Whitehorse, YT – After 124 years of local journalism, the Whitehorse Star announced that they would cease publication after their May 17th issue, spurring one ex-Star reporter to craft a survey and Facebook group and launch efforts to ‘Save the Star.’
The decision comes at a time when many local publications across the country are shuttering or restructuring due to low advertising dollars and a public shift away from traditional news mediums towards online formats.
Max Fraser worked as a reporter and editor at the Whitehorse Star in the 1970s and was recently involved in conversations with the publication about how to address challenges pressing the paper. These discussions last winter centered around the issues that ultimately led to the Star’s decision to close up, namely low advertising revenue.
Following the Star’s decision, Fraser started a public survey and a Facebook group called ‘Save the Star’ in order to gauge community support for saving the publication. Within 36 hours, over 400 people completed the survey and over 500 people had joined the Facebook group indicating a strong interest in saving the newspaper.
“On the strength of that, we’re going ahead with an Indiegogo fundraising campaign on Friday,” said Fraser. “The goal will be to raise enough revenue to purchase the paper and have the working capital we need to earn the confidence and to offer employment to Star staff to carry on.”
Plan A is to raise the money to buy the paper and carry on operating as the Whitehorse Star only with a modified business model in hopes of boosting advertising dollars through a more digital medium. If that plan doesn’t work, Plan B is to rebuild the paper as the Yukon Star and reinvent the local journalism the Star is known for in both print and digital formats.
Conditional job offers have been made to the existing staff at the Star in hopes of involving them in a potential future Whitehorse Star or re-imagined Yukon Star.
“In the Yukon, people are generous. Anytime there’s a crisis kind of situation, whether somebody’s home was burned down, or some other kind of tragedy happened, there’s an immediate response, that’s generous,” said Fraser. “I’m counting on the public in this situation to save the Star.”
The closure of the Whitehorse Star would not only mean the end of a lengthy history of community-based coverage but would also mean the end of a platform for amplifying local voices which play an important role in the Yukon community according to Fraser.
“It’s part of the social fabric of the Yukon,” said Fraser. “The Star needs to keep shining brightly in the future for our democracy to thrive and for our community to have a good reflection of itself.”
Although there wasn’t a specific fundraising goal set during the time of publication Fraser says that we’ll know by May 1st if his efforts to ‘Save the Star,’ bring more life to one of the territory’s oldest publications.
“If we lose this opportunity, we will lose the Whitehorse Star.”
