The day after

No words from TSF tipsters following yesterday's rumoured Sun Media circulation and distribution employee conference, so it appears the sky has not fallen on them.

With the 38th anniversary of the Toronto Sun's Nov. 1, 1971, launch coming up Sunday, no news is good news when it comes to cutbacks.

Barrie to T.O.

One thing you can count on several times a year is traffic chaos on Highway 400 south of Barrie, bad weather of not.

So you have to wonder, with the printing of the Barrie Examiner moving to Quebecor's printing presses in Toronto this week, how often will Examiner residents be readers in waiting.

Examiner readers were told today the good news is later deadlines at the new plant will mean more late-breaking news and sports.

The paper will also look better, the Examiner tells its readers in announcing its move from Georgian Web to the Toronto plant.

On the downside, deliveries to homes and stores "will be a few hours later."

The Barrie Examiner's memo to readers:

Growth means change. And that’s exactly what’s happening at The Barrie Examiner.

Starting today, the Examiner will no longer be using the printing services of Georgian Web. Georgian Web and its staff have served us well for the past 10 years or so, but we have outgrown the company’s limited capacity.

Just as the City of Barrie is quickly changing, so must we. In order to accommodate the growing needs of the community we proudly serve, we had to find a new printing facility. It was touch and go for awhile, but we’ve secured a spot at our parent company Sun Media’s new $250 million state-of-the-art printing facility in Etobicoke. As a result, our paper will change overnight.

It will feature vibrant colour on every page for our readers - offsetting colour availability to meet our growing advertisers requirements.

Besides colour, not to mention a vegetable-based, environmentally-friendlier ink that won’t come off on your hands, the switch means our press time will be later. This will allow us more flexibility when it comes to covering latebreaking local news.

Morning delivery to stores and subscribers will continue, but will be a few hours later. We apologize for that.

However, the switch will not affect our online content, which means those of you who can’t seem to find the time in your busy morning schedules to enjoy the paper, can still check out the latest local headlines before you head out the door at www.thebarrieexaminer.

As for the large portion of the space previously rented to Georgian Web, it will be utilized to facilitate the current expansion happening at the Examiner.

End of memo.

A TSF tipster notes:

"The problem is they are are dumping Georgian Web, a local company that was renting space for their presses, doing all the surrounding papers, and commercial jobs like flyers and magazines.

"Local news loses, local firm loses. Thank you Quebecor. The center of excellence up here does about 20 newspapers, as far north as Kirkland Lake and as far west as Sault Ste. Marie."

OT: Blades

CBC Television's ongoing Battle of the Blades scores on several fronts.

At the top of the list is the opportunity to see the inside of the landmark Maple Leaf Gardens after a tenuous 10 years of Loblaw ownership.

The return of ice, lights, performances, laughter, applause.

And the transition of former NHL hockey greats from hard-hitting players to more graceful, competitive figure skaters is oh, so sweet. Who knew?

Once upon a time, the measure of a man's testosterone during the deep freeze of a Toronto winter was determined by his TV viewing preference - NHL games or figure skating.

Battle of the Blades is blurring that line once drawn in the ice.

Macho men are admitting they are watching Battle of the Blades and that is a huge credit to the production team that made it all happened.

Drawing Tie Domi and seven other retired NHL players into the figure skating arena and making them look good with their female partners is creative television programming.

The players are doing it all for charity, but their competitive spirit clearly isn't allowing them to soft-pedal the challenge. They are in it to win.

Cheering them on are other retired hockey players, including Red Kelly, who was on Maple Leaf Gardens ice in the 1960s when Stanley Cups were being won.

Question of the day: Pay top dollar for tickets to see the embarrassing, low-flying 0-8 Maple Leafs at the ACC, or five bucks to watch a gathering of good-spirited former NHLers doing loops at the Gardens?

Same here.

But back to the use of Maple Leaf Gardens, where we watched Elvis Presley perform in 1957, saw the Beatles and the Rolling Stones in the 1960s, and attended Leafs games that involved Stanley Cup winners.

Glad to see the Gardens hanging in there. Hopefully, Battle of the Blades is just the first of many new ventures for the building.

Black Wednesday?

A TSF tipster says a recent e-mail to Sun Media circulation and distribution employees advises them to attend a meeting at the Toronto Sun on Wednesday.

That is raising concern, says the tipster.

It could be for a friendly pep talk, but at this time of the year, with rumours about another round of pre-Christmas cuts, who knows.

Could the axe be falling on some distribution routes? Is there an agreement with another Toronto newspaper to share distribution routes, which has been done by papers elsewhere?

We've always wondered if print editions in communities well beyond the GTA are an endangered species.

While most people beyond the GTA probably take the daily trucking of the Sun to smaller villages, towns and cities for granted, we don't.

Even at $1.58, and aside from all of our bitching about the changing of the tabloid, having the Sun in corner stores seven days a week is a convenience that has always been appreciated.

Chopping distribution areas and pushing readers beyond the GTA to use the Sun's online e-Edition at five bucks a month would be a setback in our daily routine, but not a surprise move by the bean counters.

We have no idea what Wednesday will bring. In PKP's world, what was does not mean what will always be.

Stay tuned.

Lew & Balloon Boy

The Toronto Sun's initial decision to bury the Balloon Boy story last Friday was "moronic," says Lew Fournier, a highly-respected former copy desk vet and headline writer extraordinaire.

Fournier, responding to a comment that the Sun was correct in burying the story, writes:

"The first poster is stupid beyond belief. This is the kind of dimwit who would dismiss Clifford Irving's hoax because he really didn't write a book about Howard Hughes.

"It's this kind of provincial thinking that has sent Sun circulation dipping over the horizon.

"Sure the story was fake, but not the millions of eyes, both American and Canadian, that were glued to the unfolding drama, real or not.

"The Denver airport was closed; millions of dollars were spent on policing; every parent on the continent held his or her breath as the story played out.

"And played out it did.

"The story had legs - good and bad - and the decision to bury it was nothing short of moronic.

"Lew (what in hell are you guys smoking?) Fournier

"By the way, how are the Leafs doing?"

Thank you for your signed comment, Lew.

Lew was part of the 333 newsroom team that oozed tabloid competence for several decades - with front page pizzazz, clever headlines and a nose for tabloid news.

The departure of Lew, along with other vets taking buyouts last spring, siphoned much of the Sun's remaining tab talent.

The Balloon Boy miscue was the most recent of several slow starts for the Sun. Two other notables: the abduction of eight-year-old Victoria "Tori" Stafford in Woodstock in April, and Jaycee Dugard being found alive in California in August - 18 years after her abduction.

There are tabloid stories and there are broadsheet stories. The Sun worked its magic daily for decades by hiring people who knew the difference.

With today's crew, there is no consistency. It is hit and miss.

The departures of Fournier and his desk colleagues, the recent departure of Mike Burke-Gaffney as managing editor, and the upcoming departure of Lou Clancy as editor-in-chief, are clearly felt in the newsroom.

Currell book 2

Harvey Currell's new Byways and Bylines softcover book recounting his lifetime relationship with print media is his fifth book.

The 380-page book, published by Trafford Publishing, includes 32 of his favourite columns about Ontario communities and their inhabitants living beyond the province's major highways.

As the book's liner notes read: Every week he distilled his adventures into a Trips column—from 1958 to 1971 for the Toronto Telegram and from 1971 to 2007 for the Toronto Sun.

Currell, 87, also writes about his early life and his army years.

His other books are Where The Alders Grow, and The Mimico Story, both about west-end urban history, Thirty Trips Around Ontario and More Trips Around Ontario.

If you can't find Byways and Bylines in your local bookstore, it can be ordered at Amazon.ca

BTW: His 1967 book, The Mimico Story, can be read online.

Sudbury Star -1

Denis St. Pierre signed off as a Sudbury Star political reporter yesterday in a published farewell to his hometown audience.

St. Pierre says he is leaving "the world's best job" after almost 25 years at the Star to join his wife and children in Toronto.

"So, the fact I'm leaving The Star is by no means an indication that I've lost my enthusiasm and appreciation for the job, or my affection for and ties to this wonderful city in which I was born and raised," he writes.

"At the risk of making this column more syrupy or banal than it's already become, it's a matter of following your heart and seizing golden opportunities when they arise."

That opportunity was a job in Toronto as a communications officer with the Canadian office of the United Steelworkers.

Star colleagues bid him farewell at a gathering last night.

"Sudbury will miss him," says a TSF reader.

New Sud pub

Bruce Cowan, the Sudbury Star's new publisher, will temporarily double as publisher of the Timmins Daily Press, says a Star story.

Cowan, 49, Daily Press publisher for six years, replaces David Kilgour, who quit Sun Media to join Metroland's Guelph Mercury.

The Star story says except for a brief stint at the Welland Tribune, Cowan's newspaper years have all been in Northern Ontario.

Other stops for the Ryerson grad, who hails from Niagara Falls, were the Sault Star and the North Bay Nugget.

"It is a great opportunity," Cowan says of the Sudbury Star.

The Star story says for the time being, the father of two "will be commuting back and forth to Timmins to help oversee the operation of the Daily Press."

Sound familiar?

Re Harvey Currell

Harvey Currell, one of the many Sun vets who have quietly been put to pasture, ended his paid Tely/Sun country travels two years ago after 49 years on the road.

Fans of his popular Wednesday Sun columns still ask whatever became of Harvey Currell?

Well, John Downing tells us today in his latest Downing's Views blog posting - and the update is all positive.

Currell, at 87, is the author of a new book called Byways and Bylines.

"I just visited my past," says Downing. "And Harvey Currell's book Byways and Bylines also gave me some ideas for weekend jaunts, which he did for many Torontonians for 49 years.

"Of course I'm prejudiced, having worked and yarned with Harvey since 1958, when I was a kid reporter and he was the Suburban Editor of the Toronto Telegram who didn't think I had done that great a job transcribing a story from one of his staffers."

Currell had a strong connect with Sun readers as he wrote about Ontario's small towns and villages, well off the main highways. You never knew where he would surface.

Fading clippings of Currell's columns can be found on the walls of country bakeries and other businesses he wrote about and proprietors still talk about his visit in great detail.

Downing wrote the liner notes for the back of Currell's new book, repeating what he wrote in 2003, when he and Currell were Toronto Sun "columnist colleagues."

He notes that Currell's first column appeared in the Toronto Telegram in 1958, making his book a journey just over half a century in the making.

The book includes 32 updated travel stories, memories of his army years and other tales from his 87 eventful years.

Downing's blog has much more to say on the book and Currell's newspaper years, from Toronto Star and Telegram delivery boy to veteran columnist/author.

Meanwhile, the $20 book would be the perfect stocking stuffer for armchair travellers.

Downing says you can find the book at The Bookmark, 2964 Bloor St. W. (416-233-2191), or you can phone Harvey at 416-621-2451, if he's not on the road to somewhere.

(Photo courtesy of John Macfie, North Star Publishing, Parry Sound)

Sifton's new job

Beringer Capital has dashed the hopes of Michael Sifton fans that he might return to newspaper management.

The former Osprey Media/Sun Media chief has been hired by Beringer as a managing partner, says Steve Ladurantaye in the Globe and Mail's Streetwise blog.

Beringer Capital plans to “significantly” expand its investment activities in the marketing and media sectors, adding the former CEO of Sun Media as a managing partner, says today's Streetwise posting.

Sifton's new position involves the media, just not in the newsroom arena.

One TSF comment poster said today there are many former Sun Media employees who would gladly work for Sifton and Lou Clancy, outgoing Toronto Sun editor-in-chief.

Sifton, former Osprey chief, was a brief ray of hope when appointed Sun Media chief in 2007. That optimism quickly faded when Sifton quit in 2008 and PKP became Sun Media chief.