Report retort

Since the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communication published its final report on the Canadian news media last month, many of you wrote to me asking me when I would ''weigh in.'' To be honest, I thought there would be little point in adding anything to what the Star's editorial board had to say -- three editorials, no less! -- since I agreed with virtually every word of it produced. So I decided to take a step back and see how the media covered the media report, figuring it would produce much more interesting grist for my mill.

I was not disappointed. Which is to say, they acted just as I had expected them to act.

So, without further ado, here's some of today's treeware column on the subject, as published in the Business section. I've tossed in a couple of links.

On June 21, the day the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communication published its final report on the Canadian news media, there were two pertinent stories in the papers.

One got front-page headlines across the country, was the target of countless columns and editorials, was screamed over the airwaves, debated on hotline shows and in the blogosphere and was the focus of the committee's news conference that day.

The other? It was buried in the business pages.

The former was CBC-TV's decision to bounce its flagship newscast, The National, one hour later throughout the summer to accommodate a simulcast of ABC's The One: Making a Music Star. Pundits are still bloviating about it, even though it's going to affect only Tuesday nights, and only in certain time zones.

The latter story was Sun Media Corp's announcement that it would be cutting 120 positions across its newspaper chain, shutting down its research libraries everywhere except Toronto, slashing its political coverage, dumping local lifestyle and entertainment writers for one big merged and converged happy journalistic family in Toronto.

Now I ask you: If you're reporting on, or commenting on, a Senate study of media concentration, which story would you find more relevant? An American simulcast on CBC-TV, or the radical consolidation of Canada's second-biggest newspaper chain?

And yet, in all those thundering editorials and news stories about the Senate report, most of which dismissed its findings while chastising CBC, not a single one referred to the bloodbath that had just happened at the Sun papers.

Which tells you all you need to know about Canada's giant media corporations.

It's also a perfect illustration of why the Senate Committee began studying them three years ago when there were alarming signs that concentration was stifling opinion in this country...

The column says it all, except for one thing: When the corporate media claim that there are lots of news alternatives available via Google and Yahoo, they're talking out of both sides of their ... hats. It won't be long before they take serious steps to prevent the search engines to stop ripping them off from using their material.

Sun burn

More trouble at Sun TV, the beleaguered station for which Quebecor overpaid and is desperately trying to keep afloat even as it is sinking its newspaper chain.

I'm reliably informed that Canoe Live's and Inside Jam's Riaz Meghji has quit Sun TV because the place didn't live up to expectations. (Seriously, who could have expected anything as bad as Canoe Live?)

There's more from Quebecor. Apparently -- I haven't been able to confirm this yet -- Sun Media's Ottawa and Queen's Park bureaus, already bare bones operations both, (2 reporters, 1 columnist in Ottawa; 1 reporter, 1 columnist at QP) have been ordered not to cover scrums and question periods. Daily political coverage -- aside from the big story of the day -- will be left to Canadian Press. Instead, Sun staffers will be focusing on features and enterprise reporting.

To add insult to injury, after last week's announcement of 120 job cuts at the newspaper chain, Sun staffers are sickened to see all the postings for people needed at this stinko station. Last Friday, employees were invited to apply for seven jobs, including junior promo producer, graphics designers and marketing specialists, ad types, a senior producer for a ''daily live current affairs show'' ... and ... drum roll please ...

an energetic, personable, enthusiastic, highly motivated Host/ reporter to join (the) In-House Production team. The ideal candidate will be a detail-oriented team player with proven interview skills, writing skills, and news gathering skills. The successful candidate should have 3-5 years experience as a TV Host and or News / Reporter. You will demonstrate network caliber on-air presentation skills, ease with live reporting, and be poised and calm under pressure.

Could that be Meghji's job?

Anyway, as expected, Sun Media will be converging its non-local content and quite a bit of its local content as well. That means a uniform looking paper right across the chain with identical lifestyle, entertainment and other coverage. So much for local theatre and concert reviews, it would appear. The redesign is expected later this year.

Ten bucks says that, by the end of next year, they will have to give the paper away.

Way to go, Pierre Karl Peladeau!

What I don't get is why Sun reporters in Toronto, after all that Canoe Live is costing their paper, continue to go on the show. I guess $37.50 is all you need to sell your soul.

Sundown ya better take care

Kevin Wilson, a.k.a. Mack the Hack, has plenty to say about this week's Orwellian announcment from Sun Media which chopped 120 positions at its papers. It's Orwellian because, as it talks of cutting journalists and researchers, it boasts about becoming a "multi-platform content provider." My sense has been that Quebecor chief Pierre Karl Peladeau (PKP) is trying to justify his purchase of Sun TV, the little station that couldn't in Toronto, which reportedly cost him $50 million. But Mack the Hack disagrees somewhat:

..There's no doubt PKP and his lieutenants are obsessed with convergence, but methinks Zerb is missing the more crucial aspects of this story, which are two-fold.

First off, the Sun's been suffering for many years, the victim of cutbacks and a brutal newspaper war that never really ended when everyone said it did. It's a war of attrition, and the two most vulnerable pubs are the Sun and National Post. Both Quebecor and Post owners Canwest Mediaworks keep hanging on, waiting for the other to fold their hands. However, the Sun's death spiral has been exacerbated in the past three years, courtesy of the Quebecor-owned commuter freebie 24 Hours, which launched in October 2003.

24 has a lot of things readers like (all glossy, so no ink ruboff, easy to hold pony tab format, lotsa pretty pictures), and readers DO like picking it up. I should know. I was on the team that launched the thing and stayed with 24 Hours for 18 months. And while the execs love to accentuate the positive, the pub also has a lot of negatives (for readers, at least).

For starters, it operates with a tiny newsroom of three 'reporter-editors.' occasionally buttressed by an intern or two. That's a positive for Quebecor, but a BIG negative for readers. The 'reporter-editors' do everything from covering events to taking photos to editing wire copy to 'other duties as required.' There is no opportunity to provide context or analysis, and some of the reportage is dreadful. I still have a friend or two who work over there, and I can honestly say they're doing the best they can, but under impossible conditions.

Commuter tabs like 24 and Metro are also an exemplar of advertising's triumph over editorial. They think nothing of making the front of the book into a full-page ad, something I've never seen at a paid-circulation daily. Therein lies the starkest difference between paid circ and freebies, because readers make a token financial investment whenever they pick up the former, an obligation to them exists that is not present with the latter.

All of this is a very long (sorry!) way of getting to the fact that readers get what they pay for, but more notably that Quebecor has managed to create a newspaper model that works. Readers pick the thing up, despite its shortcomings. By capitulating to advertisers, it's a sought-after space to place ads. The ad revenue flows in, with a fraction of the editorial outlays associated with paid circ papers.

If we go back to that happy-happy news release, this gem is buried a few more graphs down from the one about the bodies going over the side...

"The company also plans to expand Sun Media's network of free circulation newspapers, which currently includes 24 hours in Toronto and Vancouver and 24 heures in Montreal."

The freebies are ascendant, the Suns are setting ...

And, if you ask me, it's not good for the state of civil discourse.

Sun down

Names of the living dead are starting to trickle in after yesterday's mass executions at the Sun newspaper chain. According to the Star's Rick Westhead:

Brad Honywill, president of the 3500-member Local 87M of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada, said that 14 union positions will be cut at the (Toronto) Sun where 150 members of Local 87M work. Of the remaining 16 job losses at the paper, it’s unclear how many will be managers or freelance writers.

Honywill said the company told him eight full-time and five part-time positions will be culled, and one full-time reporting position currently vacant won't be filled.

The newspaper began informing affected employees yesterday, although Honywill said that the union may fight the company on some of those. "There are still seniority issues that we have to deal with," he said. "This could drag on for awhile."

Some names are known, some are not so well known. I am hearing sports columnist Mike Ulmer, health reporter Sharon Lem, fashion editor Sylvia Sylvi Capelaci and lifestyle's Vena Eaton.

Here's a chunk from how the Sun played this:

(T)he mood was grim at the Toronto Sun, the company's flagship newspaper, after staff learned that 30 people would lose their jobs. There was also confusion about who exactly was being let go because management was still sorting out seniority.

Among those given formal notice was Sun veteran Rick Van Sickle, the Toronto Sun's photo editor and a former editor-in-chief of the Ottawa Sun.

"I can't remember if this is the fifth or the sixth (round of layoffs)," said Maryanna Lewyckyj, associate money editor at the Toronto Sun. "And every time we say to ourselves, 'How can they cut? We've got so few people.' And then it happens again."

The company's last two rounds of layoffs took place in May and October of 2001. But Tuesday's cuts are considered to be the most severe since 1999 when the chain's western papers bore the brunt of job losses following Quebecor's takeover.

"People were incredulous that on the one hand they were trying to bill this as a commitment to gathering news content, at the same as they were saying they are eliminating jobs" said Brad Honywill, president of the Southern Ontario Newsmedia Guild, which represents Toronto Sun workers.

Here's what I think is going on: Boss man Pierre Karl Peladeau is still wedded to his convergence strategy, is doing all he can to hang on to the pitiful Sun TV (his foothold in the lucrative Toronto broadcasting market) for which he overpaid in acquring it from Chum and is sacrficing journalism at the altar of fruitless younger demographics-chasing.

But that's just my opinion.

 

Don't let the Sun go down on us

Blood on the floor at Sun Media. Major job cuts right across the chain are expected. The toll is expected to hit 120, although 17 positions were already vacant.

So far, the casualties include Ottawa bureau chief Bill Rodgers and the bureau manager, a 20 year veteran. A meeting of Sun staffers in Toronto is said to be happening as I type.

This as they say is developing ....

UPDATE 11:46 a.m.: Something massive is indeed going on. A release is expected any second now. One rumour is that they've let go of all the library and research staffs right across the chain.  

UPPERDATE 3:38 p.m.: Word from the Toronto Sun library is that resources are being beefed up. They're looking for two full-time news researchers (not professional librarians, technicians are better) and and a couple of ''enhancers.'' And no, I don't know what that means. (A helpful Sun insider just wrote to tell me that "Enhancers are people who convert news pages to be stored in our  database. These functions are being cut across the chain to be centralized in Toronto.'')

UPMOST DATE 4:13 P.M.: In fact, they are ''centralizing'' all library functions in Toronto. Twenty-five library staffers are bering cut across the chain.

UPDATE 12:24 p.m.: Here's the Orwellian double-speak news release.

Sun Media Corporation announced today it will invest more than $7 million to improve the quality of content in its newspaper operations as part of a plan to introduce new technologies and streamline production of newsgathering.

"Sun Media is repositioning itself from a chain of daily and community newspapers into a multi-platform content provider," said Pierre Francoeur, President and Chief Executive Officer of Sun Media Corporation. "By intensifying syndication of content while maintaining our focus on local news, by increasing interactivity with our readers and by optimizing our production, we intend to create the model for the 21st Century media organization.

"While there are challenges throughout the world for print media, traffic for online information is growing. To adjust to these new realities, we are acquiring new tools and the expertise to serve our readership - online, on the air, as well as in print," said Mr. Francoeur.

Efficiencies with new technologies will eliminate 120 positions, including 17 vacancies, on a total of 7,000 across the country. The company will welcome discussions about voluntary departures. It estimates net savings of about $4.6 million annually.

At the same time, new positions are being created to improve and develop Sun Media's online connection to readers. Sun Media will expand its network of North American news bureaus, improve sharing of content among the daily newspapers and acquire more efficient technologies for online services to handle breaking news. The company is consolidating and modernizing its research services to support journalists.

So it looks like the research and library staffs are being decimated. Which makes me wonder how, as the release boasts, Sun Media will "improve the quality of (its) content.''

Maybe you don't need fact-checkers for Sunshine girls? Or stories about Internet virgins?

Look, I am all for modernization and getting down with new tech but this doesn't smell right at all. Perhaps it will keep the papers alive a little while longer -- which is good -- but it doesn't bode well for solid journalism.

Waiting for the official spokesperson to call me back ...

UPDATE 1:27 p.m.: Here's the Star's Rick Westhead on the cuts in Toronto where 30 jobs have been chopped.

Brad Honywill, president of the 151-member Local 87M of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada, said that 14 union positions will be cut at the Sun. Of the remaining 16 job losses at the paper, it’s unclear how many will be managers or freelance writers.

Honywill said that eight full-time and five part-time positions will be culled, and one full-time reporting position currently vacant won’t be filled, according to the company.

<SNIP>

The company said it also plans to add new staff positions and open news bureaus across North America, although it wasn’t specific about where bureaus might be located or how many offices it might open.

Quebecor also said it plans to expand its chain of free commuter newspapers, which currently includes 24 hours in Toronto and Vancouver and 24 heures in Montreal.

MEANWHILE AT SUN-TV: They're awaiting their fates. There's an all-staff meeting tomorrow moring at 10:30 to discuss the first quarter results of the TVA network, of which they are essentially a part (except TVA is Quebecor's French-language operation).

TOPMOST DATE 3:42 p.m.: Still waiting for callbacks to find out exactly what jobs are toast and what the plans are.

Oh, and look at this -- as usual, when jobs go, stocks shine.

ULTIMATE DATE 4:14 p.m.: Looks like one of the moves the Sun will make is to get rid of entertainment critics across the chain and just go with one for film TV, music etc. As one spokesperson just told me, ''Why have five different critics all writing about The Da Vinci Code?"