John Hammill knows the secret to running a successful media outlet

John Hammill is the regional publisher of OrilliaMatters, an exclusively online site that provides breaking news and vital local information to its readers.

After joining forces with Village Media, which has perfected the online news model over the past 10 years, John and his team launched the site on January 8, 2018 – only six weeks after Postmedia shuttered the Orillia Packet and Times.

He had worked for a few different newspapers before becoming the regional advertising director at the Orillia Packet and Times, which is why he was ready to move forward with OrilliaMatters when Postmedia closed the newspaper on November 27, 2017.

And he hasn’t looked back.

Even before launching, OrilliaMatters had overwhelming support from local residents and businesses.

“Orillia had a daily newspaper for over 50 years and that daily news coverage ceased with the closure of the Packet and Times,” John says.

“Advertisers and readers were accustomed to the daily news cycle and that was pulled out from under them with no notice. We had launch sponsors lined up two weeks before our go-live date, which was a great indicator of things to come.”

From the Orillia Packet, John brought in regional editor Dave Dawson, reporters Nathan Taylor and Tyler Evans, and around a half dozen regularly contributing freelancers.

During the lead-up to launching OrilliaMatters, John didn’t experience much negativity about their plans, but some people were a bit confused about how the news site would operate.

“There were some questions about the format, so we launched a campaign to educate readers on adapting to our online news website,” John says.

“As soon as they experienced OrilliaMatters and saw first-hand how easy it was to navigate and find the content they had been missing, all was good.”

Providing timely, accurate and vital important information about COVID-19 helped OrilliaMatters grow even more, although the site’s numbers were strong from the beginning.

“We broke 650,000 monthly page views in our first month, which was a remarkable start,” John says. “Our current monthly page view average is 3.2 million.”

By selling advertisements and encouraging donations from readers, OrilliaMatters is thriving in a community that was hungry for news.

John says the secret to succeeding in the news business today is simple: Quality journalism is the solution.

“It's just the delivery mechanism - the internet - that has changed. Whatever the delivery mechanism, it always comes back to valuable, quality, verified journalism.”

The best way to offer that, John says, is by hiring journalists who know what they are doing. 

“We rely on trained, professional reporters. While we definitely encourage and publish user-generated content, nothing can replace newsgathering from a properly trained, unbiased reporter.”

John graduated from the BAdmin program at Lakehead University Thunder Bay in 1996. He truly enjoyed living in the city, including spending time outdoors. It was also where he met his wife Laura.

“It was great to learn about Finnish traditions as my wife’s family are Finlanders. We spent a few mornings at the Hoito (Restaurant) – that’s for sure. Walking/running at Boulevard Lake and swimming/diving at the Canada Games Complex. Starting a round of golf at 6 pm in May was always a cool experience too.”

John also appreciates living in Orillia, home to Lakehead’s newest campus.

“I love the sports amenities, parks, etc. here as they are all fantastic. The baseball/softball community is huge here and playing/coaching has been a blast over the years.

“There are lots of active service clubs such as Kiwanis, Lions and my Rotary Club that really do make a difference in and around the community. Mariposa Market, enough said. Orillia is truly Mariposa,” he says.

He appreciated studying at Lakehead University.

“I loved the fact that the classroom sizes were smaller than other universities; I found I was able to pick things up fairly quickly,” he says.