Brandon's Sun

The Brandon Sun is unveiling a new website on Monday. I'm interested to see if it will remain holed up behind one of the most heavily guarded subscription walls a newspaper can have or if they will allow some of their content to peek into the online world !

Brandon Sun offices c.1884. Source.

The Sun is Manitoba's other 'newspaper of record'. It's roots date back to the Brandon Weekly Sun which began publishing in January 1882, before Brandon was even incorporated. (That Sun went bust in July 1897 but soon after reincarnated as The Brandon Sun).

I worked on Brandon projects for a few years and got to know the city fairly well. I always thought it was important that news and views from Brandon / Westman infiltrated the city on occasion. When I did media clippings for assorted government and political offices I made sure to include relevant Sun articles, (even back in the weird old days of needing a daily subscription then hand-cutting articles to fax to HQ !).

Though my Brandon days are done I've kept in touch with people and projects. It's been difficult, considering that the amount of Brandon on-line news content actually went in reverse for a number of years.

CKX's barely-updated website is, of course, gone. The Brandon Sun had an open website but locked it down in 2006. CBC Radio does have a beat office there but has let the position go unfilled on a couple of occasions, the last reporter to hold the spot departed in 2008.

Current on-line Brandon / Westman news sources are few. e-Brandon is really a discussion forum, though does keep a small news section for links to media releases and the like. The Wheat City Journal (now Westman Journal) is a free weekly paper similar to The Lance, though has slightly beefed up its 'newsiness' of late.

The main contenders would have to be CKLQ's news site which is brief on content, not searchable, but is daily and their recent site update allows for embedded audio clips of news stories. The other is the new kid in town itvBrandon which launched a couple of months ago and is still building up steam.

Hopefully the BSun's relaunch will take into account that the world of news and opinion plays out on-line these days. For Brandon / Westman to keep relevant and get their news and views into the mix it's important to have that information available.

I'll check back Monday morning and see what the relaunch looks like, if I'm allowed past the wall, of course !