Brioux & Dunlops

Former Toronto Sun TV writer Bill Brioux echoes the sentiments of numerous Sun Media employees who have attended Dunlop Awards ceremonies:

"I had the great good fortune to attend three Dunlops, three years in a row. It was a wonderful honour, and just a rush to be in the same room with other journalists from across Canada who were also being recognized for good work.

"I always appreciated the opportunity to get up and thank the talented editors and layout people who, just as part of their jobs, made me look good. It was a kind of professional camaraderie I have never experienced anywhere else.

"It would seem that, more than ever, Quebecor would want to engender that spirit and build up that esteem. I hope they reconsider this move. It is one of the most cost-efficient investments they could ever make.

"The last Dunlops I was at, I stopped sort of telling this joke: I hoped the smaller Sun Media papers competing for the “under 50,000 circulation” awards wouldn’t be too upset next year when the Toronto Sun slid into that category.

"It seemed funny at the time."

Thanks for your posted comment, Bill.

There is a brass-framed 1988 Honorable Mention Dunlop hanging on the wall to the right of this blogger's computer that has not lost its shine in 20 years.

Co-shared by reporter John Schmied, the award is signed by Arnold Agnew, J. Douglas MacFarlane and Joan Sutton Straus.

The banquet was memorable for its camaraderie and its black tie touch of class.

The Dunlops have been an annual tradition since 1984. They are a small price to pay for keeping the competitive spirit of reporters, photographers and editors afloat in these dire times.

WBZ & LeVeille

Power to the people isn't a cliche anymore for fired all-night Boston talk show host Steve LeVeille.

Thousands of E-mails to WBZ, numerous petitions and Internet sites set up after the popular talk show host was dropped last month have prompted the radio station to reverse its decision.

LeVeille has returned to his old midnight to 5 a.m. slot, much to the delight of faithful listeners throughout the northeast U.S. and parts of Canada.

Now that is supporting your favourite pink-slipped media people.

Kudos to WBZ for listening to the protests. We are confident that, much like Sun Media, they underestimated Steve's popularity when making cuts.

Steve's fans no doubt voiced their dissatisfaction with WBZ by tuning out. Sun readers who are losing favourites are turning off.

How would Sun readers might have reacted if they were immediately told their favourites were being laid off or forced into retirement with buyouts?

Would they have petitioned for the return of Linda Leatherdale, Scott Morrison, Jane Stevenson, Bill Brioux, Valerie Gibson, John Downing and others?

That won't happen with Sun Media's veil of silence, but we're pleased the power of the people has Steve, his unique gathering of regular callers and unique banter returning to WBZ.

Sports surge

Is it just us, or has Toronto Sun sports coverage been hogging more of the shrinking news slots in recent weeks?

Front pages, news columnists writing about sports, special sports reports and features up front in the news section etc.

The upfront sports trend became apparent weeks ago with a series on minor hockey in the GTA taking up pages and pages of news turf.

It was sporty - and not that pretty - on the front Tuesday with the NHL In Crisis and Pan Am Games throws. Definitely not one of your Sun front keepers, eh Les?

We suspect it all has to do with the eventual purging of news in favour of a sports and entertainment tab.

Sun readers are noticing the heavier emphasis on sports. They are writing letters.

And the Toronto Sports Media blog says Tuesday's front page NHL Crisis come-on just didn't live up to expectations.

Stu Hackel at the New York Times also mentions the Toronto Sun's front page.

The Sun has always favoured solid sports coverage and rightly so, but you would think the occasional sports front and a dedicated 16-page sports pullout section would be adequate.

Dunf is back

Gary Dunford is blogging again from the wilds at Dunf In Space.

He's talking dogs, the wind and other dunfisms that Toronto Sun readers used to crave daily on Page 6 during the glory days of the tabloid.

Gary cleaned out his Sun office in the summer of 2005 after 32 years and more than 7,000 columns.

One of the first postings on his blog was his final column in the Toronto Sun, which is the most visited link on TSF.

In fact, TSF readers e-mailed to ask if Dunf was okay as he had not posted since August of 2007. There were sporadic Dunf sightings and reports that all was good with Mr. Page 6.

Gary's new photo on his blog is a picture of a news vet who seems quite content to be away from the confines of the shrinking Sun newsroom.

Welcome back to blogdom, Gary.

PW: lost at sea

Peter Worthington dispatches his first report from the huge new Celebrity Solstice sailing the Caribbean.

His attentive National Citizens Coalition audience listened to Peter talk politics instead of watching the Super Bowl, Bruce Springsteen and those $3 million commercials Sunday night.

Man, that is speaker appeal.

Dunlops axed

Sun Media's popular annual in-house Dunlop Awards for 2008 have been cancelled, sources told TSF last night.

Chances are the first cancellation of the Dunlops since they were established in 1984 to honour Edward A. Dunlop, first president of the Toronto Sun Publishing Corp., means they are toast.

Sources say Sun Media's vice-president of editorial announced the cancellation Monday, advising department heads:

"After much consideration, it has been decided it is best that the Dunlop Awards program for Sun Media be suspended for this year in view of sacrifices and cuts we have had to make in all aspects of our business."

Yeah, right. Bean counters must have caught wind of expenses being incurred in honouring the best of the best in the Sun Media chain.

Why give the survivors of 10 years of Sun newsroom guttings any cause for celebration and morale boosting? Besides, it's only news, so why strive for excellence?

As the Edward Dunlop Award of Excellence brochures read:

"These Awards commemorate Edward's high ideals by annually recognizing the outstanding journalistic achievements of editorial staff members within the Sun organization."

The Dunlops were the pride of the late Doug Creighton, the Toronto Sun's co-founder and founding publisher. Former judges included Doug MacFarlane, Joan Sutton Straus and Hugh Wesley. Awards nights were memorable and bonding.

Can Quebecor sink any lower in squeezing the life out of every Sun Media newsroom?

If PKP's intent is to erase all ties to the glory days, when newspaper people ran Sun Media, he is just about there in numbers and morale.

Just a few more Sun vets to be shown the door and viola, his cookie cutter papers will be produced by low-paid fresh faces right out of college who won't have a clue about the Suns pre-1999. None of that "glory days" tabloid talk.

Personally, we'd say screw Quebecor and organize an employee-sponsored 2008 Dunlop Awards to keep the Dunlop spirit alive and to get some joy and satisfaction out of jobs well done.

Set up a website, confine Dunlop submissions to the four original Suns - Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton - and have an online awards presentation this summer.

You could have site visitors vote on entries, or continue with a panel of volunteer judges.

Or have Sun staffers lost all enthusiasm for the job and any awards in the wake of 600 layoffs on Black Tuesday and more layoffs and buyouts since December?

Sun Media lost its enthusiasm for promoting Dunlop winners in recent years, leaving each newspaper to announce their winners, with no overall summary.

If employees do quietly let the Dunlops for 2008 pass, the torch lit with enthusiasm in 1984 will be permanently extinguished.

No doubt about it.

Saying goodbye

Memo to Toronto Sun management:

If you need guidance on how to say thanks and farewell to veteran staffers, watch how CTV is saying adios to weatherman Dave Devall.

First, view Monday night's retirement announcement and the flashbacks to Dave's early years at CFTO in the 1960s, which will be followed by 60 days of 76 trombones before he goes fishing April 3.

Then set up a message site so Sun readers and colleagues can say thanks for the memories, as CTV has done at Dave.CTV.ca

That is appreciation - and class, not slumdog silence.

2 ENT thanks

Two quick thanks to the Sunday Sun people who package ENT.

(1) John Kryk's full page tribute to Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson, killed in their prime in a Feb. 3, 1959, Iowa plane crash. It was, indeed, The Day the Music Died for us teens caught up in the early years of rock 'n' roll.

As John writes: "Such a travesty, such a waste."

Weeks earlier, this blogster was watching Buddy, Ritchie and J.P. perform at Alan Freed's Christmas Jubilee rock and roll extravaganza at the Paramount Theatre in New York City.

Seventeen top rock stars of the day for $4.50 general seating. From such a high to such a low.

They weren't the last rock stars to die prematurely, but their deaths remain the most traumatic. It was, for teens of the era, another lesson in the fickleness of life. The sudden death of actor James Dean in a car crash on Sept. 30, 1955, was the first.

The Des Moines Register remembers Feb. 3, 1959, in this video:



Another ENT thanks:

(2) The new Sunday Sun TV grid, for all of us who were left out in the cold after the Sun banished the TV guide for all but home delivery subscribers.

It needs a little polishing, but after going without the TV guide for months in the boondocks, it helps fill the Sunday TV grid void.

Do you think you could work it so Bill Harris and his television page could be opposite the Sunday TV grid?

Just asking.

Calvin Reynolds

Calvin Reynolds is a Toronto Sun veteran who reluctantly begins his final week at the tabloid he loves on Monday.

Sources say barring a much deserved, but unlikely, last-minute reprieve from the Black Tuesday pink slip he received in December, Calvin will gone as of Feb. 10.

When you talk Toronto Sun Family, you're talking the Calvin Reynolds of the tabloid. Loyal to the hilt, a company man to the nth degree. Friendly, considerate, sincere in his feelings for colleagues.

All of the qualities you want in an employee, but it doesn't mean a hill of beans to PKP. And PKP doesn't mean a hill of beans to the majority of disheartened Sun vets these days.

The front door of the Toronto Sun has seen hundreds of saddened employees make their final exit since Quebecor bought Sun Media a decade ago. Good people with much more to give.

Calvin, a behind-the-scenes photo desk staffer and creator of the popular Brain Drain with Professor Calvin quiz in the Sunday Sun, has much more to give.

"Very typical of PK," a colleague tells TSF. "They are stripping away part of the glue and mortar (in letting Calvin exit.)"

Newspapers need people like Calvin. People who care and give a damn about people and the product.

The character of Calvin has shone brightly numerous times throughout the years, but it shone most for TSF in March of 2007.

Scott Stevenson, Calvin's longtime friend and Sun colleague laid off the previous November, was turning 50 and Calvin e-mailed to give TSF members the opportunity to wish Scott the best.

When there are farewell parties for layoff casualties, Calvin is among the organizers.

When Sheila Chidley, a longtime sports department sweetheart, took a buyout recently, Calvin used her photo in his Brain Drain quiz, his way of saying farewell.

With management's dismal track record in letting Sun vets go without a word of thanks in print, we're not too optimistic about a tribute for Calvin next week.

He deserves mention in the tabloid he has loved, as do other Sun contributors who will be bidding farewell to 333 in the next couple of weeks thanks to Black Tuesday and buyouts.

The gutting of 333 is all but complete. Six floors of enthusiastic, loyal employees from the glory years have been lobotomized. The presses have been silenced, as have the voices of the newsroom.

There are a few remaining columnists with the balls to write tributes for departing vets, but today's fearful editors tend to spike rather than stand up for their colleagues and friends.

Calvin, all the best in your next adventure.

cc Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, National Post et al

Ted & Parnaby

Ted Woloshyn devoted an entire Saturday Sun column to Tayler Parnaby's forced exit from CFRB.

No doubt Ted wrote from the heart, but what a slap in the face for numerous Toronto Sun vets who have been laid off, fired or have taken buyouts without a word of thanks in print.

Where were the full columns and the "thanks" for John Downing, a Day Oner and former editor, or business vet Linda Leatherdale, or Lifestyle's Valerie Gibson, or the recent buyout vets? (One paragraph and a photo for Lew Fournier doesn't cut it.)

Or how about a story or tribute column for Garf Webb, a Toronto Sun production legend who died Jan. 23 at age 61 after giving the best years of his life to the rising tabloid?

The difference between pre-Quebecor Sun and today's Sun is heart and a sincere appreciation of contributions made by longtime loyal employees.

Today's senior Toronto Sun editors, who have been on the job long enough to know better, are being disrespectful to departing Sun news vets with their deafening silence.

As for being outspoken journalists and communicators, they are failing the grade big time.