Positive changes for Niagara’s daily newspapers

As Niagara’s daily newspapers launch themselves into a new year, it’s perhaps fitting that we do so with a new outlook and approach to the task ahead.

The three dailies in Niagara — The Standard in St. Catharines, The Review in Niagara Falls and The Tribune in Welland — enter 2018 with a new ownership group in the form of Metroland/Torstar.

This isn’t the first time our newspapers have changed ownership hands — this is the fourth ownership change involving the Niagara newspapers in the past decade — but this time it is different.

In the past, a whole chain of newspapers went from one owner to another. This time the switchover has been more selective, with our new ownership choosing us specifically because of what we bring to them and what we can accomplish working with them as a team.

This is a positive development for our readers, as well as our owners.

It means there will be an increased emphasis on what’s made us the leading news sources in Niagara for the past 100 years and more.

We will continue to do what we’ve always done — provide insightful news coverage from across Niagara which in turn will be supplemented by the largest news organization covering southern Ontario, drawing on a new source of impressive columnists and writers. Our former industry foes at Niagara This Week will continue to provide friendly competition, but the new reality is we will both be able to strengthen what the other is doing going forward.

We will also be able to draw on news teams in Hamilton, Kitchener and Toronto we’ve never had access to before.

There will be other positive changes such as enhanced puzzle pages, new looks in both the print and web editions of our papers.

Our sports coverage, particularly of the OHL, will be strengthened as the Metroland staffs and columnists in other parts of Ontario join with us in covering the league.

The road ahead will be difficult as transitions of such magnitude are never easy, but the gains are clear.

With your continued support, our goal is to make the Niagara dailies an even more indispensable part of our readers’ lives.

We think 2018 will be a year to remember. — Angus Scott is editor-in-chief of Niagara’s daily newspapers.