The Brantford Expositor and St. Catharines Standard are thinner this week as the Sun Media crunch continues.
TSF tipsters say Tammy Ransome, a 17-year circulation staffer at the Expositor pink-slipped two weeks ago, made her exit on Friday.
"Her job has been absorbed into the Sun Media circulation call centre," the tipster says.
Another tipster says the Sun Media chaos down Niagara way is affecting the operations of the Niagara Falls Review, St. Catharines Standard and Welland Tribune.
The tipster says the Review is already being assembled at the Standard. Beginning Monday, the Tribune will also be paginated at the Standard.
Editors who have been doing the work "are being demoted to reporters" and the duties of other media people are also being changed, says the tipster.
Meanwhile, Tiffany Mayer, a reporter at the Standard, has called it quits and has left to work in the private sector.
PKP's grand plan no doubt involves reducing Niagara newspaper production to one, as was done in Port Hope, Cobourg and Colborne, now called Northumberland Today.
Niagara Today, perhaps?
TSF tipsters say Tammy Ransome, a 17-year circulation staffer at the Expositor pink-slipped two weeks ago, made her exit on Friday.
"Her job has been absorbed into the Sun Media circulation call centre," the tipster says.
Another tipster says the Sun Media chaos down Niagara way is affecting the operations of the Niagara Falls Review, St. Catharines Standard and Welland Tribune.
The tipster says the Review is already being assembled at the Standard. Beginning Monday, the Tribune will also be paginated at the Standard.
Editors who have been doing the work "are being demoted to reporters" and the duties of other media people are also being changed, says the tipster.
Meanwhile, Tiffany Mayer, a reporter at the Standard, has called it quits and has left to work in the private sector.
PKP's grand plan no doubt involves reducing Niagara newspaper production to one, as was done in Port Hope, Cobourg and Colborne, now called Northumberland Today.
Niagara Today, perhaps?
Just pull the plug on all of us and be done with it. Clean house, hire a bunch of know-it-all graduates willing to work for pennies because they think this is some great calling.
ReplyDeleteThen in five years, fire them for expecting more pay and vacation.
This company makes me sick.
What goes around comes around, my friends. I'm a true believer in this, as you all should be.
ReplyDeleteQuebecor will eventually pay for irreparably destroying the newspaper gene pool in Ontario. It's a foregone conclusion. The writing is on the wall.
They can slash as many talented individuals as they want and hire a bunch of kids for pennies. But in this business there's absolutely no substitute for experience, and they will learn the hard way as local, often independent, weeklies spring up and mop up the market share they let fall by the wayside - ironically, using the talented staff they discarded.
It's already happening.
Is it just a coincidence that Tammy Ransome was also SONG's unit chairperson at The Expositor for many years?
ReplyDeleteMayer was the Standard's best writer. Her leaving is symptomatic of a newsroom issue with a certain individual. Her husband Steve Gallagher is first out the door, then she hightails it. What's that say about morale?
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of Brantford, how is that new paper doing since they launched a few months ago? Did they make much of an impact against the Expositor?
ReplyDeleteThe people of Niagara won't like one newspaper. Readers at all papers now complain about too much news in their local papers from the other papers.
ReplyDeleteThere is no morale at any of the Niagara papers.
Silly poster, this is PKP's world where we don't care about the readers, if it saves 5 cents, we merge them all!
ReplyDeleteGotta build up the bank account for the NHL team.
The consolidation model happening in Niagara will slowly move west to other regions this year. That's the plan in southwestern and southern Ontario where there are too many papers too close together to justify separate staffing. Sorry, it's not like I'm spilling any beans here, the writing has been on the wall
ReplyDeleteYeah, well, he'd better start expending a bit of that bank account if he doesn't want to lose the freelancers he's increasingly relying on.
ReplyDeleteThanks to "changes" in accounts payable, many of us haven't been paid since January.