Mailbag: How we define the Fraser Valley, firefighter coverage, and Highway 1 updates

To mark our second year (and just because it seemed like a fun thing to try), we recently asked our readers to send us their questions on whatever they want to ask about—be it journalism, The Current itself, or the topics we cover.

You delivered, with some great queries and some even better ideas. This was so fun, we’ll definitely try it again.

Readers asked about our Good Morning welcome message, Need-to-Know links to paywall articles, firefighting staffing levels, the future of journalism, Maple Ridge coverage and even our pets.

Why doesn’t my name appear in the address line anymore? (A couple people asked variations on this question.)

What are you talking about? The name totally appears in the address line!

Ok. Fine. We only just fixed this in direct response to your questions. We might not respond to each and every email and message people send our way, but we do read them all, and reader feedback has been instrumental in both the growth of The Current and inspiring us to make the reader experience as strong as possible.

Back to the names in the opening line. The reason they disappeared for a couple weeks provides a look behind the scenes at how things run here.

Until very recently, we used an email program (think of it as an Internet paperboy) that allowed us to add a custom bit of code that attached the name you gave us when subscribing in the greeting.

When we started, both Grace Kennedy and I thought it was kind of creepy. But that must have just been our journalistic cynicism showing because we heard that many of you enjoyed the personal touch. (Joti tells me she was in that group.)

Last month, however, we transitioned to a new email service. As part of that, the coding got changed and two crucial spaces got deleted, I’m told. Those spaces in the code are now back thanks to our wonder-coder and so are your names.

While we’re on the subject of our new platform, I’ve got one tip for you: Do you sometimes get an annoying pop-up on the website asking you to subscribe, even though you already do so? If you do—and in case we restrict certain stories in the future to just our wonderful subscribers—please go to the top-right part of our website, click the three white lines next to the subscribe button, and then go to ‘login.’ You’ll have to then send yourself a link and click that link in your email, but by doing so, our website will know to stop bugging you to subscribe.

Why not cover the low-firefighting budget in Chilliwack?

The simplest questions can lead one down huge rabbit holes. So let’s start with an unasked question that has a direct bearing on this: How do you find stories/how do you choose what stories to write?

This question occupies me more than any other. There are as many important, valuable stories as there are people in our region. We have a huge list of stories we want to write and questions we want to ask, and only so much time in the day to do so in a thorough, thoughtful way.

So it becomes a task of prioritization. We have five newsletters each week, and a large and hugely diverse region. We want to reflect the diversity of our community, and our readers’ varying interests. So we want to have a mix of newsy stories about how your city is changing, profiles of fascinating people, investigative looks at important topics (these take a ton of time!), and everything else under the sun. We need to do our best so that we have a good mix of stories about the various geographic, social, and cultural communities across our region.

The end goal is creating a publication where, if you don’t find something interesting one day, we want you to find something interesting the next. But that means that on a day-to-day basis, we end up prioritizing some stories over others and some topics over others. We want to get to them all, eventually, but it all takes time. If we focus on too many time-consuming stories at one time, we won’t have a feature story for a newsletter (or be able to weather an illness or vacation). If we try to do too many stories, it reduces the amount of time and care we could put into each one.

Anyways, the reader asked about firefighting.

The fact is, we have had a firefighting-spending story in the pipeline for probably a year or so. We want to compare the firefighting coverage and spending in each local community. But that requires getting statistics that are not easy to assemble, and compiling information on the very different funding models that different communities use. So the story has, occasionally, sat on the back burner.

But that’s not the only challenge. Firefighting is not just about fighting fires. Crews also spend huge amounts of time attending medical calls and providing other important rescue services. Some of those services, particularly medical calls, also draw a response from paramedics. But the ambulance system in BC has been under incredible stress. Cities and their fire crews have picked up the slack.

What that means is a truly comprehensive look at firefighting budgets and spending that should also look at our entire emergency rescue system, including the overlaps between what firefighters do and what paramedics do. (And maybe search and rescue personnel too.) This is a systemic issue, and that adds to the complexity.

So a story might be a while in coming yet, but hopefully we’ll get one done because it’s a perennial issue across the valley. (It’s also an issue that is specifically well-suited for a regional journalism approach that can allow for cross-community comparisons.)

Could you print traffic issues related to roadwork re: pipeline?

When we hear about them, we’ll try to include them in the newsletter!

Can you please do a story covering homeshare caregivers and clients?

I just Googled this to learn more! It sounds fascinating and is now on our list.

Edition #1 was about Hwy 1. Any updates?

I asked Transportation Minister Rob Fleming about it last fall. You can check out our story on part of the interview here. He spoke about the possible need to raise the highway between Sumas Way and Whatcom Road, and the fact that may change timelines. Otherwise he was cagey about the timelines.

For the purpose of this mailbag, though, I went back to the recording of our conversation for more.

Here’s what Fleming said: “We want to keep momentum going forward on the areas that we have scheduled for widening and improvement and new overhead infrastructure where we have crossings and intersections that need to be improved. So Glover Road, CP rail, and 232nd Street will be part of that. We're in the market right now with the construction industry to look at how that should be built. And it will inform all of the improvements that we want to make to the Trans Canada Highway through the Fraser Valley.”

I asked whether the 2025 timeline is still do-able and he kind of ducked, though he said that “certainly we can get out to Highway 11/Sumas [Way].” I could have tried to pin him down further, but we only had a limited amount of time.

We’ll keep you posted as we learn more. But I’m a proponent of common sense journalism and saying what is obvious: getting that highway widened through Abbotsford by 2025 seems highly unlikely given the various interchanges, the work currently underway, and how government timelines typically work.

Why do some links lead to a need for a subscription?

This is something I hear occasionally about. I have a multi-part answer.

If multiple outlets do a story on the same piece of news, we’ll try to link to one that doesn’t require a subscription.

But if the only place you can get a piece of news requires that subscription, we’re going to link to it. We could choose to not link to such pieces, but that would deprive some of your co-readers who have a subscription to that link. In general, we’ll always err on the side of providing a link over not doing so. Furthermore, each outlet has a slightly different paywall strategy. Many restrict you after you hit a certain number of stories. So even some readers without subscriptions might not encounter a barrier.

Paywalls also exist for a reason: journalism isn’t free to produce and revenue from readers is important so it can continue to exist. We will be rolling out our own membership program too that will restrict some (not a lot, but some) content to paying subscribers. That is so we can continue providing a newsletter that our readers value.

I understand that money is tight and everyone has to decide what to spend money on and what not to. You can’t buy a subscription to every news organization out there. But if you regularly hit a paywall, it’s worth considering why that paywall exists in the first place—and what might be lost if everyone continues to assume that journalism will always be free.

If you can afford to spend $5 tipping people each month for the service they provide, we would hope that we might be worthy of some of that support too.

Why don't you include Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows in your coverage? / Why isn’t there more information on Langley?

Alright! Let’s get into coverage areas. And fair warning: It’s probably going to be unsatisfying because there are some very concrete practicalities at play.

The Current roughly defines the Fraser Valley like this.

So essentially: everything between Hope and Abbotsford/Mission, plus Langley. (The bottom line on that circle should be a little lower and run along Vedder mountain and the US border.)

Some people call Delta/Surrey the Fraser Valley. That strikes the geographic stickler side of me as wrong because there is a very simple definition of “valley” that demands having hills or mountains on both sides. It also makes the Fraser Valley too Vancouver-centric and a less useful definition of a separate, cohesive region. If Surrey is the Fraser Valley, what would we call the valley part of the Fraser Valley?

From that map above, Langley is also definitely stretching the definition of valley. But it’s got clear cultural, political, and geographic ties to the Valley and, especially, Abbotsford—the region’s historically biggest city.

It’s still, though, on the border. There are, in many ways, two sides to Langley. There’s the Langley that is connected via Translink to Surrey and the rest of Metro Vancouver. It’s relatively easy to live in Langley and work in downtown Vancouver, so it’s a west-facing community whose residents often see themselves firmly as part of Vancouver.

There is also the east-facing Langley, with its ties, via Fraser Highway, to the Fraser Valley. This Langley has historic and cultural similarities to the Fraser Valley both dating back to the middle of the last century, and well beyond that. (The people of Kwantlen First Nation consider themselves Stó:lō, and the traditional territory of the Stó:lō lines up very closely with what we consider our coverage area to be.)

So Surrey is out. Langley is in. As for the amount of Langley content: I can guarantee you that it has definitely increased over the last year and a half since Joti, a former Langley Advance Times reporter, joined us.

But focusing on any one community is itself tricky, because we want the stories we write to interest readers in other communities too. Some Langley-specific stories are a little too Vancouver-centric. But there are also tons of stories that would definitely be relevant to those elsewhere in the valley.

Some of our coverage choices also come down to the fact that our readership is still mostly located in Abbotsford and Chilliwack and they often bring us story ideas. If you have a story about Langley—and especially about a Langley individual doing something interesting or with an interesting perspective—we’d love to hear it.

As for Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows, we don’t cover those communities partly because of the transit and governmental ties those areas have to Vancouver, rather than the Fraser Valley. While Maple Ridge definitely has key links to Langley and Mission, it’s otherwise relatively disconnected to the rest of the valley.

But the main reason is that we only have so much time and space, and every story we do about one topic or community is a story we aren’t doing about another topic or place. We can’t spread ourselves too thin because in trying to appeal to everyone, we could appeal to no one. One day, hopefully we can grow ourselves to the point where we can start providing coverage of Maple Ridge without subtracting from our reporting elsewhere. Right now, though, seven municipalities and 400,000-odd people is where we’ll have to draw the line.

Does anybody play Mahjong in the Fraser Valley?

I don’t know! If you have a Mahjong club in our coverage area drop us a line and we’ll post the information!

Are you going to change the vertical print? It's hard to read

We always want to make the publication as readable as possible. I’m not sure exactly what this was referring to, but if anyone has readability concerns, let us know (with specifics) and we’ll take a look. If you’re having trouble, others probably are as well.

Can you run something on the small houses in Abbotsford?

If this is in allusion to various tiny-home concepts, it’s something I definitely want to investigate further. If it’s about something else, drop us an email with some more information!

What is the purpose of the drilling on Highway 1 that has been going on?

I heard about this the other week. We’ll ask!

Have you considered doing a story about the unique town of Agassiz?

Oh my. We want to do small profiles of each community in our region, partly to introduce Grace to the full breadth of the valley. She was going to go to downtown Chilliwack this week but her car broke! We’ll get her to Agassiz soon.

[Can you] profile businesses where you can buy local products of any kind?

One of the perennial challenges of small-town journalism is deciding when and how to cover individual businesses. There are interesting stories behind every small business. But nearly every small business would love the exposure of media coverage, which makes it always tricky to decide just who to profile and when.

We generally stay away from business profiles, but if someone has a particularly compelling story to tell, we’d always be interested in hearing about it. The focus generally needs to be on the person, not the product.

Abbotsford trails: is there any chance that restrooms could be added?

Good question! On the list to ask about!

Bus service in Agassiz…

Grace recently wrote about the troubles Chilliwack has had in getting funding for a transit plan. I also know there was a Highway 7 connector bus in the works. That’s a good story to explore further. On the list!

Do you have a place for suggestions/kudos?

Great idea! On the to-do list!

How is Chilliwack preparing for its population growth/for rental housing?

Chilliwack has done a decent job in recent years of increasing its rental housing stock. I have a huge spreadsheet (that I desperately need to update) tracking home construction. There’s a whole section there concerning rental housing. I just need to find the time to do it. Already on the list!

Still no web view ….remember you miss it too!

A reader emailed us a couple weeks ago noting that the old newsletter version had a “browser” version that included a link that could easily be shared. That handy link disappeared when we transitioned to our new email-sender program. Then another person emailed us with the same complaint. And so we went ahead and fixed the problem.

The newsletter still doesn’t have that old link at the top of it. But if you go to our website, you’ll now find the latest newsletters on our homepages. You can easily share links to those web-based newsletters with friends. They will, however, have to subscribe to look at them. But doing so is free, so they shouldn’t complain!

Do any of you lovely folks have pets? Tell us about them :)

I (Tyler) have two cats and a dog. Or the animals own me. It’s hard to tell sometimes. The dog, named Nanook by its original owners, is a big white thing we got from a vet after it had been abandoned by his previous owner. He’s exceptionally lovely, though has a bunch of bad habits we’re trying to train him out of.

We also have two black cats. One named Tika has a white spot on her chest and is as low-maintenance as a cat can be. The other, named Yo-Yo by our son, acts like you would expect a cat named Yo-Yo to act. For some reason she has decided I’m a perfect place to sit at all times of the day. If you leave a cabinet door open, you’ll find her in there. She loves getting stuck in the laundry room. If you walk close to the couch, your feet may become victim to a surprise attack. Yo-Yo and Nanook are the ying and yang of her house: a bit Tom and Jerry, a lot Dumb and Dumber. Tika’s chill though.

Have you encountered threats or other negativity as a journalist?

Sure, though there has been exceptionally little from readers of The Current. I think that our daily intros remind readers that there are human beings behind our stories. And if you remind people of that, they’ll view the work more generously and accept that it is the work of humans and thus inevitably going to be flawed and subject to all kinds of human-related issues. I should also note that the kind-hearted reception we have received is far better at inspiring one to try to do his or her best than hate and negativity.

That said, I have noticed one thing. Very occasionally, an otherwise innocuous statement in a newsletter intro has tweaked a reader’s most paternalistic instincts. It’s only happened maybe a half-dozen times, but when it has, it has almost always been one of Joti, Grace G, or Grace K on the other end of the response. That would be understandable if I was perfect, but I’m not, or if my intros were tonally different, but they’re not. Sadly, I think it’s something that others have noticed elsewhere in journalism: that women receive substantially more comments than men.

Luckily, the vast, vast majority of comments are positive. I attribute that to the newsletter format. The bar to directly contact the people who bring you the news is low enough so that people will send us gloriously nice emails randomly. It’s hugely inspiring.

And it’s also super-easy to unsubscribe to the newsletter, so the haters can just leave.

Does Overstory Media know if Bill C-18 might affect its outlets?

The Current is owned by Overstory Media Group, which has paid my salary and ensured that we could continue to grow even while still trying to reach financial sustainability. Overstory and a number of other outlets say the Liberals’ proposed Bill C-18 will give legacy media companies a sizable advantage over smaller, independent media companies.

I don’t believe anything has to mitigate those concerns.

Are you making enough money yet to be sustainable? / Is there a strong future for commercially viable, local journalism?

Not quite yet and I hope so!

First, the big picture: I believe that local journalism is necessary and will always have an important role to play in our communities. The question is just what level of local journalism our communities are able to financially support.

When I started as a reporter at the Vernon Morning Star in 2006, I joined a team of 11 other journalists. Today, there are three or four. When I joined the Chilliwack Times, I joined one of two newspapers in town. Today there is one. And so on.

Clearly we need more. I think our communities can support much more. But there are a lot of challenges and most come down to money.

Local journalism is now competing with social media giants for advertising dollars. It’s also competing with not just TV but the Internet for attention spans. And it’s competing with your neighbour down the street as a source for local information that is relevant to you. There are other difficulties too, starting with the fact that as soon as a journalism organization develops a strategy to reach its audience online, various Internet companies (and sometimes the government) will tweak a rule or a law that throws everything in doubt.

There’s also a human element. There are a decent amount of journalism jobs out there right now, but a big challenge is getting people to fill them. Smart and talented people are understandably wary of entering an industry that has seen as much turmoil as journalism has the last two decades. I still think this is a great job and more fun than you can have outside of a race car, but we need to find a way to make it more financially stable so that there are reporters to tell stories for decades to come.

I think that to grow and survive, local journalism organizations are going to have to emphasize a quality product. And they’re going to need a mix of advertising dollars and direct contributions from readers. We’re working on all that and would really appreciate your support. We are pushing for more advertising partners right now. And in the weeks to come, we’ll be rolling out a membership program. It will provide some additional benefits to members, while not walling off much of our journalism.

But we really, really need readers, businesses, and community organizations to understand that if they value quality journalism, they really do need to be willing to contribute financially to its long-term success.

We need the people who run community-oriented companies to decide whether their communities include quality local journalism, and we need organizations to understand that if they find media to be essential to reaching their community, they might need to do their part to ensure those outlets survive and can maintain their audiences.

The same goes for governments that spend millions on communication staff to write press releases, but throw millions of ad dollars at Facebook or Google. It’s their choice. We should never seek to rely on government spending to survive, but it’s hard not to notice.

As for readers, there needs to be an understanding that journalism costs money. If you’re willing to tip your server just to honour a social expectation, I would hope you might also do the same for your local journalism outlet. Again, we’ll be rolling out a membership soon. And if even half the people who regularly open our newsletter kick us a few bucks each month, we’ll hit that “financially sustainable” marker right away.