Monday 15 February 2010

A TorSun WTF

Sunday Sun readers pumped by Saturday night's cliffhanging silver medal win by Jennifer Heil must have been wondering what the Toronto editors were smoking.

We were impressed by Sun fronts for most of the week, but Sunday's Get Lost! front page story about e-mails left us befuddled and just plain duddled.

What were they thinking? Apparently, they weren't.

Ottawa, Calgary, Winnipeg and Edmonton editors got it right and all of their fronts were submitted to newseum.org's selection of world-wide front pages.

And, as you will notice, there was variation in their "silver" front pages

Toronto did not submit its front to newseum.org. Just as well because its embarrassing front page would have been surrounded by impressive Winter Olympics fronts.




Winnipeg Sun









Edmonton Sun









Calgary and Ottawa were almost identical






Ottawa had Heil's silver win on its front, so Toronto can't blame deadlines for the blunder. Or can it? Perhaps PKP's print plant priorities have pushed Toronto's Sunday deadline back to 7 p.m.

All of the Suns will no doubt go front for Canada's first gold medal in Monday's editions, but then we thought Heil's performance rated no less.

Deadlines, bad judgment, whatever, the Toronto Sun blew it.

Meanwhile, twice in the past week the Toronto Sun surrendered all of Page 2 for an ad. What next?

The Toronto Sun has been much too erratic since the seasoned tabloid pros left for various reasons.

Give us the glory days when the men and women on the job were more consistent.

TSF invites the editors who packaged Toronto's Sunday front to explain this one away, anonymous or not.

7 comments:

  1. What does it say about the insecurity of Canadians when there is a demand that a second-place skier be front page news across the country? No wonder the world doesn't take us seriously.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Excuse me, but Canada winning ANY colour medal at the Olympics is a cause for celebration. Back in 1988 (where we won just 5 total) Canada was simply content to sit back, relax and say welcome to everyone else in the world. If we won something, great. If we didn't, more reason to drink more beer.
    Canada is taken seriously across the world, the problem is in this country no one has taken things seriously enough.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sorry, TSF, but have to go with the first comment. A silver is a silver — second place — in an Olympic year in which Canadians are expecting a lot more. Let's save the line for gold.

    ReplyDelete
  4. 6:04 PM: Excuse me, but as a Canadian I am offended by someone who thinks we are so pathetic we have to party when we hit the world stage in any form (bronze, top 20?). Attitudes like that will keep us as the country that sits at the kids' table.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Guess it depends on perspective. I would have certainly put the silver medal winner's smiling face on front - particularly since what was there was pretty much irrelevant. We are hosting the Games, which have been hyped to hell with this Own the Podium crap; we had a fatality before the Games even opened; after several false starts by supposed medal contenders, we finally score. Not a tough call at all, to me ....

    ReplyDelete
  6. What are we telling the athletes (and the rest of Canadians) if we are saying your story is only front page worthy if you win a gold, otherwise you're not good enough? How sad is that if you think that way! I am amazed and proud of every Canadian who is representing our Country! I think Edmonton Sun is the only paper who got it right!

    ReplyDelete
  7. See "Olympics Spirit" entry. EdSun gets it right again. TorSun? WTF? Proof that even gold-medal winners will get bumped for something more inane.

    ReplyDelete