Friday 6 March 2009

Van's 24 diced

Sun Media's national slice and dice agenda hit the popular 24 hours in Vancouver yesterday, with 16 employees laid off, including Sean Holman, an ace investigative reporter.

A lengthy story at thetyee.ca says the layoffs represent 40% of the staff at the free commuter newspaper, which had a respectable 2008 daily readership of about 250,000, which was more than Metro.

Holman, a B.C. legislative reporter at 24 for four years, was one of five people in editorial who were pink slipped. Previously, the paper's only full time photographer was laid off.

What caught our eye in the tyee posting is the following paragraph:

As a result of the layoffs, more pages at Vancouver 24 hours will carry batch-produced copy shared with other newspapers in the chain. And more of the pages will be assembled in Toronto, sources said.

TSF wonders just how much Quebecor's slicing and dicing, downsizing and merging involves the downturn in the economy.

Quebecor's grand plan to centralize print media operations to the hilt was in the works long before Bay and Wall Streets nosedived into the abyss.

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