Van 24 bodies

Bill Inglee, managing editor of Vancouver's 24 hours brings TSF up to date on this week's Sun Media layoff casualties, including himself and five others in editorial. His e-mail reads:

"Hi, I was the ME at 24 hours Vancouver and I'm one of the people laid off.

"The newsroom cuts hit six people, three reporters and three deskers. One desker, Tim Campbell, had already given his notice and was off to Beijing. Thursday was his last day. Desker Robyn Stubbs was scheduled to go on maternity leave at the end of May and was let go Thursday.

"I was a day-oner and was cut Thursday.

"The lifestyle (Carly Krug) and entertainment reporters (Graeme McRanor), were both cut. They were day-oners. Sean Holman was also chopped. There may be some bumping between the lifestyle/news section, but it's still in play.

"The cuts also hit the advertising and administration departments, including at least one day-oner.

"Cut at the same time was publisher Amber Ogilvie, who was formerly publisher at a number of Sun Media papers in Ontario, including Stratford. She had 20-plus years with the company. She was chopped on Wednesday.

"What gave 24 hours its distinct edge was local entertainment and lifestyle coverage, plus the ability to do bigger multi-day features absent from our competition.

"This truly was The Little Paper That Could brought to the West Coast. We rocked the boat and made the two Canwest papers distinctly nervous. It was made up of a great editor and an outstanding team of journalists.

"I've been in the business 28 years and this was the best team I've worked with. You know how you say 'This is how I'd do it to get it right?' This was that place.

"We marked the event in old-time Sun Media style Thursday night with a blow-out in a bar on Main Street.

"Cheers

"Bill Inglee."

Thank you for your e-mail, Bill. All the best.

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.

Comics: Blame Glenn

Updated 06/03/09
Sun Media's decision to switch to one comics provider for the Sun tabloids was based on money, not laughs, says an online story.

The story says Creators Syndicate has locked up five major Canadian dailies, becoming the exclusive provider of comic features for the Toronto, Ottawa, Edmonton, Winnipeg and Calgary Suns.

The decision to go with a single syndicate was a business decision by Glenn Garnett, vice president, editorial at Sun Media Corporation, says the Daily Cartoonist.

The comics are Rubes, Strange Brew, Zack Hill, The Barn, Agnes, Daddy’s Home, On a Claire Day, Doug Eat Doug, and Scary Gary.

Raise your hand if you have a favourite among today's comic strips, one that generates a genuine chuckle.

The story says while some fans of other comics from other syndicates might be disappointed, Garnett says there hasn’t been any major complaints from readers apart from the few that were anticipated.

That's not what readers have been saying in letters to the Toronto Sun and on blogs, including TSF. Our feedback is you get what you pay for and in this case, what Sun comics readers got is not a barrel of laughs.

(Check out the online feedback to the story.)

But hey, the comics are filling space for less money.

A TSF reader found something amusing in the Daily Cartoonist story.

"They don’t have to pay all the different syndicate fees that come with al-a-carte approach,” one quote reads.

The TSF reader says: "I always thought the expression was 'à la carte.' Or maybe they put some guy named Al on a carte. That could be funny."

More Liz Braun

For those who can't get enough of Sun Media's Liz Braun, the outspoken veteran film critic can be found talking film in a series of recent clips on YouTube.

The 13 WILDsound Feedback Film Festival clips have Liz in a theatre talking about films viewed and soliciting feedback from the audience.

Liz, part of the solid Toronto Sun entertainment crew, is one of our favourite T.O. critics for calling a turkey a turkey and a gem a gem and summing up her opinion in the first paragraph or two.

Here is a sampling from the short film fest:

Vallee on tour

Brian Vallee, the best-selling author and former Toronto Sun reporter, held court in Newfoundland-Labrador recently to discuss his latest book, War On Women.

We found full coverage of his Bay Roberts visit online in an Elizabeth MacDonald feature in the Charter newspaper.

Mr. Vallee was invited to speak in a number of communities in the province and was invited to Bay Roberts by Communities Against Violence as part of Violence Prevention Month, says the story.

Monday, Monday

Updated 04/03/09
Monday editions of Sun Media newspapers appear to be expendable this year.

A Sault Star story says the Kenora Daily Miner & News, one of the former Bowes newspapers launched in 1881 and a daily since 1952, dropped its Monday edition this week.

And a Winnipeg Free Press story today says: The Portage Daily Graphic newspaper, which has served Portage la Prairie for 125 years, is ending its Monday paper - and residents expect more publication days will be dropped later.

The Graphic, a former Bowes newspaper, will publish its final Monday edition on March 31. Other changes in its printing operations could cost half of the paper's 40 employees their jobs.

In January, the Monday edition of the Chatham Daily News was dropped and others were to follow.

The Winnipeg Free press story says Ian MacKenzie, the last independent owner of the Graphic, lamented the moves.

"Very disappointing. I don't know that it's necessary," said MacKenzie. "It's now owned by a big corporation and the only thing that matters is exceptional profits."

The Memo

It is no secret what media conglomerate bean counters can do to the morale of newspaper employees.

The profitable Quebecor is now working overtime on squeezing the life and spontaneity out of its print media holdings.

A reliable tipster sent us the contents of a memo circulated at a Quebecor broadsheet newspaper in Ontario this past week. It takes us back to our frugal years at Thomson newspapers.

The TSF tipster said "any names (in the memo) have been redacted."

The memo:

Taxi/Cabs – Refrain from using. Effective immediately any such invoices will not be processed. I suspect there may be some instances where there is taxi use language in our collective agreements and cancelling will be more problematic. In these cases – we have to be extremely prudent in when and how we use this service.

Flowers: Refrain from using. As per our discussion earlier this week – there may be some exceptions, i.e. funerals.

Competitors’ Newspaper Subscription – once contract expiry is reached do not renew.

Cable/Satellite TV – Cancel all. Divisions should cancel immediately. Once we receive the final invoice we will pay all outstanding balances. Any invoices received for services beyond March 2009 will not be processed.

Shredding services- Cancel. Effective April 1 any such invoices will not be processed. With centralized accounting and finance (in most cases) the amount of shredding required should be minimal and done locally.

Yellow Pages – Cancel immediately.

Cheques under $100.00 – Avoid. In cases like freelance articles, the central business offices are attempting to gang invoices together until they total $100.

Associations – With the exception of OCNA, and the Canadian Media Circulation Audit service conducted by CCNA, we are to cancel industry association services. Fee-for-entry association awards should be monitored close.

A number of our community dailies continue to support the National Newspaper Awards through what appears to be a sponsorship fee that is generally paid out quarterly. NNA should be given notice by the local applicable papers that we will be discontinuing immediately.

End of memo.

A few thoughts come to mind.

Re holding payments until $100 is reached: What freelancer in his or her right mind files anything for under $100?

Re cancelling cable and satellite: How many newsrooms have rabbit ears for TV viewing during major breaking news? And what about high speed Internet in the newsrooms? Nyet?

Re cancelling Yellow Pages: Isn't Quebecor in the Yellow Pages printing business?

Re cancelling competitors' newspapers: Sure, scalp whatever you can from their Internet sites.

Re flowers: Funerals, but no births, weddings or other special events speaks volumes for Quebecor's frame of mind.

Newspaper associations: Who needs them? They only bolster the spirits of newsrooms with their annual awards and mentoring.

Taxis: Let them take public transit in a pinch.

Shredding: Employees in the pre-Quebecor years would chuckle at this memo before shredding.

It is crystal clean that print newspapers are irrelevant in Quebecor's empire and they are just being nickel and dimed to death on the slow and agonizing road to their demise.

200,000 hits

Who would have thought a blog designed to raise the spirits of Toronto Sun Family members would draw an average of 100,000 hits a year when launched in December of 2006?

We didn't.

But visitor 200,000 dropped in over the weekend and if this were Honest Ed's, we're sure he or she would have won something, say the Best of Mantovani on 8-track.

Sitemeter milestones come and go here, so all we can offer is thanks to another visitor.

Now, many of the 200,000 visitors from around the world probably arrived at TSF in error, but there is a solid core of media-related visits daily and that keeps us motivated.

MBG comments

Updated 02/02/09 re Linda Barnard and Rob Lamberti
TSF is pleased to have a full month before Mike Burke-Gaffney bids farewell to the Toronto Sun after 29 dedicated and productive years. Too often, in recent years, vets have quietly left the building without their well-deserved farewells.

Linda Barnard, former Toronto Sun reporter now at the Toronto Star, writes:

"My fond best wishes to a crack editor, a kind man and a dedicated dad.

"I worked with MBG for years and learned many lessons from him, professionally as well as personally. Mike had some very tough jobs to do over the years and he did them with grace.

"All the best, Mike."

Rob Lamberti, veteran Toronto Sun crime reporter and SONG union rep, writes:

"I will miss MBG. He has been great to deal with in terms of union-management relations. He is a gentle man and a gentleman.

"I wish him all the best in his retirement. I am very jealous."

Wayne Janes, a Toronto Sun vet and an editor in Entertainment, writes:

"Mike Burke-Gaffney has seen the best of times and the worst of times at the Toronto Sun - and sometimes been responsible for the best times - and through it all he's been a steady presence, a rock in a hard place.

"In 1985, when I lost my business and he was Sunday Sun editor, MBG gave me a part-time job as a proofreader when I had no journalism experience. A few years later, when I was working on the News desk and Entertainment had seconded me to work there, MBG made a deal where I was still his Fridays and Saturdays, to work exclusively on some of those spreads and features Rick VanSickle talked about earlier. Nothing could have expressed his faith in me more clearly.

"MBG is the kind of editor who points you in the right direction, but never holds your hand. He has always allowed others the freedom and the room to be creative, all the while knowing what the readers want to see and what needs to be done to provide it.

"His unerring instincts guided the paper through its greatest circulation periods and for a while turned the Sunday Sun into the most formidable weekend paper in the city.

"I'm sure retirement will be good for him, bad for us."

It is only fitting that Rick VanSickle, a Sun Media wine writer, is the first to toast MBG.

Rick VanSickle, former Toronto, Calgary and Ottawa Suns staffer now at Sun Media's St. Catharines Standard, writes:

"I don't think there has ever been, nor ever will, be a more caring and talented editor than MBG.

"From his high-flying days when the circulation on Sundays (his paper) was 500,000 (I still have the clock to prove it!) through his many other stints as editor of Toronto's favourite paper (the Sunday Sun), no one put in as much effort, thought and creativity from cover to cover than Mike.

"Working with Mike was an unbelievable treat. Desk editors would do whatever it took to come in on Saturdays to watch Mike work his magic. If you were lucky, as I was many times, MBG would throw you a bone, an open feature page and, if you were really lucky, one of his legendary two-page spreads (run the art big, Mike would insist).

"He always had an idea for that spread, how he wanted it laid out, but it was always a gentle push in his direction. And he was always right, of course. The features Mike assigned were killers when he was running the Sunday paper and his front pages were the most successful Toronto has ever seen.

"Good luck, Mike, in your quest for the perfect round.

"Cheers, Rick VanSickle."

Thank you for your e-mail, Rick.

Comments about Mike's retirement on March 31 can be e-mailed.

Barrie duties

This confirm or deny beyond the call of duty posting comes from a Barrie tipster who e-mailed the following the other day:

"As an odd twist to the home delivery stories that are being posted, the Barrie Examiner, another proud newspaper in the Osprey/Quebecor family, had some press issues overnight, which meant the regular delivery people couldn't do the job.

"They all have day jobs to go to after delivering the Examiner early in the morning. so they (the Examiner) got the reporters and some editors driving the routes and dropping off the paper."