The very event that brought a local publication to award-winning prominence was its eventual undoing.

The Wreckhouse Press, a small weekly paper based in Port aux Basques, received an armload of awards for its ongoing coverage of Hurricane Fiona.

But after four years, the paper has had to halt its weekly publication.

Photojournalist Rene Roy, who served as the paper’s director and head of sales and marketing, says Fiona and her impact proved too difficult.

“Fiona not only took about 100 homes from us; it took 100 families, that read our paper, out of this community,” he said. “And that really kind of was the start of seeing these numbers go down.”

Add to that the difficulties faced in getting the news out there.

The federal government introduced Bill C-38, forcing social media platforms like Meta to pay for news content. Instead, the former Facebook blocked all Canadian news content and news organizations.

The result, says Roy, is rather than helping local media, the bill hampered the ability of news organizations to highlight their work.

“We don’t have the ability to draw people in with a little tag line,” says Roy. “The only way that people could see the paper was to pick one up, and if we didn’t kind of nudge people to do that, then certainly our numbers were going to start to fall right away, and that’s what we found.”

In the meantime, Roy and his sister are concentrating their efforts on their printing business and will still provide some news content online.