Monday 26 October 2009

Barrie to T.O.

One thing you can count on several times a year is traffic chaos on Highway 400 south of Barrie, bad weather of not.

So you have to wonder, with the printing of the Barrie Examiner moving to Quebecor's printing presses in Toronto this week, how often will Examiner residents be readers in waiting.

Examiner readers were told today the good news is later deadlines at the new plant will mean more late-breaking news and sports.

The paper will also look better, the Examiner tells its readers in announcing its move from Georgian Web to the Toronto plant.

On the downside, deliveries to homes and stores "will be a few hours later."

The Barrie Examiner's memo to readers:

Growth means change. And that’s exactly what’s happening at The Barrie Examiner.

Starting today, the Examiner will no longer be using the printing services of Georgian Web. Georgian Web and its staff have served us well for the past 10 years or so, but we have outgrown the company’s limited capacity.

Just as the City of Barrie is quickly changing, so must we. In order to accommodate the growing needs of the community we proudly serve, we had to find a new printing facility. It was touch and go for awhile, but we’ve secured a spot at our parent company Sun Media’s new $250 million state-of-the-art printing facility in Etobicoke. As a result, our paper will change overnight.

It will feature vibrant colour on every page for our readers - offsetting colour availability to meet our growing advertisers requirements.

Besides colour, not to mention a vegetable-based, environmentally-friendlier ink that won’t come off on your hands, the switch means our press time will be later. This will allow us more flexibility when it comes to covering latebreaking local news.

Morning delivery to stores and subscribers will continue, but will be a few hours later. We apologize for that.

However, the switch will not affect our online content, which means those of you who can’t seem to find the time in your busy morning schedules to enjoy the paper, can still check out the latest local headlines before you head out the door at www.thebarrieexaminer.

As for the large portion of the space previously rented to Georgian Web, it will be utilized to facilitate the current expansion happening at the Examiner.

End of memo.

A TSF tipster notes:

"The problem is they are are dumping Georgian Web, a local company that was renting space for their presses, doing all the surrounding papers, and commercial jobs like flyers and magazines.

"Local news loses, local firm loses. Thank you Quebecor. The center of excellence up here does about 20 newspapers, as far north as Kirkland Lake and as far west as Sault Ste. Marie."

8 comments:

  1. That is a load of complete and utter nonsense. A good friend of mine worked for Georgian Web as a printer. We worked together back in those halcyon days when newspapers actually had their own presses; he moved to Georgian Web as companies closed presses far and wide. Georgian was able to accommodate the demands imposed on it. But the writing was on the wall after Quebecor bought the new plant - you can't spend all that money without something to print. How does moving it down the road provide later deadlines? Wouldn't deadlines be most flexibile in a plant on your own property, and one that is there to serve your needs? They just spew out lies without caring much whether the readers - both of them - believe it or not.

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  2. A vegatable based ink. What the hell does that have to do with putting 16 presspeople out of work. More time for late breaking stories? Lady was run over by a transport at 1 am Mon.Was it in Tues. paper. No. Delivery will be later. Yup. Instead of the drivers picking the papers up at 1:30 am they pick them up at 6:00 am. People won't
    see the paper till 10:00. When the union has the next contract negotiation, who has the bargaining power then?? Where do they print 24 papers then??

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  3. They do Kirkland Lake in Barrie? I thought it was done in Timmins?

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  4. "The current expansion happening at the Examiner" must mean the expanding of the Centre of Excellence to handle the tab Life and other shared pages previously done by the Sue Batsford team in London - the team that's been shrunk to just Sue.

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  5. Very Interesting indeed. I was the printing ink supplier,of a Canadian Ink Company to Georgian Web, until Quebecor purchased and mandated printing ink be purchased from a U.S./Japanese Company. Just for the record Georgian Web has been using Vegetable Oil Based Ink(canola and soya oil) for many years!!!With the exception of black as the costs are very prohibited for vegatable oil based black ink.

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  6. Everyone is right, of course. This is the party-line we've been hearing since Quebecor goose-stepped into power.
    "We're destroying families and ruining the newspaper industry to serve you better!"
    PKP wants to run his media empire using the fast-food model: One central factory employing minimum-wage employees spews out snack-sized, one-size-fits-all homogenized garbage to satellite storefronts across the country.
    No one wins with this model. Not the readers. Not the advertisers. Not even Quebecor.
    They trim away individuality, personality and creativity when they ravage these newspapers and print sites, then falsely believe that their readers and advertisers lack the smarts to realize the scope of what was forced upon them after many years of loyalty.
    As a result, readers lose interest, circulation numbers decline, and revenue from advertisers drops.
    Unfortunately, rather than alter their collective business models to accommodate the interests of local readers, the publishers at QMI-owned community newspaper sites are told to blame everything on the economy, when the reality is nothing more than the fact that their products stink.
    You can't put out a successful local newspaper when it's written, paginated and printed outside the communities where it's distributed!
    And if the next rumoured phase of QMI's centralization strategies come to fruition - i.e. outsourcing to call centres and production facilities in India - PKP will have successfully eradicated the last semblance of humanity from his company, by deprived even hard working Canadians the privilege of earning pennies a day at his sweat shops.
    Quebecor should be ashamed of what they've done to Osprey's community newspapers.

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  7. Well, the India scenario is coming to virtually every North American media venture eventually. Torstar has been doing it for the majority of 2009 I believe.
    Didn't the KW Record just move all of their production there?

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  8. Maybe you Sun Media folks should talk to your competition at Metroland, Black Press and Trans Con as they are all either starting the same processes or gearing up for it. You're the leaders!

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