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17 Comments

news

Monday, Bloody Monday

By David Topping

The bad news continues for the Post: they’re not going to publish a Monday print edition for nine weeks this summer, according to Reuters, a move sure to not help the steep circulation slide the paper’s currently experiencing. Here’s hoping no news happens on the weekends, right?!

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  • http://undefined David Toronto

    Maybe the paper will go to a weekly format before
    the end of the year. After all, it’d make for
    great savings in payroll and paper.
    Just like Global TV, it’s another Asper asset
    nobody wants to touch and it should just die
    its own death and let the marketplace pick over
    the remains and dispose of them as it sees fit.
    Maybe David Topping can share with us what it was
    like to work for such an organisation.
    The sooner it goes, the better.

  • http://www.torontoist.com David Topping

    “Maybe David Topping can share with us what it was
    like to work for such an organisation.”
    Uh, what?

  • http://null Cathoo

    Perhaps David Toronto meant not-that-David-the-other-David Fleischer. His bio on the staff page actually says he worked for the Post.

  • http://undefined David Toronto

    I got the mistaken impression that you did a series of articles about the subway stations as a summer feature for the National Post. I have learned otherwise.
    My mistake and I’m sorry you were inconvenienced by it.

  • http://undefined rek

    The Post’s death can’t come soon enough.

  • http://undefined canrocks

    As much as Canwest sucks and is evil, you guys, one less voice means the remaining voices are even more disproportionately powerful. If Canwest is gone, what do we have left? TorStar, CTVGlobemedia, Rogers (uugh), Quebecor (the Sun), and that’s pretty much it.

  • CanadianSkeezix

    Agreed. The death of a daily newspaper is not something to cheer for – you’re effectively cheering on more media concentration. Less competition means that the other media outlets, even the ones we prefer, tend to get lazier. The Globe and Mail is a better newspaper because of the Post.

  • http://undefined Ben

    I heartily agree that media concentration ain’t right, but I don’t think it is the threat that it used to be. While the mass media is becoming more concentrated, there is this whole blogging thing pushing the other way.
    Many folks are throwin’ their hats in with the bloggers.

  • http://www.torontoist.com David Topping

    @David Toronto: I have done a few bits of freelance work for the Post over the past three years—I’ve written two articles for them, and they’ve used individual photos of mine, I think, four times. (Dunno if it makes a difference, but all of the content I’ve supplied to them has been content that was created for and published on Torontoist first and then repurposed for the Post.) I thought you were suggesting that I was an employee of the Aspers or the Post or Global (and in the tank for them) rather than someone who intermittently supplies the paper with content.

  • http://undefined montauk

    I’m happy to see the Post gone. Not because Canwest is evil but because Canwest has more than enough media power as it is.

  • http://undefined CanadianSkeezix

    So the solution is to hand more media power to the other big boys?

  • http://undefined montauk

    No, I think the solution is more independent news. I didn’t know we were talking solutions here.

  • http://undefined rek

    This doesn’t change the deplorable state of media concentration in Canada in any meaningful way. It’s not as if the Post is CanWest’s only media outlet: E! (5 stations in 5 provinces), Global (10 in 7 provinces), 5 majority-control cable stations, 20 more via CW Media-Goldman Sachs partnership, 35+ daily/weekly/national/regional papers, 4 magazines, etc.
    I’m not going to root for CanWest/the Post because having it around is slightly better than not: that’s not how media concentration should be approached. As it stands, if and when CanWest crumbles the assets will be sold off to the rest of the big players just as CHUM was, and there’s nothing to stop it, so really what’s the difference?

  • CanadianSkeezix

    You presented the loss of the Post as a solution to what you see as too much power in the hands of Canwest. You might be right about the problem with Canwest, but I’m not sure how eliminating a competitor for the other big media companies does anything but give more power to the other big companies. I’m also not sure how it creates more independent news, beyond hopeful speculation (along the lines of “maybe unemployed journalists will start blogs”).

  • http://undefined CanadianSkeezix

    No one is asking you to root for the Aspers. In fact, I’d be delighted if all their assets, including the Post, did get sold. I say this as someone who can’t read the Post and keep my temper in check at the same time. But the loss of any media outlet, especially a national media outlet, is not a good thing. It’s not really an answer to say that we still have our local E! station. I know that some think we’ll all be getting our news from spunky blogs in the not-too-distant future, which would be lovely, except that we’re not close to being there yet and no one is actually sure that we’ll ever get there. In the meantime, the loss of the post means the folks at CTV globemedia, Torstar and Quebecor have to try a little less harder, there is less competition for readers or ideas, the Globe returns to its pre-1998 somnolent state, and that’s not good for Canada.

  • http://undefined soltero

    Bad news like the January announcement of its first operating profit ever? Seems we may have them around for some time.

  • http://undefined montauk

    This misunderstanding is nagging at me so this is my attempt to clarify.
    In my original comment, I wasn’t trying to present a solution to the problem of media monopolies. I was merely saying that Canwest will lose some of its power if the Post fails.
    In your response, you thought I had intended my comment as a solution, and thus criticized it as a proposed solution instead of the idle observation that it was.
    In my follow-up, I tried (unsuccessfully) to clarify that my first comment hadn’t been intended as a solution. If I were to actually propose a solution, it would have to do with independent media.
    In your response, you still worked from the assumption that my first comment was intended to be a solution. So instead of seeing “independent journalism” as my first solution, you saw it as my second, and tried to understand the connection between (what you perceived to be) my two solutions.
    So I can’t respond to your last comment because it is still based on this misunderstanding that my initial comment was a solution. My bad for writing in a sort of vague labyrinthine way…sorry!