Righting wrongs 2

We've always taken note of how the London Free Press tells it like it is in its editors' blog.

Kudos again for this posting yesterday, a response to a reader's observation that the paper had taken a turn to the far right.

Here it is:

By London Free Press Editors

An astute email today from a reader who noted his coffee group had reached a consensus that The Free Press had become more right-wing of late.

Just so, Terry, and, no, it’s not something in the coffee. But there’s more to the story.

The Sun Media chain of newspapers made a conscious decision in the last months to be clearer of editorial voice and, knowing its market for compact newspapers - let’s just call them tabloids - veered more right on the political spectrum in its opinion columns and editorials or points-of-view, as we call them.

But it has since realized that what’s good for the tabloids in big cities such as Toronto and Calgary and Edmonton, might not be as good for the 20 or so community broadsheet newspapers it owns in Ontario cities such as London and Kingston and St. Catharines, as well as smaller centres such as Sarnia, Chatham-Kent and Woodstock.

If that coffee group keeps an eye on things for the next weeks, I think it will note a certain nudge back to a more centrist view of things that includes voices from more of a range of political views.

(TSF note: Does that include a return of Eric Margolis?)

This also seems as good a time as any to tell you the long association between The Free Press and writer Rory Leishman is at an end.

More on that here Friday and in Saturday’s Free Press, but let me make clear that the one, no more Rory, did not follow from the other, the decision to shift Free Press opinion pages back toward the political centre, although it would be perfectly natural to conclude it did.

End of posting.

More damage control in the aftermath of the Tory Kory mayhem? Looks like it and editors of Sun Media's community newspapers are probably doing the happy dance.

We're not so sure the far, far right is "good for the tabloids in big cities," but small steps.