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Photo by Jenelle Schneider/PNG

I have covered Vancouver City from Gordon Campbell to Gregor Robertson, with a few interruptions for other beats. I have watched the city grow, and not a few times I have smacked myself in the forehead when some city councilor proposes a “new idea” for fixing an old problem not realizing it was already an old idea best forgotten. The institutional knowledge I carry is both wonderful and a curse.

I leave daily journalism at a perilous time for both the public and the truth. The rise of fake news, reality shows far from reality, entertainment “news” and the wholesale undermining of bedrock trust in journalism by people like the new U.S. president, Donald J. Trump, point to a consequential diminishing of society.

The news industry – and by that I really mean the newspaper business – was already undergoing a seismic shift long before we began to hear words like Trump’s “alternative facts”.

Who would have thought that “Craigslist” would be the first of many digital worms to chew through the pilings holding up society’s news and communications infrastructure, and consequently public trust?

A free ad? It’s not really free. It comes at considerable cost, if felt only years down the road in the loss of jobs, the retrenching of business and the loss of stability in mainstream news agencies.

But I also leave at an important time for the news industry as it reshapes and clarifies its value especially in the era of fake news. Great journalism is now being told in new and compelling ways, through digital methods unavailable when Jack first taught me my craft on my sticky-keys Royal.

Today, you’re able to see news as it unfolds immediately and yet have contextual reporting just as quickly that adds layers to what you know.Videos. Explanatory graphics. Analysis. Commentary. History. All elements that when I started with The Sun in 1986 would have required extra editions and extra days to deliver.

Where do you think the online rip-off artists and “free” news aggregators get their news stories from? Mainstream media agencies like The Sun that employ and pay the freight for people like me. Lose us and you really lose trust.

I have great hope for both my craft and for my beloved Vancouver Sun. In the newsroom work some incredibly talented and engaged people.

We’re not immune to the cutbacks and buyouts that have affected the entire industry. I am, after all, one of those taking a buyout. But I depart firmly believing that those folks left in the newsroom are piloting a pair of venerable newspapers – and their attendant online identities – into a new and secure future.

The Sun may not be the same newspaper that I worked at for so many years, and The Province has lost some of its Tabloidesque habits, but they still are the nervy, solid, in-your-face, trustworthy Western Canadian anchors to this country’s news business.

Thanks for the ride. You’ll find me still writing and commenting on social media such as my Twitterand Facebook accounts and here. And, increasingly, shepherding our Honey Bee Zen Apiaries, producing fine B.C. honey.

– 30 – for 30.

For those who really want to contact me, I’m at jeff@jefflee.ca