I started writing for newspapers and radio 55 years ago. Almost half of my journalism career has been here in Sault Ste. Marie. When I was invited back to northern Ontario in 2002 to launch a digital-only hyperlocal news site, my thoughts immediately went to this 1975 autobiography by Roy Thomson. Like my grandfather, Thomson was selling radio receivers during the Golden Age of radio in the early 1930s. He did well selling radio sets until he got into northern Ontario (around Timmins). There were no radio stations there, so no one needed a radio. So the future Lord Thomson of Fleet Street started his own radio station and then branched into newspapers and television stations. He ended up a global media baron. Thomson’s right-hand man during his merger & acquisition days was Jack Kent Cooke, who also became filthy rich and bought the Washington Redskins, Toronto Maple Leafs, Los Angeles Lakers and Kings, even the Chrysler Building in New York City. Village Media’s brilliant CEO Jeff Elgie sometimes asks me to talk to visitors who come from around the world to see what we’ve accomplished here. I always talk about Roy Thomson and Jack Kent Cooke. “Northern Ontario is the best place to be a media innovator,” I tell them. You can innovate for years here and no one will pay the least attention to you because you’re from the north. By the time they finally take notice of you, you’re a decade ahead of everyone else and you’ve changed the industry forever!
I started writing for newspapers and radio 55 years ago. Almost half of my journalism career has been here in Sault Ste. Marie. When I was invited back to northern Ontario in 2002 to launch a digital-only hyperlocal news site, my thoughts immediately went to this 1975 autobiography by
Roy Thomson. Like my grandfather, Thomson was selling radio receivers during the Golden Age of radio in the early 1930s. He did well selling radio sets until he got into northern Ontario (around Timmins). There were no radio stations there, so no one needed a radio. So the future Lord Thomson of Fleet Street started his own radio station and then branched into newspapers and television stations. He ended up a global media baron. Thomson’s right-hand man during his merger & acquisition days was Jack Kent Cooke, who also became filthy rich and bought the Washington Redskins, Toronto Maple Leafs, Los Angeles Lakers and Kings, even the Chrysler Building in New York City.
Village Media’s brilliant
CEO Jeff Elgie sometimes asks me to talk to visitors who come from around the world to see what we’ve accomplished here. I always talk about Roy Thomson and Jack Kent Cooke. “Northern Ontario is the best place to be a media innovator,” I tell them. You can innovate for years here and no one will pay the least attention to you because you’re from the north. By the time they finally
take notice of you, you’re a decade ahead of everyone else and you’ve changed the industry forever!