In the Belly of the Beast
BY Sarah Fenn
Illustration by Raymond Biesinger
You’d think the Irving family would be content at having cornered the Maritime (and northeastern US) markets on forestry, paper, oil refineries, ship building, french fries, convenience stores, hardware stores and trucking—but no. Those wacky billionaires also spend a lot of energy defending their East Coast media monopoly. The newest addition to the family: New Brunswick’s only independent newspaper, Here.
Late this past fall, readers of the Saint John weekly alternative paper were shocked to learn their trusted indie had been sold to Brunswick News Inc., a move described as “essential for their financial survival” by former owner turned editor Mark Leger. Back in 2000, Leger and a couple of pals started the paper, styled as “New Brunswick’s Urban Voice.” In 2004, the paper expanded its reach to Moncton, where it was met by Metro Marquee, an Irving-owned competitor poised to scoop the indie’s advertisers.
In an explanatory editorial about the sale, Leger wrote, “It was genuinely difficult to run an independent, youth-oriented newspaper in such a small city. We ultimately sold the paper because we felt that Brunswick News had the resources to ensure its long-term survival.”
And survive it shall. Brunswick News is owned by the Irvings, who control every English-language daily newspaper in New Brunswick. After the Here takeover, the company announced that it would merge the paper with Metro Marquee. There’s even an expansion to Fredericton in the works.
Scary? Greg Thompson thinks so. The MP for Southwest New Brunswick told the House of Commons this latest Irving purchase amounts to “media concentration at its worst.”
Months after the takeover, Leger is still defending his decision to sell in Here’s pages. “Over the years, [Here’s] readers, staff and founding owners had come to see the paper as a symbol of independence, an alternative to conservative mainstream news outlets that, in New Brunswick anyway, are controlled mostly by the Irvings,” he wrote in his first editorial after the sale. “In that context, the sale of Here to the Irvings was seen as a political act.”
That’s putting it mildly. Did Leger merely sell—or was he selling out?
That will be up to readers to decide.
