You’ll pay for news that matters, to you.

The push is on to hire those reporters on P.E.I. Good news. Now let’s hope those reporters are set free to dig into the stories affecting Islanders.

The page came over the intercom around 9 a.m.

“It’s Dave on line one.” I grabbed the phone. We need to make sure everyone’s in the office right away, he said.

I tried to interrupt.

And the printing crew.

That includes the printing crew.

I tried again.

We need to start thinking about a special edition. I couldn’t take it any longer. “Dave,” I said, talking over him. “Everyone’s here. Dave. Just say yes.”

I’ll clean up the language just a touch.

“Heck, yes.”

It was Friday, Nov. 24, 1989. Serial killer Allan Legere had been captured just a few hours earlier. When the phone rang at that pre-dawn hour I’d leaped out of bed. They got him, said the voice on the other end of the line.

After a quick stop at the RCMP station in the vain hope I’d see something, I hurried to the office and began planning a special edition. Even though I didn’t have permission from the publisher. I knew I’d get it.

A 20-page paper went to press that evening. It won a national award. And in the few hours they had to sell ads, the sales staff sold enough to ensure the section made money.

Covering the news that matters to people always gave me a rush. I hope the federal government money now pouring into Island papers will help provide a new burst of that here.

The government has fired up something called the Local Journalism Initiative.

“LJI supports the creation of original civic journalism that covers the diverse needs of underserved communities across Canada,” says the government. “Funding is available to eligible Canadian media organizations to hire journalists or pay freelance journalists to produce civic journalism for underserved communities.”

The push is on to hire those reporters on P.E.I.

Good news. Now let’s hope those reporters are set free to dig into the stories affecting Islanders.

Covering local meetings, ignored until now because of a lack of staff, is a start.

But reporter time is like gold. It’s precious. Doing stories that force politicians to react is more powerful than just covering meetings.

My marching orders when I was hired as an editor were simple - pick fights with those who deserved it.

A chemical company was polluting land and threatening a fishery. We spent months reporting on it, alone, while no one else paid any attention. The cleanup cost the company millions.

The provincial government claimed our local unemployment rate during the worst of the 1980s was about 10 per cent. We spent a week or more digging out the real figure - 54 per cent.

The economic development minister, a local MLA, called in rage.

“You’ll never get another story from me,” he snarled. I pointed out we’d never gotten a story from him before.

A federal cabinet minister was coming to town and the handler planning the trip called, rhyming off the many places he’d be that day. Places our reporter could be to cover the visit.

“Is there an announcement?” I asked.

There wasn’t. It was a preelection press-the-flesh trip.

“If there’s no news, we won’t be there,” I said. And we didn’t go.

Here’s hoping those new reporters start producing stories you have to read, because if they do, I’m convinced you’ll pay to read them. That’s the future of the news.