Day 1: Kaye Corbett

Memories of Day Oners, a unique group of 62 unemployed men and women from the defunct Toronto Telegram who spent Halloween of 1971 putting out that first 48-page Toronto Sun.

They succeeded despite Tely Wake hangovers, occasional blackouts and primitive working conditions in converted Eclipse Building factory space at 322 King Street West.

Kaye Corbett, associate sports editor:

"Where's the Eclipse Whitewear Building?

Where's Farb's Car Wash?

And the little greasy spoon down the road?

Quick get Doc Feelgood on the phone.

Editor Corbett's been caught in a time warp.

The last time I was conscious, Paul Rimstead was trying to con Doug Creighton out of more monies for an ill-gotten "business trip" somewhere in Mexico and I was trying to re-arrange orange crates to plunk my large carcass on at that early-Canadian foundry on King Street in Toronto.

Someone called it the Toronto Sun.

Some 36 years ago, Ol' Man Bassett had pulled the plug on one of Canada's great newspapers, the Toronto Telegram, and a scrappy bunch of news hounds were left out in the cold with pocketfuls of dollars and far too much beverage to consume. Some drifted into politics; others just drifted, but three of them - Doug Creighton, Peter Worthington and Don Hunt - decided to scrape enough dollars to put a down payment in birthing a tabloid that no one expected to be successful. Oh, it might last a week, if best.

So with money burning holes in my pocket, Montreal seemed enticing. The Telegram had been good to me; gaining experience as a sportswriter and giving me the chance to write about the Amazing Mets of 1969 when the former bunglers of the diamond proved there were, indeed, angels in the outfield.

Alright, Corbett, get on with this story.

However, when I returned from Montreal with a terrific job in my pocket, the "Baron," George Gross, was waiting. With little fanfare, he, Creighton, Worthington, Johnny F. and Doug of the Bassett family and myself squeezed into a car and stopped at the Eclipse Whitewear Building, which happened to be an Edifice to Ugliness.

Before the day was over, I had accepted the job as associate sports editor to Gross with something that hadn't even hit the street.

Even today, 36 years later, the memory of those first 48 hours with the new Toronto tab are still vivid in my mind; such as the sheer panic of trying to put the initial sports pages together under Gross' direction and finding that nothing fit, photos couldn't be found and also coping with a pounding headache from the preceding Tely farewell parties.

The deadline for the first edition passed and hours stretched past the midnight hour and as well-wishers gathered around, Don Hunt urged the haggard sports staff to "bust our %$#@^& buns." And we did.

Suddenly, the first edition of the Toronto Sun hit the streets, mistakes and all.

Thanks for asking about Day 1 with the Toronto Sun. It was a time of panic and fun.

Now, 36 years later, all I can remember is the laughter and the exhilaration we all felt.

The memory of that time still makes this Ol' Man smile and smile and smile."

Thanks for the memories, Kaye.

Day 1: John Downing

Memories of Day Oners, a unique group of 62 unemployed men and women from the defunct Toronto Telegram who spent Halloween of 1971 putting out that first 48-page Toronto Sun.

They succeeded despite Tely Wake hangovers, occasional blackouts and primitive working conditions in converted Eclipse Building factory space at 322 King Street West.

John Downing, municipal affairs reporter:

"I once got a hand-written note from Ted Rogers after I wrote a column about the early days of the Sun and how I always felt tired and acted as if I had a mild case of the flu.

Ted said he appreciated how I felt because he had felt the same anxieties with a new project and worrying about how the family would survive.

I put out the final edition of the Tely on the Saturday and when everyone went out and celebrated, I went home and went to sleep, exhausted. Then I got up and while a new son, Mark, who was only three months old, cried and cried and cried, I wrote my first Sun column on the need for a new stadium and, I hope, the need also not to stick the public with the bill. I can't recall if that message was in the first column, but it was sure in later ones.

Then I went to the battered Eclipse building, feeling awful, and met Doug Creighton coming out. He was bubbling. I told him how I felt and he took me off to the Walker House (I think) for a nice lunch and a few drinks. Felt better rather quickly, which was often Doug's effect.

The first official day, the Monday, I was at City Hall fighting to get an office. Harry Rogers, the property commissioner, wouldn't give us one, so I appealed to the mayor, Bill Dennison,who gave us one. Then I went up to Queen's Park and had the same fight there, this time with the press gallery.

I got a call from Don Hunt around 10:30 a.m. to say we were to stage our first promotion event, a balloon launch from Nathan Phillips Square, with some trip voucher or prize inside one of the balloons. Bert Petlock, an old Tely reporter and friend of most of us, had a balloon client, and showed up in the square with the balloons and helium.

Norm Betts, I think, showed up and demanded that I produce some celebrity to launch the balloons. So I went in and dragged out the mayor, an old friend, who said he was only doing this as a favour to me. So Dennison and I pulled a net from off the balloons and before they rose up into the air, some kids on bikes darted in and grabbed them AND raced off to the south. I phoned Hunt and described two of the kids so they wouldn't get the prizes. I then went in and covered a transportation meeting of Metro council and tried to stay awake.

It was fun. It was exhausting. It was chaos. And it worked.

Looking back, I still can't believe that I passed up a job as a ministry director of information in Ottawa and two jobs in Toronto, one with the board of trade, in order to take this gamble with the other 61.

In fact, Ray Biggart and I were trying to start our own paper at the same time as Doug and His Merrie Men. We had a chap with a press. We even had a former provincial Liberal leader with a million bucks (but we didn't want to start another Star). But it turned out we just didn't have any partners that dreamed as big as the big three behind the Sun."

Thanks for the memories, John.

Day 1: Chris Blizzard

Memories of Day Oners, a unique group of 62 unemployed men and women from the defunct Toronto Telegram who spent Halloween of 1971 putting out that first 48-page Toronto Sun.

They succeeded despite Tely Wake hangovers, occasional blackouts and primitive working conditions in converted Eclipse Building factory space at 322 King Street West.

Christina Blizzard (nee Smales), secretary (and future columnist):

"It's all a bit of a blur, but I remember Doug Creighton asking me if I'd "help out" for a few days. So I showed up the first morning at the fourth floor of the old Eclipse Whitewear Building. Everything was hopping.

You may remember Margaret K and Jean Osborne - those wonderful switchboard operators. They were going crazy trying to keep up with an old plug-in type switchboard. We were so swamped with calls that they just went straight through to extensions.

The back wall of the building had a big hole in it, so we were all frozen. The place was incredibly dirty - but we didn't notice, because we didn't have time.

People kept showing up at the door. There were flowers and cookies and cakes from people who really appreciated having a new newspaper.

Perhaps the greatest thing about the new Sun was its democratizing effect. Creighton and Peter Worthington shared a tiny office. Everyone did whatever needed to be done. If Worthington had to take a call from a reader looking for a Sun box, he did it. We had the most amazingly great collection of writers, deskers, circulation people, you name it, and they all just pitched in.

At one point, Creighton commented that the place "looked like Turner and Porter" because his office was full of flowers and Worthington was looking a bit gaunt from working so hard. He kept an old sweater in his office and lent it to anyone who was cold.

In short, it was chaotic. Yet we had all these amazingly talented people. Imagine how difficult it was for them (Creighton and Worthington) to bring order from that chaos and put out a newspaper. And a great paper, at that.

The first few days were mostly problem solving. How do you take a newspaper and cram it into 62 people and one floor of an office building? Everyone just did what needed to be done. We all had a single purpose - getting the paper off the floor. In short, it was hectic and challenging and rewarding - and one of the most fun adventures I've ever had."

Thanks for the memories, Christina.

Day 1: John Iaboni

Memories of Day Oners, a unique group of 62 unemployed men and women from the defunct Toronto Telegram who spent Halloween of 1971 putting out that first 48-page Toronto Sun.

They succeeded despite Tely Wake hangovers, occasional blackouts and primitive working conditions in converted Eclipse Building factory space at 322 King Street West.

John Iaboni, sports writer:

"News of The Tely’s demise was far more difficult for those with families or long-time employees in their later years than it was for a 20-year-old like me. But it was devastating nonetheless because I believed my newspaper career – a budding whirlwind ride that began in 1968 – was finally over and I’d simply get on with completing my education at the U of T’s St. Michael’s College, destined to become a teacher.

Then, one day in mid-October I called home during a break in studies and my mother told me George Gross had called and wanted me to reach him. Once I did, The Baron offered me a full-time opportunity with a fledgling paper to be called The Toronto Sun on conditions that included (a) Working as many hours per night as my school would allow, as long as I put in five days a week and (b) That my work would not impede me completing my B.A. at the U of T (graduation date 1973 – and I made it!)

George didn’t really have to put any of those conditions on the offer – I was in as soon as he said a small group of Tely staffers were going to start The Sun. It was a total leap of faith in people I loved, believed in and thought if we all worked hard we could make this “dream” come true.

On Halloween 1971 – a Sunday – I remember driving my 1969 metallic bronze Dodge Coronet down to the Eclipse Building for the first time. It was a drab day and the neighborhood was desolate, dreary and depressing … empty railway lands south of us, a parking lot on the east adjacent to our new home, Farb’s Car Wash to the west, the Kingsplate Open Kitchen (a greasy spoon that would be so vital to us) on the southwest corner … all closed as Toronto of that era slept on Sundays.

As soon as I stepped into the rickety elevator for the first time, I realized it was better to take the four flights of steps. Odds were strongly in favour of being trapped in the elevator at some point as some quickly learned.

Our offices? The outhouse compared to the penthouse at The Tely on Front Street. Boxes everywhere. And even though our sports department featured The Baron, Kaye Corbett and Ken Adachi in the building that day – with Eaton Howitt in New York covering the Leafs at the Rangers – there was no room for me there. So I was shuffled off to the back area, somewhere in the vicinity of the washroom. I remember the building being cold. The Argos hosted the Ticats that afternoon with freelancer Bob Frewin covering the game for us – and a crumpled Hamilton QB Joe Zuger making our first cover.

At some point, George asked me to get a “toilet roll” and I went to the washroom looking for one, only to see all the toilet rolls, well, on the toilet rolls. I remember tracking down Donnie Nixon, one of our maintenance guys, to ask him for a toilet roll and the look on his face told me he thought I was off my rocker, especially since he said he’d already put them in the washroom.

But I persisted, not wanting to fail. Donnie finally got me one though and when I brought it to George, he said at his perceptive journalistic best: “What’s this?” And I said, “the toilet roll you wanted.” At that point George, Kaye and Ken erupted in laughter because what he’d wanted me to get was the carbon-roll of copy paper for our typewriters, affectionately called “toilet roll” in the business. So very early on in my Sun career, I learned an all-important distinction between a “toilet” roll and a toilet “roll”, if you catch the drift.

What I remember most about that day – and it would define us as the days became months and the months years – was the unwavering spirit to succeed because we had “attitude” long before it became fashionable. Virtually every department knew each other because we were all falling over each other. And we pulled for each other because we knew it was the only way to make it.

Our news, our photography, our cartoonists, our Sunshine Girls, our Rimmer, our sports … we sure kicked ass, woke up the newspaper business in this town and shook up Toronto.

At around 11 that night, with the composing room on the basement floor still scurrying to put the pieces together for the run to the press room at Inland in Mississauga, George told me to go home because I had classes the next morning. But the pattern was set because I’d put in full days at school with full days at work. Hey, when you’re 20, you don’t think of rest, right?

As I went home that first night I was thoroughly exhausted, more mentally than physically, but feeling good that we were born … a proud moment for all of us."

Thanks for the memories, John.

Day 1: Ken Robertson

Memories of Day Oners, a unique group of 62 unemployed men and women from the defunct Toronto Telegram who spent Halloween of 1971 putting out that first 48-page Toronto Sun.

They succeeded despite Tely Wake hangovers, occasional blackouts and primitive working conditions in converted Eclipse Building factory space at 322 King Street West.

Ken Robertson, former city editor:

"Day one was a Sunday, barely five or six hours after the now infamous, humongous Tely Wake at the Toronto Press Club. Some thoughtful soul laid in a huge stock of aspirin to help us get through that memorable first day. Had that not been the case, it is doubtful there would have been a paper in the boxes Monday morning.

Mr. Bayer's name should have appeared on the masthead.

We took turns using the few available typewriters, trying to bang out stories with the machines wobbling this way and that on temporary cardboard box desks. As the day wore on, and the sun (old Sol, that is) began to sink, so did the lighting in the "newsroom."

A wonky kettle, salvaged from a back room, left on the floor by the previous occupants, kept blowing fuses and putting us in the dark. In desperation, the braver souls among us made periodic emergency dashes across King Street to a long-gone little corner diner (Kingsplate Open Kitchen) for something vaguely resembling coffee. Bob MacDonald used to say reporters should eat in such places at least once a week "just to keep our resistance up."

I went home about two a.m. and fell asleep on the livingroom couch. When I awoke, I looked out at the Sun box at my corner and, be gad, there were actually papers in it. The first of what I always called "the daily miracle."

There were also, much to my delight, a small lineup of buyers waiting their turn at the money slot."

Thanks for the memories, Ken.

Newsroom parade

The only reason Canoe Live is programmed on our PVR is the daily parade of familiar faces in the Toronto Sun newsroom during Jeanette Luu's live interviews.

We aren't talking about the regulars, Mike Strobel, Lorrie Goldstein, Christina Blizzard and Rob Granatstein, who sit down for interviews throughout the week.

We are talking about the not-so-subtle walk-bys of Ian Robertson, Tom Godfrey, Mark Bonokoski, Lou Clancy, Jim Thompson etc. during the interviews.

The length of the newsroom gives staffers ample time to show their good side to the cameras during their background cameos. At least they curb any desire to break into song and dance, or to stop and wave to mom.

Mike, Lorrie, Christina and Rob receive a small fee for their Canoe Live interviews. The unscripted walk-bys are non-paying appearances.

Seems like there is nothing more tempting to a print journalist than grabbing a little ad-lib live television exposure. Who knows, Hollywood could be watching.

Ottawa Sun SOS

The Toronto Sun marks its 36th anniversary on Thursday, with newsroom morale boosted slightly by the recent hiring of several reporters and a renewed focus on local news.

The same cannot be said for the deeply wounded Ottawa Sun, where key newsroom personnel continue to voluntarily jump ship in frustration over poor management and a lack of leadership.

Sources say the Ottawa Sun, still hemorrhaging after 18 months of layoffs, buyouts and firings subsided last spring, desperately needs a lifeline.

Recently announced voluntary departures from the “rapidly shrinking newsroom” in Ottawa:

Andy Tomec, assistant managing editor and computer whiz, to a software company as a trainer.

Rob Brodie, night sports editor and sports columnist, to the Ottawa Senators media department;

Sean McKibbon, court reporter, to a business wire service, where Geoff Matthews, former Ottawa Sun OpEd/Comment Editor and Money Editor, now works;

Sean Kilpatrick, photographer, to Canadian Press;

Dave Washburn, veteran sports copy editor, to CanWest sports;

Five key departures in the last two months.

Key newsroom employees continue to jump ship even after the Ottawa Sun newsroom achieved its first contract because they are "embittered and just can’t take it anymore," one source said.

“Some of the talent has fled to CanWest and the Ottawa Citizen and some have gone elsewhere. But they are now lost to Sun Media, along with so many others who have been hounded out in the race to the bottom.”

"One of the key, underlying reasons people can't stand it anymore is management," a source said. "Even in a hellhole, staff will be loyal to leaders who deserve it and have their respect. Not here."

As one source told TSF, the new Sun Media honchos (Michael Sifton et al) must be wondering what went wrong in Bytown.

“The Osprey types must have been shocked when they took over and are now busying themselves trying to patch a sinking a ship.”

The 30 remaining Ottawa Sun newsroom staffers (down from 60 before the cutbacks) are said to be cautiously optimistic that the new Sun Media leadership will remedy the weaknesses, show a “refreshing” new respect for staff and revive the tabloid's "journalistic values."

"They (Sun Media) know they cut too deep and swung too hard in one direction,” a source said. “Now we can barely get a paper out and people are still fleeing in droves as more local space is returned to shrinking newsrooms.”

The Ottawa Sun, launched Sept. 4, 1988, with great fanfare and enthusiasm, needs an extreme newsroom makeover if it wants to be around to celebrate its 20th anniversary next year.

Paper candles

The National Post, founded by Conrad Black and launched on Oct. 27, 1998, celebrated its ninth anniversary on Saturday.

The Toronto Sun, launched Nov. 1, 1971, by 62 employees from the defunct Toronto Telegram, turns 36 next Thursday.

Next Saturday, the Toronto Star, nee Evening Star, launched on Nov. 3, 1892, by 21 printers and four apprentices locked out at the Toronto News, turns 115.

And the Globe of Globe and Mail newspaper heritage, founded March 5, 1844, by George Brown, celebrated 163 years of publishing, with a merge here and there, last spring.

That's four major Toronto daily newspapers with more than 320 years of publishing experience between them.

A folded, paid-for newspaper tucked under one arm, with content worthy of the minimal daily investment, still reigns in Toronto.

So happy anniversaries to all - and many more.

Inside the Sun blog

When Glenn Garnett made his exit as editor-in-chief of the Toronto Sun, he also signed off as the Inside the Sun blogger after posting items for six months.

The blog has been inactive since Oct. 1 and it has left a noticeable void in news being delivered from the management side.

We were thinking Lou Clancy, the veteran Toronto newsman who has returned to the Sun as EIC, would saddle up to the keyboard and continue the Inside the Sun blog.

There is nothing more accurate than news coming directly from an editor-in-chief and from what we've been hearing, newsroom staffers want to hear all that Lou has to say.

A Lou Clancy Inside the Sun debut on Nov. 1, the Toronto Sun's 36th anniversary, would be an ideal way for the respected EIC to begin sharing his feelings about the tabloid.

Should Lou continue the Inside the Sun blog?

That is the question in TSF's latest poll.

Canoe needs links

The most hyped Internet web site in Sun Media newspapers is canoe.ca, but when it comes to media awards, the online news service is completely in the dark.

The recent Dunlop Awards stories on canoe.ca/torontosun.com are classic examples. There were no links from the online stories to the original award-winning Sun Media entries.

Mark Bonokoski's national Beyond Borders Media Award for his child sexual abuse feature in Maclean's is another online story that shouted for a link. His May, 2006, article is in the canoe.ca archives.

When the Internet became a refreshing new vehicle for information in the 1990s, we thought media would pounce on the opportunity to showcase original content when awards were won.

Like, we won this media award and, click, this is the winning entry.

It hasn't happened.

TSF goes out of its way to Google for stories and photographs behind the awards because the first thing we think of is a lot of people might not have viewed them first time around.

Jerry Gladman's award-winning Living and Dying With ALS, written in the final months before his death in 2004, has been the most active of all TSF awards links. Three years later, people are saying thanks for access to Jerry's heartbreaking series.

Sun readers are being urged daily to visit canoe.ca, but for unknown reasons, they are not being allowed to expand their knowledge with ease by clicking on links to other sources.

We can understand online news agencies being hesitant to direct readers to outside web sites via links, but most Sun Media awards content is on internal computers and not off site.

Links to winning entries are a free and easy way to toot your own horn and keep original content alive in the minds of readers, editors and recipients of the awards.