Thunder Bay is a mid-sized city of just over 100,000 people, but it can feel like a small town. The Thunder Bay region is also considered an area of news poverty. Its one daily newspaper, the Chronicle-Journal, currently has four reporters tasked with bringing local news to sixty communities over 1,200 square kilometres. The small local CBC station and Dougall Media, one of Canada’s few remaining independent media companies, cover an area that’s larger than France: from White River in the northeast to the Manitoba border, and from the northern shore of Lake Superior all the way up to Hudson Bay. Social media ends up being an important source of local news; Crichton’s son came home from kindergarten asking what “grooming” meant. Crichton and Forget decided to sue the owner of “Real Thunder Bay Courthouse—Inside Edition” for libel.
