In his report at Monday’s council meeting, Mayor John Higham gave an update on the future of Sackville’s weekly paper, The Tribune-Post.

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“First of all, let you know that I had some discussions with Saltwire communications about the future of the Tribune. Not at very high levels, but the discussion wasn’t promising”

Higham referred to a letter that was sent to some Saltwire subscribers recently, which made no clear commitment with regard to reviving suspended publications.

The letter said the company was “cautious but optimistic” and that it plans to “partner” with communities.

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“So some of the details of Saltwire’s suggestion was that they would need a minimum of 5000 subscriptions and a significant commitment to advertising from local businesses in order for that to take place. That’s a pretty high threshold for this area. I did talk a little bit with Amherst News about what their situation was, was it an opportunity for a joint paper of some type under those kind of terms? It’s a challenge. And there’s going to have to be a lot of work if somebody wants to pursue this, and I just wanted the public to know that if it’s something someone wishes to spend some time on and build that type of an opportunity, let me know and we’ll arrange a chat with the partners that be and I can give more detail about some of the things that I have heard in that.”

Saltwire announced a twelve-week shutdown of the Tribune-Post and other weeklies on March 24th, nearly four months ago.

The last story by local Tribune-Post journalist Katie Tower was also published on March 24th.