Restart the presses! Nunatsiaq News is back in print!
After almost three years of interruption, the print edition of this newspaper returns this week.
We temporarily ceased publishing the print edition in March 2020, shortly after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. This upside down period is best summed up by the word “pivot”.
Businesses, governments, community organizations and individuals have been forced to change what they do and how they do it.
Nunatsiaq News received a triple whammy. The print shop we used reduced production and eventually closed during the pandemic.
It became more difficult and more expensive to ship newspapers as Canadian North reduced flights and shipped only essential goods.
And the newspaper’s distribution in the North became unpredictable as everyone was encouraged to stay home and practice social distancing to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Hopefully it all fades from the history books now. Life in the North and across Canada is starting to look more like it did before the pandemic.
That’s why it’s time to bring back the print edition of Nunatsiaq News.
It is a happy coincidence that we are able to reach this milestone as the newspaper begins to celebrate its 50e birthday in February.
So much has changed since 2020. Like everyone else, we’ve learned a lot about how to do things differently.
It is clear that readers have chosen to put their news online. The news industry was heading in this direction before COVID-19, but the pandemic has accelerated and deepened this shift.
Readers have shown a preference for information delivered instantly, and our ability to do so has refined as we have invested in our website and email distribution.
Our website – which was updated approximately eight months into the pandemic – continues to be where readers in Nunavut, Nunavik and southern Canada turn for the latest information on the North. . . We are proud to say that it won the Best Website category at the Quebec Community Newspaper Association’s annual awards for 2020 and 2021.
Social media, in particular Facebook, is the medium by which more and more of our readers consult Nunatsiaq News.
And the number of people who subscribe to our free e-edition and receive a PDF version of the document delivered to their inbox every Friday morning continues to grow.
But there are still plenty of readers who love the tradition of an ink-on-paper journal…perhaps with a cup of coffee in hand, as an indulgence during their busy days.
Thus, our print edition returns as a tool used by Nunatsiaq News to keep its readers informed and entertained.
It will be slightly different than it was before the pandemic. Instead of newsprint, it will be printed on bond paper and it will be slightly smaller than the old tabloid look from three years ago.
The distribution will also be a little different, with newspapers appearing in Iqaluit, Rankin Inlet, Cambridge Bay, Pangnirtung, Kuujjuaq and Ottawa…to start.
Readers told us they missed the print edition after going on hiatus in 2020.
We think the return of the print edition this week will make you feel like you’re reconnecting with an old friend you haven’t seen in a while. You realize how much you missed them. You realize they have changed, and you have changed.
But despite all the time that has passed, you are happy to see them again.
#friend #Nunatsiaq #News
