Wednesday 2 November 2011

Open Forum

Keep in the loop by posting comments here on any Sun Media subject: layoffs, retirements, deaths, cutbacks, your memories, union settlements/strikes etc. 

We'd also encourage you to leave comments about personal and corporate websites that might be of interest  to Sun Media employees. 

Comments will be moderated and posted, but they won't be edited so do try to be tidy in your typing.

57 comments:

  1. I see we're up to our old tricks in Niagara again. Another layoff and "early retirement" in Welland?

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  2. A new private Facebook group for all Toronto Sun employees and alumni has been set up. Add your Sun friends.

    http://www.facebook.com/groups/308489999165884/

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  3. Find it funny Global National News half page ads are in some Sun Media papers. And quoting Canadian Press in a couple of stories yesterday.

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  4. lots more to come

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  5. Who was laid off and who is retiring at Welland Tribune?

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  6. Bill Brioux re Toronto Sun's 40th at Betty's in a new TV Feeds My Family column:

    http://networkedblogs.com/ptmZ2

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  7. Re: 2:01. I heard that also? Salespeople? Also heard regionalized sales force for Niagara? Anyone confirm?

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  8. Yes, I have heard the same about Niagara. I have also noticed that St. Catharines is hiring salespeople but welland doesn't seem to be (according to today's classifieds). We've been fearing one Niagara sales force for years. Perhaps just in time for Christmas?

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  9. I thought you were cutting off all the Sun Media talk for just Toronto Sun nostalgia?

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  10. That was considered, but blog comments will remain open to anyone in the Sun Media chain.

    Sun tabloid nostalgia can now be found in a closed group on Facebook. It was launched last week, the day after the 40th. If you worked at the Toronto Sun, or any of the Sun tabloids, join us there. You have to be recommended and vetted.

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  11. FYI: 24 Hours Toronto's GM Robyn Matravers and EIC Liza Sardi were dumped by the company. The company announced it Monday afternoon. No known reason provided.

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  12. Sports guys said canoe lost another editor on Monday as well.

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  13. Phil Johnson's video footage of Doug Creighton's 64th birthday party in 1992 can be viewed here:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phkDcSGGeOE

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  14. Has anyone heard how Sun TV is doing, viewership-wise, since Rogers TV and Cogeco punted it into the stratosphere? I no longer get it though my old-school cable package and guess that I'm not alone. And of those who are able to get it, are they searching out channel 145 or 195?

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  15. Sun TV revenues down 86 per cent:

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/specialty-channels-launch-pushes-tva-group-into-red/article2223167/

    Viewership seems to range from about 11 to 30 thousand.

    http://www.marketwatch.com/story/sun-news-shines-with-cogeco-cable-2011-10-31

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  16. Nice to know my job was sacrificed to help this thriving station.

    30,000 and that's nationally? Our local cable station gets higher ratings!

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  17. As a result of the revenues going down, I wouldn't be surprised to see more jobs at their newspapers getting the axe. After all, that's what they have been doing all year long.

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  18. Glad to see you've kept this site open for all Sun Media employees. Good idea setting up a private Facebook group for Toronto Sun originals. Sites like this are good for transparancy where the chain is concerned.

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  19. You think newspaper job cuts are bad now? Wait until the company buys an NHL team

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  20. This company is in a mad dash to have its employees get their vacation time in before year's end. With the way these people operate, it wouldn't shock me if even more cutbacks are on the way in the new year with management wanting buyouts to be as little as possible.
    Of course, maybe I'm just paranoid but it's not hard to be paranoid working for the Quebecor/Sun Media chain.

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  21. Anon 16 Nov 6:30 PM, you would be right to be paranoid. Quebecor is notorious for pulling the rug from under the feet.

    I prefer independently owned and operated newspapers. Concentration of media ownership is a major problem these days.

    In 1990, 17.3% of daily newspapers across Canada were independently owned. Today, less than 1% of daily newspapers are independently owned.

    Less than 1%.

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  22. Was anybody else forced to sign a waiver that if I stop working for the chain for any reason, any used vacation time to that point I become responsible to pay back to Sun Media by cheque? I fear that I smell a buyout coming in the new year.

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  23. 2:04 - Are you serious? Your vacation is earned like your wages, it's not a present from the company that they can yank back or make you pay back. It's yours, not theirs, and you need advice from a union / lawyer or even your provincial labour ministry. Oh, and don't sign anything put in front of you - it will not be to your benefit.

    Thnat said, it smells like another round of layoffs is coming, probably before Christmas so they they can clear the books as of Jan. 1.

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  24. Responding to the discussion of Sun TV's revenues and low ratings, did you see today's editorial? (It ran in the Calgary Sun but I assume it was a national op-ed.) The editorial casts scorn on the president of the CBC for pointing out how attacks against the CBC by the Sun "spiked" after the launch of Sun TV. The editorial gets all high-and-mighty even though the CBC is hardly the first to notice this - the Sun seems unable to process how bad it looks from a conflict of interest perspective. If the CBC were to be shut down the only winner would be the Sun. Maybe. Of course if Sun TV folds the CBC will just get the blame.

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  25. Don't sign anything. Have a lawyer look at it. It is worth the money to do so

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  26. I think this new movement in Toronto is worthy of a spot on the blog. It could even spread across the country. Seems to me it would be fitting payback to PKP for his ruthless gutting of The Sun:

    http://operationsunset.wordpress.com/2011/11/18/hello-world/

    Don Sinclair
    http://mybirdie.ca

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  27. Sun News cuts Peter Worthington out of the picture in Lee Harvey Oswald murder photo:

    http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/world/archives/2011/11/20111121-124636.html

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  28. Don Sinclair:

    So the "fitting payback to PKP for his ruthless gutting of The Sun" is ... an endorsement of MORE ruthless gutting of the Sun, putting the remaining employees out of work?

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  29. Is there a reason out-of-town "Breaking News" shows up on community papers' websites? No one in small town Alberta, Ontario or anywhere else cares about Occupy Toronto or Ottawa "evictions."
    The first thing people see when going onto a community paper website is news about that community. Out-of-market stuff isn't news, much less "Breaking News" to people who rely on their local papers for local news.

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  30. It's all dictated by the powers that be in Toronto.

    You can't delete the content. It's up until someone elsewhere decides to take it down.

    So much for that editorial freedom.

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  31. In our community I have been hearing sarcastic comments from people about this out-of-town 'breaking news' crap on our local site. This is just another perfect example of why this company doesn't get it: it keeps having publishers tell the public that local matters and the public just laughs harder and harder. The evidence continues to point to the contrary

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  32. Haha good one Freedom and Sun Media, two words that can never be said in the same breath

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  33. Doesn't anyone have anything to say on the new Sun Media playbook that talks about 'clouds'?
    And how reporters get to put their opinion into stories now, or how reporters are going to have attend hours-long writing seminars to teach them how to interject that opinion. And teach everyone how to be a better writer. And how we have to be 'edgier'.

    As for that stupid breaking news crap, who has trouble with regional posting? Where stories are constantly updated and you can't remove them.

    This company gets dumber by the day.

    Oh and Sun Media and freedom can be used in the same breath, but it usually comes at the cost of a job.

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  34. Take a look at our websites. We are so far behind other media that it is laughable. All this company does is talk talk talk about being cutting edge. Talk is cheap.

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  35. I directed a savvy web design guy who has redesigned some pretty large newspaper wesites in the states (even the smallest regional daily down there puts our whole chain to shame in both design and online content because in a competitive market they like, pay people to do things properly) to our site just to get his opinion.

    First he asked why our webmasters were still living in 2003 and said it took him a good 15 seconds to recognize it as a newspaper website with all the buttons, ads and visual garbage (particularly the lame GIFs selling electronic subscriptions and links to ancient advertising supplements) blocking off the top half and right third where you'd expect to see news or something. Turn on Adblock and half the damn page vanishes.

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  36. Cuts are happening as we speak at Alberta papers.

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  37. 20 people cut from the Calgary Sun!

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  38. Mike Morrison on Twitter just posted:

    "400 people were laid off today from the Sun Media chain/Quebecor today, including a good friend."

    400 more people??? And just in time for the holidays again. This should be a new topic.

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  39. Another classy move by PKP aka the Grinch, right before Christmas, 27 layoffs today, not sure, but I think that was just in Edmonton.

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  40. @ Toronto Sun Family: Please do keep these blogs open to all Sun Media employees. This blog has proved to be an invaluable resource for finding out some of the truth of what is going on throughout this company. Thank you.

    Any other news on layoffs? Seems only a very few news agencies have picked up the story by The Canadian Press. Any other news?

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  41. For some reason you can't click on the comments under layoffs????

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  42. Rob Granatstein's (former excellent Toronto Sun Editorial Page Editor until he was inexplicably let go) position was filled today:

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/fords-press-secretary-quits-post-for-toronto-sun-job/article2253589/

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  43. Re Anon@8:31 -- I had the same issue, try this link in your address bar: http://torontosunfamily.blogspot.com/2011/11/layoff-forum.html#comment-form

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  44. I see they haven't laid off the boobs who post national and international news to small town papers' websites.
    "Canada Quits Kyoto" maybe relevant news on a national scale, but for papers that specialize in community news, it simply doesn't belong there.
    Sad how there are people in Toronto who don't understand or care about the role of a community weekly and continue to post stuff that doesn't belong.
    People look for local news only on a community weekly website but yet corporate folks in Toronto can't fathom that.

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  45. The "community" in community news has been lost along the way. In 1966, the city editor of the Brampton Daily Times refused to publish a Beatles photo taken at Maple Leaf Gardens by an off-duty reporter because no local people were in the photo. Space fillers, not community news, rule today. Recycled Sun Media content in community newspapers across the chain is a travesty.

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  46. Layoffs at former community papers happening. I say "former" community papers as any resemblance to a real community paper is a thing of the past. I understand some jobs lost recently due to ads being built in India.

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  47. A friend of former Calgary Sun newsman Peter Miller wants them to know he died Nov. 30 and was buried in hometown Napanee, Ontario. He was 67. Debrah Wright of Calgary says Peter's cousin, Brenda Murphy, wants to notify friends of his passing, especially a Louise, the widow of a newsman named Ray.

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  48. The Sun media network, as it stands today, is a lost cause. Young people laugh at it and know it's biased, irrelevant, and worse, way behind the times. Old people grew up and decided they would rather read real news, which the Sun chain very rarely supplies now. Fans of Sunshine girls discovered the internet. Smaller, leaner, modern minded small market news sites are rapidly (very rapidly) replacing Sun's "community" newspapers, and finding it easy to do since in actual fact Sun abandoned community news, and instead just milks a rapidly drying-up cash cow for the last few pennies of advertising revenue. Those of you who worked for a Sun you could be proud of, good for you. Those of us who toil longer hours for less pay and no job security are in a stinkhole of despair, prevented from doing good work by a machine that doesn't want good work.

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  49. I would imagine Ray would be Ray Smith, formerly of Calgary, The National Enquirer and Toronto.

    Rob Lamberti
    Chair, Toronto Sun Unit
    87M CEP

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  50. That's about it for me. This outfit couldn't organize its way out of a paper bag. Salary freeze, killed bonuses, layoffs, and (PKP) still collects his millions. As soon as I can find another job, I'm gone. Gonna be fun to watch as the communities who really own the papers kick his ass to the curb and support the inevitable new startups. A $1,500 Mac, a bit of software with some basic newspaper knowledge, and the Quebecor cash cows will be slaughtered

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  51. Hey 12:27...if you think that's all it takes to start up a multi-media company, the one you're working for will be better without you. It won't be long before your naivety will cause that green grass you're pining for to give you heartburn.

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  52. that's what it takes to start a 'local' newspaper,
    in small town canada, all they want is their local news and they want it delivered to their door
    it is naive to think otherwise

    watch and see

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  53. You're correct but a $1500 Mac, some knowledge and some software do not a newspaper make. 60 - 70% of all costs come only from staff, printing and distribution. That doesn't leave a lot on the table for an office etc.

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  54. Who needs an office? Everyone can just work from home or out of an office two towns over.
    It's not like community newspapers need to be in the communities they serve or anything.
    Offices are just an unnecessary expense. Being accessible and connected to the community is vastly overrated.
    Signed,
    Sun Media management/bean counters

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  55. The editorial gets all high-and-mighty even though the CBC is hardly the first to notice this - the Sun seems unable to process how bad it looks from a conflict of interest perspective. If the CBC were to be shut down the only winner would be the Sun. Maybe. Of course if Sun TV folds the CBC will just get the blame.

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  56. Well i started a weekly community newspaper a year ago, and it's kicking sun medias butt, it's the best paper in town!! it's all community!!!

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    1. Best wishes to you friend...In Chatham, if a local wanted to open up a paper it would be welcomed..as long as it was all local, and cheque presentations were welcome and all news locally printed. They could hire back some local reporters that really cared, at per piece pay, and not worry about a big office. A storefront would be a nice touch, where the folks could come in and share a story too. I miss the good old days...Sun lost some good souls this past year..some of them genuinely cared.

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