So long, and thanks for all the stories

Winnipeg

They say that all good things must come to an end. In this case, the old adage has been proven true.

In 2022, the six weekly community papers — The Herald, The Lance, The Times, The Metro, The Sou’Wester, and The Headliner — were consolidated into the Free Press Community Review, with East and West editions published every Wednesday. That was a big change for many readers, plenty of whom still refer to the Community Review as The Herald (which had been publishing since 1917), The Lance (founded in 1931), or The Metro or The Times (both founded in 1973) to this day. For the past four-and-a-half years, we’ve worked hard every week to keep community stories arriving at your door each week, to keep that tradition of community journalism alive.

Last week, it was announced that the Free Press will no longer deliver flyer inserts to the more than 200,000 local households who receive them weekly. As a result, this week will also mark the last editions of the Free Press Community Review to hit your mailboxes.

The decision was made because of seismic changes to the flyer distribution business on not just a local but national level, making the business as it has operated for so long unsustainable.

Times change. We don’t have to like it, but that’s the way things go.

Yet the more things change, the more they stay the same. The Free Press remains committed to telling local stories, stories that are important to our community, both in the pages of the daily paper, and online.

As managing editor of the Community Review, I want to say a final thank you to all of the folks who have been with us along the way, supporting one of the largest community newspapers in the country for so long. Thank you for sharing your stories with us, so that we were able to share them with the community at large and keep a record of how our communities have changed, and the issues and events that were and remain important to the people who call this place home, over time.

Thank you to our staff, freelance contributors, delivery contractors, advertisers, and — last, but certainly not least — our readers.