Local coverage is Examiner's strength, editor tells WMA

Addressing a meeting of the Westmount Municipal Association last week, he gave an historical overview of the newspaper which has served Westmount residents since its founding in 1935.

He learned from the late John Sancton — a Westmount resident and the paper's longtime publisher, whom Larsen first met in the late 1970s when he was a student intern — that the Examiner was once regarded as the "poor little sister" of Monitor Publishing, which produced two other weeklies that had more success.

"John Sancton set out to change that because he knew that Westmount was a vibrant community and it certainly deserved a vibrant newspaper of its own," he said. It was Sancton who also established the paper's well-known motto, "If it didn't happen in Westmount, it didn't happen."

"That's exactly how we've run things at the Examiner to this day," said Larsen, who also teaches in the Journalism Department of Concordia University.

In 1989, the Sancton family sold the Examiner to a newspaper chain which existed then, Publications Dumont. In 1994, the Sanctons started up a new local paper, named the Westmount Experience, although it lasted only about nine months.

The Examiner's current owner, Transcontinental Media, one of Canada's largest printing and publishing corporations, acquired it in 1995. Since then, the number of community publications serving Westmount produced by various companies has grown from one to five.

Describing issues that have impacted on the Examiner's presentation in more recent years, Larsen acknowledged that the Quebec government's megacity project — to which some of the fiercest opposition was expressed in Westmount — dominated local coverage for some time.

"The ongoing merger saga forced the Examiner to alter its coverage of some areas," he said, adding that child-oriented local sports was significantly reduced as a result. "When Peter Trent was fighting against Pierre Bourque and the provincial government, there was a real crisis in Westmount — and there are still ongoing major problems — it was impossible to justify devoting so much of our space to little kids when so many people were really afraid of skyrocketing taxes and reduced services."

Regarding the latest development in the Examiner's history — its recent move from offices on Victoria Avenue to a centralized company location in LaSalle — Larsen said he was "flattered and grateful" for the concern it generated, but insisted the move is having no impact on editorial content. He also noted that none of the several other community newspapers covering Westmount, including the Suburban and the Westmount Times, have ever had an office here.

"The strength of the Examiner, from my perspective, has always been the local coverage," he said. "People pick up the Examiner to read about their neighbourhood — nothing else. As a community journalist, you have to resist the temptation to go after the bigger stories. There are a lot of big stories out there, but they have nothing to do with Westmount. They are why God created the Gazette."