Mike Strobel column

Mike Strobel writes the most entertaining, offbeat columns for the Toronto Sun. He is one of three surviving "five best reasons to read the Sun" writers, which says a lot for the appeal of his prose.

The veteran Sun staffer - he has the Sun logo tattooed on his butt - added editor-in-chief and managing editor to his impressive Sun resume before gliding smoothly into the columnist slot. He can make us laugh and he can make us cry. He has that range as a writer.

Mike's column today is a second Sun reaction to Friday's Toronto Star column by Antonia Zerbisias. He joins Glenn Garnett, the new editor-in-chief and Inside the Sun blogger, in boldly defending the Sun's status as a competitive Toronto newspaper.

In a nutshell, Mike says the Toronto Sun is hanging in there during the downturn and the Star "can kiss my logo."

As we said, he can make us laugh.

But we thank Mike for four paragraphs in his column that remind us of the old Sun, when columnists were allowed to speak their minds on Sun affairs and the paper recognized the contributions of parting colleagues in print.

Mike writes:

"I don't agree with half the decisions made around here. Never have. Hell, not even when I made them, as editor-in-chief or managing editor of this paper for a dozen years.

"We have lost some good people lately, one way or t'other. Val Gibson, Alan Cairns, Len Fortune, Bill Brioux, Brodie Fenlon, to name a few.

"But the paper lives, breathes, fights another day.

"Worthington and Donato and Goldstein and Bonokoski and DeMontis and Slotek and Kirkland and Warmington and Gross and Coulbourn and Buffery and Leatherdale and Mandel and Braun and Blizzard and Levy and Simmons and Elliott and Weston and Zeisberger and on and on."

No argument there, Mike. Collectively, a solid, talented group of tabloid writers and editors. But why should they be carrying the burden of a diminished staff when the paper is a money maker?

Why the continuing Quebecor hatchet job?

The Toronto Sun "remains one of the most profitable in the country," but Mike and Glenn don't offer any insight into how a newspaper in the toughest newspaper market in North America can compete with a decimated newsroom. It can't - and isn't.

Readership is down, staff numbers are down, morale is down. All of these negative factors are catching up to the Sun and it isn't a pretty sight, within the Sun and beyond its walls.

Toronto Sun Family members all love the Sun for what it was and could still be if spared the inevitable on its present course.

The direction Quebecor has taken with Sun Media since 1999 is flawed and self-destructive. Cutbacks and the very long list of talent lost to firings, layoffs, buyouts and resignations tell the story and that is the story the Star told on Friday.

Edmonton Sun -2

The Edmonton Sun has lost two high-profile newsroom staffers to other news organizations this week.

Doug Beazley, a veteran reporter, columnist and editor, has been hired by CanWest.

The 10-year Edmonton Sun vet has covered almost every beat in his 15 years in the media and reported from Afghanistan for a Sun Media series in December.

Word is Doug, pictured here wearing his war zone gear, will be working out of Ottawa as the editor in charge of western Canadian news.

Also parting company is Edmonton Sun Sports Editor Keith Bradford, who is moving on to the Calgary Herald to work as a copy editor on their universal rim.

Keith, a Sun staffer for almost five years, started as a general assignment reporter, was promoted to city desk and became sports editor two years ago.

Into the Sun 2

If Edward John Smith, captain of the Titanic had access to a blog as his ship was sinking, would he have chatted about the breakfast menu and the weather forecast for the next day?

Or would he have taken the time to talk about the perils of charting a course through an Atlantic containing hazardous icebergs?

That thought came to mind while reading Glenn Garnett's first Inside the Sun blog entries Monday night. Sun promotion. Puff stuff.

We expected more of the same from the new editor-in-chief tonight, but Glenn rose to the challenge (well, partially) in reacting to negative publicity about the tabloid.

OK, we thought, here we go.

Take a read of his second posting. We will wait for your return . . .

As you noticed, most of Glenn's posting is a reaction to Friday's Toronto Star column by Antonia Zerbisias, although he doesn't mention her name.

If you missed her column, this is how it began: "You may not notice it as you go by, but the smell of death is on many street corners in the GTA. It comes out of all those red boxes offering the Toronto Sun."

Antonia's ammunition for the column included: massive cutbacks and layoffs that have left the tabloid with a bare bones newsroom; a trimming of staff throughout 333 King Street East; the sudden resignations of key executives; the firings of TV critic Bill Brioux, Lifestyle writer Valerie Gibson, Readership Editor Alison Downie etc. etc.

Antonio was also armed with comments from Sun employees she interviewed, anonymous because they are terrified of losing their jobs.

Glenn would have made an excellent NHL goalie because throughout his second blog, he deflects all of the barbs and tosses them back at Antonia and the Star, suggesting they look at conditions in their own house.

It is a good, old-fashioned mud slinging competition, folks, but when the mud settles, Glenn really hasn't dealt with any of the visible, ongoing problems at the Sun.

Says Glenn:
"What about that NADbank report which came out a couple weeks ago, showing we had the fastest growing weekday readership? The dandy ABC circulation report last fall?"

Says we:
What about the 2007 Print Measurement Bureau (PMB) Sun readership data released last Thursday? The embarrassing figures the Sun has decided not to publish.

Says Glenn:
"For as long as there's been a Toronto Sun, naysayers have been presaging our doom. It began with Charles Templeton and Pierre Berton way back in 1971 - they gave us six months to live. Over 35 years later, the skeptics are back, and all through the winter we've read magazine and newspaper accounts of a Sun in its death throes, a once-great tabloid circling the drain."

Says we:
The naysayers were mute from about 1975 through the 1990s when the tabloid kicked butt and made a bundle. They resurfaced after Quebecor entered the picture in 1999 and launched a series of cutbacks and layoffs that continue eight years later.

As for naysayers in 1971 and naysayers in 2007, apples and oranges, Glenn.

In 1971, there were 62 former Tely newspaper people with a dream and the determination to succeed. When they did succeed, thanks to a readership that felt connected to the tabloid, they didn't lose sight of their newspaper roots. Management shared the paper's good fortunes with employees. The paper visibly had a heart and a loyal staff.

In 2007, that profitable dream tabloid - once ranked among the Top 100 Canadian best companies to work for - is being dismantled by a conglomerate intent on who knows what. It is a conglomerate with more bean counters than newspaper people, more pink slips than heart-felt thank yous and handshakes; more disillusioned employees than dedicated, loyal staff. In a nutshell, it is more negative than positive at the Sun circa 2007.

Sun profits and declining staff numbers speak volumes for the priorities of the "new" Sun. It is clearly more take than give and employees fear if there is a light at the end of the tunnel, it is an oncoming train.

Deal with Sun issues, Glenn.

Why do you have a newsroom with fewer employees than a shopping mall supermarket?

Why are key people resigning or being forced to resign?

Why have two of last year's "five best reasons to read the Sun" been fired?

Why are people jumping ship week after week?

Why have most of the company benefits been axed when the Sun is still profitable?

Put it all into focus for us as a good newspaperman should.

Sun box blues

Doug Creighton always looked you in the eye during newsroom conversations, but you knew at some point he would look down at your shoes. He was a spit and polish kind of guy.

The Sun newsroom never imposed a dress code. Suits and ties were optional, but catching Doug on a bad shoe day was unnerving.

Doug's fancy for spit and polish extended to the hundreds of red Toronto Sun newspaper boxes scattered through the GTA and beyond. He liked them shiny, clean and current.

Doug and Sun co-founders Peter Worthington and Don Hunt acted like proud new poppas when the first of the red newspaper boxes hit the streets after the Sun's launch in 1971.

Fast forward to 2007 and it is a different story for the Sun's circulation department. It has had its share of cutbacks and is feeling trashed these days.

And the upkeep of many of the Sun newspaper boxes tells the story.

"They are not replenishing boxes," says one source. "All over the place, you see yesterday's papers in boxes. Today, I saw three, maybe four, boxes with yesterday's headlines."

"Back in the day . . . and not that long ago, they rode range on the boxes. The perfect box was one with a single face paper showing . . . and the Sun didn't miss a sale."

The source said the decline in Sun box servicing and the drop in readership numbers represent a "self-fulfilling prophecy."

Dave Lucas - gone

Dave Lucas, a high profile Toronto Sun photographer, called it quits yesterday.

The Loyalist College photojournalism graduate resigned to take a newsroom desk job at the Globe and Mail.

Dave's photo assignments at the Sun ranged from Toronto Argonauts games to Indonesia for coverage of the tsunami aftermath. Dave's photo here was snapped in a jet for a CNE air show story.

His photos have been used by multiple news agencies, including Canadian Press, the Ottawa Sun, Getty and Reuters.

His credentials say here is a photographer you want on your team.

"A great young photographer hangs up his cameras for a desk job . . . I wonder why?," says a Toronto Sun Family reader. "Is it called 'a future?'"

TSF's Daily Count for the Toronto Sun goes back to zero.

Re Rob Lamberti

Rob Lamberti has been living the dream as a big city tabloid crime reporter for 22 years.

He is "Sun 12" to the Toronto Sun police desk when out covering the streets of Toronto in his car. That is the radio number he inherited from Henry Stancu in 1985 when Henry decided to chase ambulances for the Toronto Star.

Rob is a special breed of journalist. Most police beat reporters burn out after a few years of constant exposure to murder, mayhem, missing kids and highway carnage. The Toronto Star's legendary Jocko Thomas was an exception, as was Cal Millar.

After 22 years on the cop desk, the award-winning crime reporter still breathes in harmony with police and ambulance dispatch calls waiting for the next big story. His competitive nature has won him numerous awards, including Toronto and Etobicoke Fire Department Awards, Edward Dunlop Awards and a few Jamie Westcott Memorial Awards.

Rob, who has shared police desk duties with a lot of colleagues over the years, fondly remembers working with Jamie Westcott and Mark Stewart, two dedicated award-winning crime reporters taken much too soon by cancer. Jamie was 25, Mark was 38.

"They are missed," says Rob.

Rob's views on reporting on crime?

"I have always thought crime reporting was fairly black and white. You are either alive or dead. The only grey area tends to be what condition the victim is in. There are politics involved in policing, but I am more interested in writing about life on the streets."

Make that writing about life on the streets and watching Homicide: Life on the Streets, one of his favourite cop shows.

More than most citizens, Rob is in tune with a city in turmoil.

"Crack has changed the city. It has also become less civil and more gang oriented. The city lost a great opportunity to deal with gangs when the police force disbanded its street crime unit because of political expediency and correctness. Now, it's too late."

Rob has also seen turmoil at the Sun he loves with a passion. Newsroom changes that have diminished the tabloid's ability to compete as a major daily newspaper.

That is why he is chair of the newsroom's Southern Ontario Newsmedia Guild unit, working with entertainment writer Jim Slotek, who is the new vice-chair.

Rob says as journalists, they want a "better workplace, one where we stand united against the competition to get the best stories and provide the best coverage, but instead we stand united trying to survive another day."

Rob says beating the competition is the ultimate high for journalists and he remembers the Sun police desk doing just that repeatedly when it had ample staff.

His cop desk highs?

"There were several moments, such as the arrest of two of the four killers of TD teller Nancy Kidd. We had front page exclusive coverage, while the rest of the media knew nothing.

"We had front page exclusive coverage of the gangland-style hit on Eddy Melo, while the rest of the media knew nothing.

"There were the tragic murders of two children in an arson by their violent father in Scarborough. I had the exclusive interview with the victims' mom and grandparents. The grandfather was a retired Toronto fire captain."

The irony of working the police beat is the violence you abhor earns you a paycheque.

So how does a veteran crime reporter unwind at the end of a shift?

Rob collects comics, but not just any comics.

"I have been collecting on-and-off since I was a kid. Favourites include the Marvel universe of characters, but I have also come to appreciate others, depending on the artist, such as Neal Adams, Jack "King" Kirby, Steve Ditko and others.

Crime comics, not so much.

"Crime comics usually have cool covers with the gangsters' molls, always with pronounced headlights, but the stories were often poorly written and drawn."

Rob the family man shares his life with Siobhan Moore. She doesn't mind him talking shop because most of her working life has involved journalism. That is how they met. She was a Sun assistant city editor and newsroom chats developed into a lasting relationship.

"Friendly chit-chat led to bigger and better things," says Rob.

That's a big 10-4, Sun 12.

Re Thomas Williams

In all of last week's news about the departures of Al Cairns, Valerie Gibson, Len Fortune, Mike Koreen and Mike Patton, the buyout of another Sun vet was overlooked.

Thomas Williams was an invaluable, behind-the-scenes graphics department worker for more than 20 years. Thomas and Len Fortune were part of a team that made the tabloid's award-winning graphics shine daily, from the front page to the last.

With Quebecor's restructuring, his graphics job was phased out. Fellow staffers say Thomas could have used his union privileges to bump another employee, but chose not to use that option.

The recent departures represent more than 100 years of Toronto Sun experience out the door, but not a word has been written in the Sun to thank them for their time at the tabloid.

We don't think that decision comes from Michael Burke-Gaffney, the managing editor, or Glenn Garnett, the editor-0n-chief.

Allowing veteran employees who have devoted decades of their lives to the tabloid to go quietly into the night smacks of a Quebecor edict.

Confirm or deny

The 2007 Print Measuring Bureau (PMB) survey results for the Toronto Sun were:

Monday through Friday - 875,000, down from 1.325,000 in 2006, a decrease of 33%;

Saturday Sun - 672,000, down from 1,268,000 in 2006, a 47% decline;

Sunday Sun - 893,000, down from 1,029,000 in 2006, a 13% drop in readership.

PMB survey numbers reflect exposure to the tabloid (the number of people who share a Sun at home, work, eateries, libraries etc.) not direct sales circulation.

Those figures, released Thursday, explain why the Toronto Sun dropped PMB stats from its Comment section masthead on Friday.

Inside the Sun

Welcome to the wonderful world of blogging, Glenn Garnett. We are looking forward to reading your new Inside the Sun blog, which makes its debut tonight.

As the new editor-in-chief, a blog is a grand opportunity for you to discuss the Toronto Sun and the dedicated employees working on all six floors of 333 King St. E.

So what can Toronto Sun readers and employees expect from your new blog?

Will you be speaking candidly about the tabloid, a freedom enjoyed during the glory days when Doug Creighton was at the helm? Those were the days when columnists were allowed to criticize other columnists, editors and management.

As a 26-year Sun vet who shone during your syndicate promotion years in Canada Wide, you must remember when the tabloid was an open book, with no holds barred.

Can Sun readers who felt connected to the Sun of old count on a return to open discussion about the tabloid they love?

Or will your blog postings be little more than a series of sanitized, don't-rock-the-boat puff pieces mouthed on behalf of Quebecor's HQ?

More spin? We hope not. Employees and a lot of readers are no longer buying the all-is-sunny-at-the-Sun rhetoric. It is time for some frank, fireside chats emanating from 333 King Street East.

Toronto Sun readers in large numbers are obviously disillusioned with the Sun's new direction and morale in the bare bones newsroom is running on empty.

Hopefully, your blog will help resuscitate the communication developed between readers and the Sun during Alison Downie's stint as the Readership Editor.

Speaking of Alison Downie, maybe you could explain to your blog readers why Alison and her Readership Editor position suddenly vanished last fall.

That would be a good start.

The TSF's Top Ten other recommended topics for your blog to help restore faith in the tabloid:

1 - How can the Toronto Sun provide the local and regional news coverage readers deserve when the newsroom has been decimated by firings, layoffs, buyouts and resignations?

2 - What are the weekday, Saturday and Sunday Sun's 2007 PMB readership figures? The Sun of old experienced downturns in the 1980s and early 1990s - and talked openly about losses.

3 - If the Sun PMB losses were about 33% daily, 47% Saturdays and 14% Sundays as noted by a tipster, will Quebecor's current course be altered to counter the rapid decline?

4 - As editor-in-chief, what is your opinion of a new University of Missouri journalism study that shows healthy, adequately-staffed newsrooms boost newspaper profits?

5 - Why has the Sun stopped giving departing veteran staffers proper sendoffs in print after they have devoted decades to the growth and success of the paper?

6 - What exactly is Quebecor's game plan for the Toronto Sun and do you think a change in Quebecor's strategy is needed in light of the exodus of staff, morale and readers?

7 - When Quebecor's new printing plant opens next fall and the presses and pressroom jobs at 333 King Street East become obsolete, will the building be sold?

8 - Will the multi-product printing demands at Quebecor's new printing plant affect the deadlines and content of the Toronto Sun?

9 - Do you think Toronto's once feisty and unpredictable tabloid, launched by 62 former Tely staffers on Nov. 1, 1971, will be around to celebrate its 40th anniversary as the Sun?

10 - As editor-in-chief, would you endorse a Quebecor move to morph the Sun and 24 Hours into a free computer newspaper?

Again welcome to blogging, Glenn. Keep the freedom of speech enjoyed at the old Sun in mind when at the keyboard. It is a freedom journalists should never surrender.

P.S. That is quite a list of blog comment posting rules.

Edmonton's turn

News from the Edmonton Sun has been sparse since we launched this blog in December, but a tipster says that could change in the next five days.

The tipster says a newsroom resignation will be announced tomorrow and staff is expecting layoffs to be announced during the week.

Two other Edmonton Sun staffers, in news and sports, have already announced their departures for jobs with the Calgary Herald and CanWest in Ottawa.

The same tipster says five Winnipeg Sun staffers - two reporters, a part-time photographer and three editors - are parting company through the voluntary buyouts announced in early March. Another reporter has jumped ship to work for CP in Winnipeg.

Thank you for your e-mail.

We won't mention names until we confirm the Edmonton and Winnipeg departures. If accurate, both papers are losing some serious talent.

The thinning of the Sun troops on all fronts continues.