Local news source shuts down amid major financial losses

One of Sault Ste. Marie’s digital sources for news has shut down.

First Local News, which was re-branded from SaultOnline in June 2023, is no longer publishing content as of Friday.

The organization’s producer, Craig Huckerby, made the announcement on Facebook last night.

“When you’re relying on that advertising dollar, and those dollars are drying up quickly, it makes things tough,” he told SooToday. “We didn’t have a strong sales staff and it just didn’t pan out the way we wanted it to.”

Owned by Sovereign Communications, a Sault Michigan-based broadcasting company, First Local News was operating with a team of four people out of their central area newsroom shortly before this week's shutdown.

The team’s core members transitioned over from Superior Media-owned SaultOnline last year, which had provided locals with an alternative source of news between 2014 and 2023.

Huckerby said they never quite got the momentum going when they made the move to First Local.

“We were basically starting at ground zero again and it was hard to find that audience,” he admitted. “We did get some of that audience back — by word of mouth or posting on Facebook — but it’s been a hard go.”

“When we first started, that’s when Facebook pulled away,” he added. “It made it even that much tougher to find the audience. We had a lot of challenges.”

Sovereign Communications owner Bill Curtis, a Sault Michigan native who oversees a number of radio stations in the state’s Upper Peninsula, said he was displeased with SaultOnline’s previous ownership when he purchased the website ahead of its rebranding to First Local.

“The business we purchased was completely misrepresented to us,” he said. “The previous owner truly misrepresented just about everything about this enterprise. We kind of started with one foot on the banana peel, and we worked very hard to clean things up, make the product better, and mend a bunch of bridges with advertisers.”

“We lost an enormous amount of money on this venture,” he added. “We have pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into this thing, and I just can’t keep doing it. We’re willing to take chances and invest, and they don’t always turn out how you hope. This certainly did not end how we hoped it would.”

Huckerby, alongside his colleague Mike Chikoski, told SooToday they haven’t received a paycheque from Sovereign Communications in nearly four weeks.

Curtis noted he “absolutely intends to get everyone paid and live up to all of our commitments — no question about that.”

Working in the news industry for the past 43 years, Huckerby got his start with CTV as an 18-year-old. By the time he left 20 years later, he was the senior news producer for the 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts on what is now known as CTV News Northern Ontario.

Staying in Sault Ste. Marie, Huckerby decided to move into the digital arena and helped launch LTVNews in October 2003, which for a time was the only news website publishing video newscasts in Canada.

After facing unexpected financial losses, the company was picked up by another investor and was rebranded to SooNews.ca in 2006. The organization eventually became known as Local2.ca.

In 2014, Local2 was purchased by what is now known as Village Media, which operates SooToday.

Huckerby helped establish SaultOnline that same year before restarting again with First Local News in 2023.

“I think I hold the record for launching websites in the city,” he laughed. “People were always comparing the two sites, and we just didn’t have the resources that SooToday has. We did the best we could with the staff we had.”

The news producer has worked alongside plenty of local broadcasting talent over the years, including Chikoski, who wore several hats for SaultOnline and First Local News during his six-year stint with the organizations.

The two had worked together to form ONNtv — a local television station that hosted live broadcasts and other programming from their central area newsroom via the internet.

After that program, along with SaultOnline shut down following COVID, several staff members were let go, leaving the few who remained with many additional tasks.

“Right from the get-go, it was an uphill battle,” Chikoski admitted. “I was a web designer, video producer, doing audio and video engineering, and graphics for advertising. I was even writing some small articles here and there just to help out. I was trying to do everything.”

“It took a toll,” he added. “You’re not home a lot of the time, you’re running around. It got very tiring.”

Jeff Elgie, the CEO of Village Media — which operates 25 local news sites across Ontario, along with SooToday — said he was disappointed to hear First Local News was dissolving. 

"It is always a sad day to see a local news outlet fail,” he said. “Although we compete, the reality is that we are aligned in telling important stories about our community. Unfortunately, everyone loses when a local news source closes. We wish the best for the staff that have no doubt put their hearts and souls into the important work they did."

While their next steps remain unclear, Huckerby noted his passion for media — particularly live television programming — is alive and well.

Even at 61, he’s open to trying again if everything lines up.

“If someone were to call me and say let’s give it another kick at the can here, then definitely,” he said. “My passion is to bring a live, linear television station back to the Sault. I will try to do that until the day I die because I think it’s really needed in this market.”