A lot can change in a small community over the course of 13 years.
The same can be said for the news industry.
Hi, there. My name is Jessica Owen, and I’m a reporter with CollingwoodToday, one of Village Media’s 20 owned and operated news sites. To celebrate the launch of PelhamToday, I wanted to share some of my experiences, as Pelham is my hometown and I got my start in journalism there.
My family moved to Fonthill in 1992 because my dad got a job in Welland. I was seven years old at the time.
I went to elementary school at St. Alexander’s on Highway 20. Or is it Canboro Road? I was still living in Fonthill when talk was going on about that specific section of road being misnamed all along, although I was too young at the time to grasp what was going on.
After high school and at the beginning of my university/college years — first for film and TV and later for print journalism at Niagara College — I worked at Top Titles Video at first when it was a free-standing store, and later when it moved to the strip plaza on the same street that also housed the Avondale.
I also spent one summer working as a student in the Town of Pelham’s public works department to help pay for my schooling. I weeded community gardens, mowed local cemeteries, and did traffic control for major road projects. I highly recommend the experience to any student I come across because it provided me with an insider perspective into how this very important department works behind the scenes and, as an adult, I understand more about how my taxpayer dollars are spent.
I remember when the small local newspaper launched in Pelham 25-plus years ago, and there was a contest to name it. If I remember correctly, the winning entry was the Pulse of Pelham, but it quietly changed its name to the Voice later.
Shortly after graduating from journalism school in 2009, I saw a job posting pop up for an interim editor of the Voice, to fill in for a maternity leave for then-editor Sarah Murrell. I applied, hoping for the best, and to my surprise I got the job.
At that time, the Voice was housed in the strip mall across the street from Sobeys.
It was a steep learning curve. At that time, the job was a one-person show, where the editor was responsible to write all stories, collect all submitted content, organize the advertisements, and lay out the paper weekly. There was an office manager, an ad designer, and an advertising sales representative, who were all very kind and helpful if I had any questions.
I spent only a week with Sarah learning the ropes before she left, but I’ve always been the kind of person who thrives without much oversight so I made my way through my time there and hopefully gave the community interesting news.
I remember being proud to work at the paper, as it was known as being one of the last newspapers in Ontario that was not owned by a legacy media company. I recall at that time it was overseen by a board of about 50 shareholders who all contributed to operational costs. Some of them weren’t known even to staff, so I always kept in mind that anyone I interviewed could, theoretically, be a member of the board or a shareholder.
When reflecting on the experience, it was an excellent first job in journalism because I learned a little bit about how each department at a newspaper worked. However, I remember at the time thinking I wanted to move into bigger newsrooms — although still local — because I craved mentorship. I wanted to work with other news people who had 10, 20 or 30 years of experience in the industry so I could learn and grow as a reporter.
And learn, I did.
After my time at the Voice, I continued my journalism journey, making newsroom stops at major print papers across Ontario including the Niagara Falls Review, Brockville Recorder & Times, the Barrie Examiner, Orillia Packet & Times, Bradford Times, Innisfil Times, and the Enterprise-Bulletin in Collingwood.
In 2017, all five of the Simcoe County newspapers I helped to oversee as an editor were closed abruptly. It was very sad, but I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a working journalist in Ontario today who hasn’t been laid off at least once during their career.
However, legacy media’s loss became Village Media’s gain.
I started freelancing for Village covering court in Simcoe County in 2018. In May of that year, I was hired full-time as a regional reporter covering features and news in communities across Simcoe County. At that time, the company had less than 50 editorial employees and operated mostly in small northern communities such as Sault Ste. Marie, Timmins, and North Bay.
Village scooped up many of my newspaper colleagues who had been laid off due to the closures, and has opened online newspapers in Orillia, Bradford, Innisfil, Midland, and Collingwood, making us a strong news presence in Simcoe.
When I saw later that Village was expanding to Thorold, I noted how close it was to home. About two weeks ago, I learned that not only was PelhamToday launching, but that the staff of the Voice would be running it.
My parents left Fonthill and moved to a retirement community in Welland about three years ago, so even when I come home to visit them I don’t tend to travel through Fonthill. However, there was one visit a couple of years back where the weather was bad and there was a collision on the 406, so I took the Victoria Avenue exit from the QEW and drove through Fonthill to get there.
The town has changed significantly, but the bones are similar. I drove past the former Keith’s Restaurant at the main intersection and noted the building now housed an insurance company.
I think it’s important to grow and evolve—whether you’re talking about the landscape of a small town that may have given you your values and warm, fuzzy memories that carry you through your life, or an industry that may be moving from a medium such as print to an online format.
While small communities — and the newspaper industry in general — may face significant changes over time, I think it’s important to embrace those changes, while also keeping in mind your roots and foundational skills that got you there. All those things combined will make you a better person, industry, or town.
All that being said, I’m happy to see Mossimo’s is still there. Honestly, it’s still the best pizza I’ve ever had.
Jessica Owen is a reporter with CollingwoodToday, but has fond childhood memories of watching fireworks annually on Canada Day at Harold Black Park.
