Friday 17 July 2009

Power napping?

Where were the Sun Media troops for the widely publicized swine flu outbreak at several children's summer camps north of Toronto?

Power napping?

On Thursday, it was huge front page news for the Star and the Globe and Mail and national television news, but limited in the Toronto Sun to nine paragraphs on Page 34 - from the Canadian Press, no less.

One TSF reader saw it on CNN.

"The Star runs a line story on cottage country outbreak probably involving many GTA kids, sends a photographer up to the camps and has four or five reporters working on the story," says the TSF reader. "The Sun runs what, a four-inch CP filler. No Osprey papers up that way?"

A reporter from Sun Media's Orillia Packet & Times covered the story, but there's that CP again in the Toronto Sun. It's Woodstock all over again. And this is the news agency PKP wants to turf by next June?

6 comments:

  1. In my experience at a "sister" paper, some at the Sun have the mentality that if their writers didn't produce the story, then it's not worthy being in their paper.

    I hate to say that but I've seen it happen far too many times when stories of Toronto or national interest are just pushed aside for no reason when other major T.O. media have the same item.

    Or this could have been a case where Orillia filed the story too late to meet the Sun's early deadlines, or simply forgot to file to the Bulletin Board or email it.

    In those cases, that's up to the Sun national editors to ensure they get the story across the country since we're one big happy family.

    I can't wait to see the scrambling once CP is gone, although I highly doubt The Sun papers are losing it, just the other Osprey papers.

    I'm sure The Sun will have plenty in Saturday's paper as a followup, written by their staff, not Orillia's. Using Orillia's work would make more economic sense too in terms of cost of driving there, etc.

    God, I sound like PKP... *shudders*

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  2. Well, probably the story broke after PKP went home so he didn't "approve" dedicating resources...you know how he likes to micromange...LOL

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  3. During PKP's visit to Niagara he said Sun/Quebecor has pretty much the same footprint as Canadian Press. That's one of the reasons he's dumping CP I guess.
    After reading about this coverage, I'd say that footprint isn't as big as PKP makes it out to be.

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  4. To bring up the opposite end of the situation, I now live in Barrie, and it's not worth buying the Examiner because it is now full of Toronto Sun copy. It makes no sense to subscribe to (or buy at the newstand) both papers.

    Orillia would be the closest to the Muskoka outbreak, but it's still a long drive that costs milage.

    Bill Sandford

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  5. We've got the same situation in Peterborough. Readers would get the Toronto Sun and The Peterborough Examiner, which had CP copy for years...so you always got a different angle,a different voice.

    Now I'm tired of hearing the same complaints over and over.

    Papers away from the T.O. market probably aren't getting this but those closest are getting hit hard from a circulation standpoint.

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  6. Here's another example today at noon time...

    Woodstock Sentenial-Review has several great videos up on their website and stories already of Tori Stafford as the news breaks.

    The Toronto Sun? Canadian Press material.

    And don't get me started on the fact there's a Blackberry ad placed in front of the CP video.

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