Its parent company, Postmedia, announced today that the Pembroke Daily Observer will cease to exist as of July 28, 2018, thus bringing to an end a local institution after 163 years.
This closure follows the similar fate of 41 Postmedia newspapers in Ontario at the end of last year. Unifor, the journalists’ union, accused it of making the move in order to pay down its debt. It said,
Now another historic Canadian newspaper will die and proud Pembroke will face the threat of becoming a local news desert.
The earlier axings followed the two media giants, Torstar and Postmedia, swapping ownership of a large number of their newspaper properties. Postmedia CEO, Paul Godfrey, justified the action at the time by saying,
However, the continuing costs of producing dozens of small community newspapers in these regions in the face of significantly declining advertising revenues means that most of these operations no longer have viable business models.
Postmedia announced that it will maintain an online news presence as well as the weekly Pembroke News. The closure will result in the loss of four jobs.
