Re Andy Donato

If you are experiencing Andy Donato editorial cartoon withdrawal, you are not alone.

Donato and his bird have been relegated to Sundays only while he vacations in the sunny south this winter.

In previous years, Donato was happy to provide cartoons daily while on vacation, but for reasons the not-so-wise men in management haven't explained, he has been benched weekdays this year.

Donato, an award winning Day Oner, probably doesn't mind having more time to golf and to paint his much-in-demand landscapes.

But WTF, Donato on Sundays only during January, February and March sucks big time for Sun readers. It's the same old more for less b.s. from 333.

Donato, who marked his 40th year of editorial cartoons last year, is one of the few remaining major players at the Toronto Sun.

Benching him weekdays is baffling, but then we are talking about current management working in the shadow of PKP making decisions that make no sense to employees and readers.

Hurry back, Andy. Nobody does it better.

Chicago jazz

In the old days, leaving the Toronto Sun wasn't always permanent. Some newsroom staffers left and returned several times over the years. Not so much these days.

The house got emptier this week with Sun colleagues bidding farewell to buyout recipients and Black Tuesday layoff casualties whose eight week notices expire Monday.

Job losses are nothing to laugh at and the same goes for the revamped Sun comics page. Cost cutting to the extreme - squeezing the last life out of the funnies page, leaving readers with the largest collection of humorless comic strips in North America.

Outraged readers are having their say and Mike Strobel got in his licks in Wednesday's column.

We gave up on Sun comics when the daffy comics editor booted Frank and Ernest.

There's no joy left in Hooterville and we're not talking about the downsized, boxed-in SUNshine Girls.

We're more enthused about two Chicago Sun-Times exports to the Toronto Star: Michael Cooke, 56, as editor, and John Cruickshank, recently appointed publisher.

When the going gets tough, the Star and Globe and Mail always dig in and strive to meet the challenges of the day.

Dave Chidley blog

Dave Chidley, one of Sun Media's talented photographers lost to layoffs, has launched a new blog to showcase his talents.

Dave Chidley Photography: News & More will include access to the National Newspaper Award winner's portfolio and archives.

TSF has added his new blog to our growing Family Bloggers list, which is open to any current or former staffer with a blog.

Dave is forever indebted to Conrad Black for flipping the finger at media during his Chicago trial. It won Dave a 2007 NNA.

Arnold & Dunlops

Arnold Agnew, one of the architects of the annual Dunlop Awards launched in 1984, comments on cancellation of the 2008 awards and their apparent demise.

"Joan Sutton Straus asked me to (comment) about the Dunlops. That leaves it wide open, but I am happy to oblige.

"I did not know the awards had been cancelled, which is a great shame. It was, I think, a good morale/team builder (especially after Christie Blatchford left and stopped winning all the time) and helped, modestly, to bring the scattered pieces of the group together. And I won't get into the problems of hands-on ownership from out of town.

"Anyway, Doug Creighton asked me in the early 1980s (I had launched into a precarious consulting career at the time) to give him a plan for an internal, i.e. Sun group, annual awards program. There was a feeling at the Sun that they were being overlooked/ignored/lookeddownupon by the establishment papers who dominated the National Newspaper Awards.

"Certainly, there was some suspicion among those who ran those papers about a London-style tabloid stirring things up - and having fun doing it. Never mind the fact that many of them were among the experts who predicted the Sun wouldn't last a year.

"I had been on the cartooning judging panel for the NNA and didn't share that feeling, but then we were not very important and I never sat in on any final judging sessions.

"I consulted with senior editorial people in Toronto, Calgary and Edmonton - that was the extent of the Sun empire then - and submitted a proposal, based in part on the NNA because we were doing basically the same thing.

"I presented it to the board, or at least some of them. Eddie Goodman and Dorrie Dunlop were there, I know. We worked out the logistics, recruited some judges and we were in business.

"Trudy Egan was the person who did most of the work and kept the thing on track. There were some great judges, including Joan, Doug MacFarlane, John Grant, Ed Monteith, Hartley Steward and was it Herb Solway's wife, who used to work for the Financial Post?

"Regrettably, in a fit of age (that's age), moving into an apartment and a desire to rid myself of a lot of stuff, including 50 years of books and other paper, I don't have all my files.

"The Dunlops were a great success in my view and will be missed. We can't blame Quebecor for it all. The world is not as newspaper friendly as it used to be in - should I say it? - the good old days.

"Let me know if I can be of any more help. I am sure Trudy, and others, have a better memory for names than I do."

Thank you for your e-mail, Arnold.

Buyout: Al Parker

The Toronto Sun will be losing its Nosey Parker as of March 1, sources tell TSF.

Alan Parker, the Sun vet who has written the Nosey Parker blog since last fall, is the seventh known senior newsroom staffer to take a buyout since January.

The others are Lew Fournier, Bob McConachie, Kaarina Leinala, Sheila Chidley, Sarah Green and Melinda Kryk. Apparently, that's it for now for approved buyouts.

Meanwhile, one source says the ever popular Lew Fournier will be joining his fellow buyout recipients next Wednesday night for farewell toasts at The Jason George, 100 Front St. East, 7:30 p.m. to 2 a.m.

Ten bucks each will help cover the cost of the sendoffs for Sun staffers, who represent more than 130 years of Sun experience.

Meanwhile, Al Parker, a 1973 Centennial College journalism grad, has been around the Sun since the 1980s, editing copy on the rim, news editor (1985-1991), assistant managing editor (1991 to 2002) and deputy managing editor since 2002, writing the occasional features and then his diversified blog.

One of Al's more ironic blog postings was coverage of the Dec. 11 Toronto Sun/24 Hours Christmas Party, with lots of photos of smiling employees. Five days later, Black Tuesday, some of those smiling party goers were among 600 Sun Media employees laid off.

We're sure some of the Toronto Sun layoff casualties will be among those wishing the buyout recipients all the best Wednesday night. Toronto Sun Family members have always been supportive of each other.

We never thought the number of Sun newsroom vets would be counted in the dozens, but with the exodus of those laid off and the buyout recipients in the next three weeks, we are sadly getting there.

In fact, there are so few people left from the Sun's glory years that the days of TSF farewell postings are numbered. Once everyone who helped make the tabloid a success is gone, we won't have any emotional ties to the tabloid. It will become just another newspaper, stripped of all its unique and feisty style, content and heart.

That will no doubt satisfy a couple of "anonymous" TSF readers who say they are ticked with this blog for writing about the glory years and the people who made it all possible. Well, sorry, we prefer positive and productive over negative and destructive any day of the week.

And to those same TSF readers, if you want to take cheap shots at the blog, provide your names and we'll consider using your comments.

Meanwhile, the Kingston Whig-Standard turned 175 yesterday. The Toronto Sun is a mere 37 and, while profitable, has a questionable future as a competitive daily newspaper.

Indians? Nyet

Toronto theatre critics encountered negative feedback recently in reviewing Melanie J. Murray's play, A Very Polite Genocide.

The Toronto Star used "Indian" in its review. The Sun and Globe used "aboriginal."

What is respectful and politically correct today?

Grassroots News offers a helping hand with this "very complex issue" in a new blog posting and their bottom line is:

"Presently, the most acceptable word to describe the original inhabitants of the Americas is 'First Nations.' The term gets around the pitfalls associated with Indian, aboriginal, native, indigenous and so on, and we just have to be careful not to lump the Metis nation in with it."

Whig is 175

Happy 175th birthday Kingston Whig-Standard.

The elusive first edition of the British Whig, owned by Dr. Edward John Barke, rolled off the press on Feb. 7, 1834.

The future of the print edition rests with Sun Media, now that it owns the Osprey Media chain of dailies.

Today's Whig story says attempts to locate a copy of the first British Whig edition have been unsuccessful, but a carefully preserved second edition can be found in the W. J. Jordan Special Collections Library at Queen's University.

The Whig is appealing to newspaper collectors to contact the newspaper if they have, or know of, a Vol. 1, No. 1 edition.

A collector quoted in Ann Lukits' Whig story says Vol. 1, No. 1 from 1834 could be worth about $1,000.

Freelance '09

TSF recently asked Ian Harvey, a former Toronto Sun vet, for an update on the life and times of a freelancer during the downturn of newspapers and other media sources.

"You asked for it . . . you got it," Ian says in an e-mail, directing us to his blog for a replay of his post-Sun freelance years. His heading: Brother, can you spare an assignment?

Says Ian, freelancing since 2004: "So, for those recently downsized in the ever downward spiral who wonder what freelancing is like, here’s a quick review and a look at what I’m going through, with some advice if you’re seriously considering getting into those games."

Freelancers have had their peaks and valleys and Ian's replay puts the past year for freelancing deep in a valley for him and others.

Joan & Dunlops

Joan Sutton Straus, the Day One Toronto Sun Lifestyle editor and former Dunlop Awards judge, laments the cancellation of the 2008 awards and their apparent demise.

"Doug Creighton was very proud of the Sun, and very proud of the people responsible for its success. He believed the Sun staff was being overlooked by the judges of the National Newspaper Awards. No, not overlooked - snubbed. He was angry about that, and so created the Dunlop Awards.

"(There may have been others involved in its creation. I don't mean to overlook them, but I was living in New York at the time and my only contact was with Doug, who asked me to be a judge, and then Trudy, who sent me all the entries. Batch after batch of papers would be delivered to our New York apartment.)

"The awards were named after Edward Dunlop, the chairman of the Sun board at the time. Handsome, elegant, erudite, a World War 2 hero, Dunlop was blind, but his very beautiful wife, Dorie, read him the paper every day. Edward had highly developed senses - he could recognize you by your step, the air you moved, and he always knew what you had written that day.

"I was very pleased to be asked to be a judge as I was suffering from a little bit of loneliness for the closeness of life with my Sun friends. Plus, what a crew of judges we had; Arnold Agnew, who had been editor in chief of the Telegram, JDM.

"Like Doug, I had always been proud of the Sun and I knew there were very good journalists at the paper. But it is one thing to read the paper every day and recognize that this was a good column, that was a good piece of investigative reporting, there was a stunning photograph - and quite another to sit down for days on end and read the body of work that was being turned out over a year.

"It was an impressive eye opener: what a depth of talent there was, in every department. We took the judging very seriously and it was difficult. Once in a while something leaped out to be a sure winner - the Norm Betts photo of Princess Diana welcoming her children to the yacht Britannia comes to mind, but most of the time the competition was fierce and the judges debated, first on the phone and then in person for hours and hours. Towards the end of the final judging session, held in the Sun offices, Trudy would be pacing outside, waiting for our decisions.

"Several times, I was asked to represent the judges and speak at the awards dinner. Now, I'm a pretty good public speaker and audiences don't bother me, but it is a daunting task indeed, to get up in front of your peers and explain why some won and others didn't. The truth was there truly were no losers. And it was very clear that the staff took the awards as seriously as the judges did. Having excellence recognized mattered.

"I can't begin to tell you how saddened I am by the decision to end these awards. I have watched attempts to dismantle the spirit of the Sun, beginning with the firing of Creighton, and more recently, the ending of careers without any recognition of contributions made, or concern for the heart of a newspaper.

"I am very glad that Doug isn't around to see it. It would break his heart."

Thank you for your comments, Joan.

Drawing Obama

Updated
Thomas “Tab” Boldt, Sun Media's recently departed freelance cartoonist, is making the blog circles south of the border for drawing President Barack Obama with blue lips.

The Moderate Voice, in a lengthy guest posting today by Daryl Cagle, says Boldt is not alone among Canadian cartoonists to show Obama with blue lips.

Says Cagle:

"Some cartoonists have drawn attention for giving Obama blue lips. Canadian cartoonist Patrick Corrigan of the Toronto Star had an Obama cartoon killed by his editor because of “racist” blue lips. Thomas “Tab” Boldt of the Calgary Sun and Cam Cardow of the Ottawa Citizen have also been rendering Obama with blue lips.

"Corrigan tells me that everyone in Canada, in the winter, has blue lips. "Readers of my blog explained to me that blue lips are racist and pointed out an old racist expression “blue gums,” which was a new one for me. Corrigan tells me he’ll be switching to purple lips, Cam will be giving up on the blue lips and Tab was laid off. That may mean the end of blue lips for Obama."

The Association of Canadian Editorial Cartoonists says "the chattering classes of cartoondom have been raising the issue in cyberspace over this odd phenomena."

And the Mother Jones blog has three of the controversial Canadian cartoons as Honorable Mentions: International Division for the "Worst Obama Editorial Cartoons" and notes "as drawn by three confused Canadian cartoonists."

Sun cartoonist vet Andy Donato isn't confused or involved in the controversy. He has Obama's image down to a T.