2010 ONA noms

Updated 8/3/11 re Kingston link
Sun Media newspapers across Ontario have apparently earned 40 nominations for Ontario Newspaper Association Awards. 

But we've given up on expecting Sun Media to write a self-promoting summary of all the nominations. The chain couldn't care less about promoting the accomplishments of its newsrooms.

Axing the in-house Dunlop Awards three years ago said it all for Quebecor's lack of interest in annual awards.

But stories about the nominations are trickling in from individual newspapers online. 

Barrie Examiner

Belleville Intelligencer

Brantford Expositor

Chatham Daily News

Kingston Whig-Standard

Niagara Falls Review

North Bay Nugget

Orillia Packet and Times

Ottawa Sun

Owen Sound Sun Times

Peterborough Examiner

Sarnia Observer

Sault Ste. Marie Star

Sudbury Star (bravo Star editors for including complete list of nominees)

Timmins Daily Press

Woodstock Sentinel-Review

Winners of the 57th ONAs will be announced April 30 at an awards dinner in Kitchener-Waterloo.

Metro vs Freep

The London Free Press and Winnipeg Sun will be facing new competition when Metro launches free papers in those Sun Media cities April 4.

The Winnipeg Sun has been kept on its toes with competition from the Winnipeg Free Press, but is the London Free Press ready for a meaty free Metro on the streets?

It can only be good news for print readers and advertisers in London.

Metro is distributed free in seven other Canadian cities: Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver and Halifax.

A CP story says the London and Winnipeg Metros will be joint ventures between Metro International SA of Sweden and Torstar Corp.

Max is back

Max Haines has been a stranger to the Toronto Sun since his retirement in 2006, so what a treat it was to pick up the Sunday Sun yesterday to find a cold case story by Mr. Crime Flashback himself.

The two-page story was right up Max's alley - the unsolved 1981 Toronto sex slaying of British nanny Christine Prince, whose naked body was found floating in the Rouge River near the Sewells Rd. bridge.

It hasn't been easy for Max Haines fans to break a 34-year addiction to his Sun columns, so yesterday's public appeal for new leads in the 30-year-old case has given them hope there will be more from Max.

Max could easily work his way across Ontario for weekly Sunday Sun crime flashback reports in hopes of readers cracking some cold cases along the way.

Years ago, when the Toronto Sun published annual reader surveys, Max's Crime Flashback was always above 80% readership, so his retirement in 2006 left a big hole in the Sunday Sun.

Mike Strobel said farewell to Max in a July 20, 2006 column.

Well, here's a sincere welcome back, Max.

As the song goes: 

It's so nice to have you back where you belong. 

It's over!!!!

Journal de Montreal's 764-day lockout of 253 employees is coming to an end following tonight's 64.1% vote to accept Quebecor's latest offer.

The Montreal Gazette says the deal will see 62 employees return to work, plus one part-time position. The rest will be given a severance package worth a combined $20 million.

The union is not happy with the outcome but media reports say it says it had to recommend acceptance due to the length of the lockout - the longest for journalists in Canadian history.

Overall, a sad slice of Canadian print media history.

News reports:

Toronto Sun QMI

Globe and Mail Staff

The Montreal Gazette Staff

Canoe Media News QMI

Vancouver Sun Postmedia

Online focus?

The heading for John Chambers' appointment two years ago as managing editor of Sun Media's Brantford Expositor read: New Expositor managing editor to put focus on online product

Perhaps the online focus is one reason for the lengthy apology to print readers this week for not one, but two major blunders. 

"Based on the number of phone calls and emails received this week, a good number of you saw that on Thursday we ran the exact same Comment page that we ran on Tuesday."  Chambers says in the apology. "Adding insult to injury, on Friday we had the exact same letters to the editor we had on Thursday."  

Chambers accepts the blame and concludes:

"Simply put, I'm sorry. To our readers, our advertisers, and to all of our staff who work hard everyday, I apologize for this week's egregious errors. It IS unacceptable."

Yes, indeed.

Judging by the minimal amount of advertising on most of Sun Media's cookie-cutter websites, print must still be the bread and butter for the chain. 

So do you think the suits should be focusing on print until the Internet can carry the ball?

Bob Mac -5

Five years ago tomorrow, legendary Toronto Sun columnist Robert "Bob" MacDonald lost his 14-year battle with prostate cancer.

A fighter to the end, Bob was on the job for all but a short time before his death at age 76.

He was an award-winning, 55-year newspaper vet, a respected mentor to many, an AA advocate who never forgot his troubled roots, a loving father and a friend to many from all walks of life.

And he was an anchor in the Toronto Sun newsroom from Day One in November of 1971.

As Peter Worthington, a Sun co-founder, said in a Sun tribute: "If there's any individual who has had a presence throughout the Sun's history, it's been Bob. I miss the idea of him tremendously."

We'll be toasting Robert William MacDonald with a glass of orange juice tomorrow and thinking about his generation of newspaper men and women that made a huge difference as journalists and mentors.

These print media giants worked their magic in newsrooms for decades at the Telegram/Sun, Star and Globe and Mail and should never be forgotten.

Thank you Bob et al.

Crime sells

Cal Millar

Crime sells, whether true crime or fiction, a fact Toronto Sun editors have lost sight of along the way.

But not Cal Millar, who was the Sun's veteran cop desk reporter before he was lost to the Toronto Star's cop desk.

After retiring from the Star, he began researching unsolved murders across North America and in late 2009 saw his first book, Find My Killer, published. He is now working on a second book on missing persons cases, due this spring.

Find My Killer profiles 38 unsolved Canadian murders and more than 225 American cold cases and remains on Amazon.ca's best sellers list - 39th to be exact.  

"There was a bit of a publicity push and I assume that had a bearing on increased sales," Cal says in an email to TSF. "Nice to see."

Cal, who has a new website, says the book has been experiencing steady sales on both sides of the border.

One case that Cal will profile in his next book is the 1975 daylight abduction of four-year-old Cameron March from outside his rural Burlington, Ontario, home.

Cameron, born March 31, 1971, vanished May 7, 1975, without a trace. He would be 39 today if the blond and curly-haired youngster was abducted and raised by another family.  

Veteran cop desk staffers will tell you there are certain stories that haunt them long after they have been published. Cameron's vanishing is one of those for this blogger.

One of Cal's is the Marianne Schuett case from his Telegram years.

Marianne, another Burlington missing persons cold case, was 10 when she vanished  April 27, 1967, while walking home from school.

"Marianne Schuett was one of the first missing person cases I ever worked on as a reporter," says Cal. "Definitely learned a lot since that time."

Cal is now one of 47 current and former Toronto Sun staffers listed on our TSF authors page, a reflection of the talent that has inhabited the newsroom since Nov. 1, 1971.

Kalvin's farewell

Kalvin Reid, editorial page editor at the St. Catharines Standard, said his farewell to readers on the weekend after 12 years at the paper.

"Since word of my pending departure began to spread, the support and kind words from my colleagues, contacts, sources and the community have been both flattering and humbling," says Reid.

"I have met, and become friends with, too many people to list here. As I have said time and time again to anyone who would listen, it's the people who make this job great.

"That is what I am going to miss most."

Bono honours

Mark Bonokoski has been raking in media awards since he joined the Toronto Sun in 1974.

His latest honour is the Tema Conter Memorial Trust Media Award for his series on post traumatic stress disorder. 

The seven-part series, published in April 2010, focused on retired OPP Insp. Bruce Kruger and others with PTSD. All seven articles are online and can be read here.

Bonokoski received the award during a Tema gala in Woodbridge on the weekend.

Quote of 2011

Quote of the year:

"There is no school for publishers, but he understood who the reader was, and he wanted us to be as honest with them as possible. It was not so much about making money as serving the community well."

Murray Thomson, 82, former St. Catharines Standard managing editor, talking about his former boss, Henry Burgoyne, who died from cancer recently at 61.

Burgoyne was the last of the family-owned daily newspaper publishers in Ontario when he sold the newspaper to Southam in 1996. The family bought the paper for a dollar in 1892. 

Family, friends and former colleagues attended a celebration of life for Burgoyne on Saturday.

"When he gave me the job in 1980, he said there would be a fence around the newsroom," Thomson says in an affectionate J-Source.ca story by John Nicol. "He didn't want us to be influenced by advertisers or the powerful."

Amen to that philosophy.