Stefan Jonasson Interview Part 4

Duration of Audio Clip: 2:27 

Transcription of Audio:

Stefan: By the second and especially the third generation after the immigration, the need for news about what was happening in Ottawa or Washington, D. C. or London, England, for that matter, that kind of news was easier for members of our community to access through the English language press. And so, there was a shift in the coverage of the two newspapers towards things that that distinctly involved the Icelandic community here in North America or conveyed news from back home in Iceland, which was of little interest to the Winnipeg Free Press or the Tribune or any of the other English-language publications. So, there was a shift in content during this period that was significant, but which also tended to contribute to the decline of the newspapers. Since that news was less valuable, it was harder to monetize because it was kind of not as central to people’s day-to-day existence as news about major global developments was. 

And so by the 1940s, it was apparent that the two Icelandic newspapers were clearly declining in their ability, you know, to maintain staff, to maintain their production schedule, to generate enough news to fill the papers. You know, there was an increase in social notes within the two papers, which is a real boon to genealogists today to be able to trace what their ancestors were doing through the social notes. By the 1940s, people were already predicting that the two newspapers, Heimskringla and Lögberg, had less than a generation of shelf life left in them.