Frankly Speaking

The past few weeks have been rough ones for the print media business in B.C. – in particular for the staff of The Surrey Leader , most of whom lost their jobs on Friday, and 54 people at Pacific Newspaper Group (publishers of The Vancouver Sun and The Province ), who received layoff notices on March 24. I had wanted to post some thoughts on this situation sooner, but news of the closure of The Leader hit me in the gut. (It was followed a few days later by hernia surgery, which literally involved my gut, so I guess I have a bit of an excuse). I was on staff at The Leader for 14 years, seven as editor, from 1979 to 1993. My direct association with The Leader goes back to the early 1970s, and longtime editor and publisher Stan McKinnon was the person who pointed me towards taking journalism training at Langara College. That opened the door to get into a business that I loved in the 1970s and still love today. I continued to do a weekly column in The Leader right up to the fi...

Paul Godfrey is the CEO of Postmedia Network The combining of newsrooms in four Canadian cities by Postmedia Network has prompted a tremendous amount of media coverage today. Multiple media outlets on all platforms have devoted a lot of time and energy to the announcement that newsrooms in Ottawa, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver would be combined. As part of this restructuring, each city will have one editor overseeing the combined newsrooms, even though there will continue to be two newspaper titles in each city. A total of 90 people are losing their jobs, and buyouts will also be offered in Ottawa and Vancouver. As many as 50 more journalists may be without jobs after that is complete. It’s interesting how much attention this has received, but not surprising. The media love to report on the media. Meanwhile, 430 people who work at a potash mine in New Brunswick, where finding new jobs is much harder than in a large city, also lost their jobs today. Potash Corporation of ...