In Our Opinion: Sustainable newspapers and truth

This past Friday, the first TEDx event was held in Prince Rupert, where six speakers presented their ideas around a central theme — sustainability.

From how local government can solve global problems, to a sustainable seafood industry, the speakers pointed to grassroots solutions.

Collectively, The Northern View team nodded our heads, and thought, yep we covered that.

But then we began to wonder what we would have said on that stage.

While Blair Mirau said it about municipal government being treated like a child by the big provincial and federal governments, we have been treated as though our industry is dying the moment social media, and government or industry controlled communications departments were formed.

READ MORE: Memorable quotes, moments, from Prince Rupert’s first TEDx

“How do you stay relevant?” Someone asked a certain editor recently.

As the Fourth Estate (the first three, historically, are the clergy, the nobility, a.k.a. government and the commoners) community papers play a vital role in democracy. It is our mandate to hold those three estates accountable.

Sure you have bloggers or Facebook groups that purport to tell you what’s going on, generally information they gleaned second hand or from our pages or online reporting and then slanting it to fit their agenda.

You don’t see them at a council meeting or pounding the pavement to get to their next interview on the other side of town or to cover a community event.

READ MORE: Indigenous-owned sustainable scallop farm gets licence

But that’s what we’re doing because our agenda is to provide, fair balanced and accurate information all over the North Coast at the grassroots level.

That is how we stay relevant.

That is how we stay sustainable.

We are the boots on the ground doing what Google and Facebook and an untrained, often biased citizen behind a keyboard, cannot.

Providing trusted information about all the important things throughout the North Coast both in print and online.