesday papers. There were a lot of quiet conversations, some sadness for what was about to happen, but if not for a documentary camera crew in the building filming every conversation and interviewing the employees still left at the Star, it was business as usual.
As we approached Friday and the last run, tempo built, more people arrived from out of town, all those who had some connection with the paper wandered in to say hello, past employees and relatives of those still there got one more look at an institution that stood for 124 years. I kept my head down, did the editor’s bidding, and spent full days at the Star, my own private alma mater, my everything, just like I had nearly 40 years ago. Not much had changed in the newsroom. The desks were the same, the offices were the same, the dark room was gone, of course, and the presses had grown by a couple more units to gain more colour capabilities. It was missing Linda Burns, the former production manager who was the spark that kept the paper hopping in those days. She, too, flew up to Whitehorse for the final issue, and arrived last Thursday.
Many of us were interviewed by the CBC (have a listen here to this interview with me, Andrew Gregg and Burns, who all came back to Whitehorse to lend support), or the Yukon News or the film crew already imbedded in the Star.
By Friday, there were only a few live wire pages to build, a couple of sports pages to complete and two or three local pages remaining to deal with before the big one — Page One — was proofed and sent to press. The paper was a whopper, a 72-pager that took three runs of the press to complete and chock full of advertisers thanking the Star for its body of work over all those years of printing the local news (where were when you were needed??).
When the button was pushed by pressman Don Campbell there were more tears shed and a crowd had gathered to see that big old reliable Goss Community rumble into action for one more shot at glory. It was surreal, this rock of the community, this wonderful institution that never missed a day of publishing in all its iterations, had one left to give, and it gave.
The Piece family had bubbly, beer, seltzers, pop, and no-alcohol drinks waiting upstairs as the final papers were spit out. There were toasts, there were speeches, there were more hugs and more tears … and that was that. It was over for good, at least for the Whitehorse Star and the way most Yukoners would consume local news.
It’s not the end, of course, for all news. The Yukon News is still publishing, but long ago was purchased by Black Press after local owners sold it. It’s no longer printed in Whitehorse and is now outsourced. There is the new Yukon Star that vows to pay employees more than they made at the Star and was to begin online publishing this week with a hard copy newspaper every Friday. And CBC is still very much covering Whitehorse and the territory, along with a few Indigenous publications. But that ink on paper and a roaring press, that’s a tough one to match. A newsroom working in some kind synchronized chaos, the thrill of deadlines, scooping the competition, and that cold beer after a hard day’s work with colleagues … that’s where it will hit you in the gut once the dust settles. I can already feel it and I haven’t worked there since 1985.
If a picture is worth a thousand words …
The photo on the front of the final edition is perfect. It’s one of the few times in the history of the Star that they made themselves the story of the day. The photo is a collection of current (as of last Friday) employees and past employees from the Yukon and those who flew from as far away as Toronto and Vancouver to be in Whitehorse for the final edition. The banner headline, END OF AN ERA in all caps is a departure from the norm for the Star, but puts a perfect punctuation point on exactly the right way to say it. It was pondered over, debated, every key stroke proofed over and over until all were satisfied it was perfect. And it was. As the papers began rolling off the press, readers were lining up to buy dozens of copies at a time. They will be passed down to later generations until they begin to turn yellow and fade with time. I don’t know how the website will be kept up, if at all, but the Whitehorse Star will eventually be a footnote in history. And that is the tragedy here, not brought on by anything the last caretakers or its staff did, but precipitated by a world that no longer values independent thought or publications that speak truth to power. They want news tailored to them, to their thoughts and politic bent, and they want news that caters to the way they think, their ideology. If you ask me, that’s a slippery slope to a whole world of trouble.
Here are the names of every person on the front page of the final edition of the Whitehorse Star taken by Alistair Maitland just hours before the 124-year-old institution’s final edition rolled off the press. In no particular order: Jim Butler, Vince Fedoroff, Chuck Tobin, Pat Wilson, Sheila Matechuk, Rhonda Glenn, Eric Murphy, Morris Prokop, Elena Kozhevnikova, Don Campbell, Melanie Pierce, Joni Pierce, Michele Pierce, John Stuckey, JJ Stuckey, Haiden Stuckey, Corinne Shepheard, Robbie Stuckey, Tashia Stuckey, Remi Stuckey, Brooks Stuckey, Judy Gibbons, Shawn Pierce, Quinn Pierce, Maryanne Erlam, Paul Erlam, Rick VanSickle, Dave White, Leighann Chalykoff, Bernie Adilman, Jean Jobagy, Audrey Rousseau, Stephanie Waddell, John Tonin, Gabby Plonka, Mickey Morgan, Lucretia Flemming, Darla Hansen, Cathie Archbould, Marsha Flood, Patti Flather, Sherryl Yeager, Pat Martin, Becky Duncan, Audrey Rousseau, Chris Caldwell, Aaron Naylor, Peter Johns, Linda Burns, Andrew Gregg, Max Leighton, Lewis Leighton, Denise Gibbs, Naomi Blindheim, Trevor Mead-Robbins, Geof Harries and Jeff Brady.
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