After 22 years, The Express is going to close its doors
By The Nelson Daily Sports
By Bruce Fuhr, The Nelson Daily
Is this rumour true or just another Nelson Becker April Fool’s prank to create a buzz?
Unfortunately, this is not a prank and The Express will publish for the final time on Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2011 after 22 years of operation.
“It’s basically an economic situation,” Express publisher/owner Becker told The Nelson Daily Wednesday from his Heritage City home. “Right now I don’t have enough advertisers to make it feasible to continue publishing the paper.”
Express readers will notice there was no paper in the mail or at the newsstand Wednesday. Becker decided not to publish, and is currently working on two final editions.
“The next edition (Jan.19) is going to focus on the reasons why I’m closing and the final edition (Feb. 2) I’m going to throw it open to the community for open comments and letters.”
In the late 1980s, Becker got into the media industry with a monthly magazine called What’s On.
However, a short time later the one-man-publishing-machine went weekly with the Kootenay Express and then to The Express.
“I’m sad, but I’m not sad for myself I’m more sad for the community,” Becker, who would like to thank is many supporters, explained. “It’s not about me it’s about The Express serving the community so I’m sad for the community this can’t go on.”
The closing of The Express is the second major media outlet in Nelson to terminate operations in the last seven months.
In July 2010, the Nelson Daily News, formerly owned by Glacier Media Group, was sold to Black Press and quickly closed after 109 years — or 120 years, depending whether you count its earliest incarnation as the Nelson Miner.
“I’ve been thinking about this a long time, but it was Tuesday (Jan. 4) when I started telling people,” Becker said. “There were a lot of advertisers who supported The Express but it was the larger advertisers I couldn’t get, such as the car dealers, and when we lost the City of Nelson newsletter in a bidding process to the Nelson Star that represented a significant loss in revenue.”
Becker plans to remain in Nelson and, at this time, doesn’t know what he’d do with The Express office.
The decision by Becker leaves only one community newspaper in the Heritage City, the Black Press publication the Nelson Star, after The Express and the Nelson Daily News co-existed for 22 years.
However, there are two online publications filling the journalistic void, including The Nelson Daily of the Lone Sheep regional family, and former Express editor Chris Shepherd’s The Nelson Post.
But moving online is a direction Becker really doesn’t see himself heading.
“I really wanted to have the paper reach every household in the region,” Becker said. “That was my goal.”
And that’s no joke.
sports@thenelsondaily.com
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