Editorial: Time for a new challenge

By Scott Schmidt on September 6, 2025.

Early this November will mark my 15th year as part of the Medicine Hat News team, and in that time I have seen a number of newsroom variations along the way.

As it did for so many, the COVID pandemic took an obvious toll on the business side of what we do, but no matter what change has come our way, including a smaller building and smaller staff, we have found a way to keep the long-held tradition of a daily newspaper going in Medicine Hat.

Once again we are facing a transition period, having seen our most senior reporter move on earlier this summer, and awaiting arrival of our newest team member who joins our group Monday. We are a small team of soon-to-be five in the newsroom, and we have a lot of work in the months ahead to get our team rolling full tilt again.

But while local media takes its hits this year and many newspapers continue to face uphill battles, it’s important for us to make clear the Medicine Hat News is not going anywhere. The daily newspaper this city has long counted on will continue to do what we’ve always done.

As of Monday, I will officially become the editor of the Medicine Hat News, a role I am very excited to take on. In fairness, not much about my role within the newsroom will change as I have handled many of those duties for a couple of years now.

But much of my role in the past has been behind the scenes, and that will no longer be the case. Both this community and this newsroom deserve to have someone to regularly hear and handle concern, and to provide organization and focus toward maximizing the quality of our product.

Despite certain ever-more-common rhetoric, local media is more important now than it has ever been. From city hall outward, the News itself has been responsible for countless stories that allowed residents to stay up to date and make informed decisions regarding some of the most important aspects of their lives.

With all respect to other media, without the News’ reporting (we haven’t missed a council meeting in more than a century) so much of what has informed public opinion in recent years would have been underreported at best.

Bringing the facts to our readers is all we in the newsroom care about. And it’s crucial to understand that as we move forward in this extremely volatile world.

The divisive politicking of ‘left’ and ‘right’ ideology is quite clearly not benefiting anyone but those who peddle it. Our goal at the News is not to present a balance between the two, but to present fair, open discussion en route to the truth, regardless of which side claims it.

As the editor of this newspaper, all respectable viewpoints will be encouraged; a community of this size absolutely must have a forum where that exists without the invasion of misinformation, vitriol and clickbait that accompanies the internet.

But that doesn’t mean viewpoints based on falsehoods are welcome without retort. Our job will always be truth before balance, fact before feeling, and those hoping to participate with the News will be expected to do the same.

That means everyone is accountable to facts, most especially us at the News. We are human and we are few, and we are not without error as we work to present information on a daily basis. But when we are wrong, we will own it and we will publicize it, period.

Can those we report on make that same commitment to you? We shall see, but we will be there to challenge them and to hold them accountable, regardless of who they are or what they say in response.

We are journalists, but we are also Albertans and we are also Hatters. I have lived most of the past 28 years here, I have a family here, extended family here, a wife who grew up here and we own a home together here.

The News is not part of a giant corporate conglomerate with an agenda, we aren’t secretly funded behind your back, we are just members of the same community trying to keep a 140-year-old newspaper fulfilling its local duty to the best of our ability.

Our mistakes will be honest ones, 100 per cent of the time, because we aren’t here to deceive you. We want the same prosperity for the community that we assume all Hatters want.

But we will only ever punch up, and we will force those who punch down to explain why, or ensure you know when they choose not to.

Elected officials have successfully created a publicly acceptable barrier between themselves and the media – now simply offering statements instead of direct communication, or holding controlled press conferences, conference calls and town halls without opportunity for followup questions.

They get away with blaming others, or changing the subject, or blasting the reporter for having the gall to even ask. That’s fine, we will not be deterred.

We will not stop asking just because someone in power doesn’t want to answer, and we will not stop pressing just because someone in power doesn’t want to be pressed.

We are here to provide the truth, and we are here to speak truth to power. And we welcome all our readers to not only hold us accountable to that, but to feel empowered to use this forum to do the same.