Freep -1

Marnie Lanning, a London Free Press staffer for more than 20 years, was pink-slipped by Sun Media today to the amazement of fellow employees.

Marnie, manager of online and classified inside sales, joined the Free Press in August of 1988.

"It's an odd move, considering as head of online sales she is integral to the web operation," says a TSF tipster. "This from managers who say online is the priority. It makes no sense. There is no one who knows the web, or print sales, better than Marnie.

"The advertising staff is shocked," says the tipster. "She was hugely popular. They are left wondering who's next."

Yet another "Merry Christmas, you're fired" casualty.

Voice's voice

The Hinton Voice in Alberta, one of Canada's newest independent weekly newspapers, posted this comment on TSF today. It reads:

Just a clarification on the Hinton Voice - this start-up is owned and operated by Robin Garreck and Sarah Burns (we are both former Hinton Parklander employees).

With that said, Tyler (Waugh) is a great community newspaper guy and his editorial background and overall knowledge are a definite asset.

The Hinton Voice started publishing in June 2009 and we are doing great. We've received ongoing support from some businesses who wanted to see a more community-oriented approach to their local paper and who appreciate the fact that the profits stay here in Hinton and are not siphoned off to some corporate headquarters out of province.

Customers and readers have also appreciated the quality of our printing . . . and we feel a debt of gratitude to Roger Holmes and his good people at Star Press in Wainwright, AB, whose consistent work quality and continued guidance have been a great help.

The Hinton Parklander went total market coverage in September, but we stuck to our guns with a paid circulation on the belief that there is value in what we do and that people will pay for it . . . that has continued to be the case.

Subscriptions continue to grow steadily, with the Parklander move to a free paper actually pushing people to our office for subscriptions when Quebecor refused to refund money for those who had already paid for home delivery.

Just as an update, we won the Newcomer Award at the Chamber Small Business Awards in October and we were recently awarded the contract for a writing and design project for early 2010 that will be a welcome boost to the bank account.

It has been a lot of hard work, but we feel it is paying off.

Anyone who wants to check us out online can do so at www.hintonvoice.ca (we are planning to do some redesign work in the coming months) or check out our Facebook page.

Anybody who really wants to support these independent movements can buy an ad or get a subscription.

We are happy to hear the news out of Strathmore . . . and wish Mario (Prusina) and his crew all the best. We want to thank TSF for connecting the people who care about accountable journalism, whether they be large daily papers or small weeklies like us.

We hope you reconsider changing your focus back to primarily the Toronto Sun and instead keep your network available to all of us trying to keep the spirit of your 'Day Oners' alive.

All the best,

The Hinton Voice

Thank you for your update.

TTC suicides

The Toronto Sun's fourth day of coverage of TTC suicide stats leaves us wondering what mental health professionals have to say about the motivations behind very public suicides.

Why do so many people inflict their traumatic and indelible deaths on TTC drivers and passengers when they can off themselves quietly and privately with a bottle of pills?

The TTC suicide stats the Sun fought to have released clarify all of those brief radio reports of subway shutdowns aired over the years.

You would say to yourself "another suicide" when hearing of subway shutdowns, but you didn't keep count. The actual numbers are much higher than estimated.

Kudos to the Sun for removing that veil of secrecy. Time now for proposals to reduce deaths by subway, including trains slowing to a crawl when approaching each station.

Has the TTC considered emergency alarms at both ends and in the middle of each station, with warnings of substantial fines for misuse? There are emergency stop strips inside subway cars, why not exterior alarms linked to the control centre?

If used for a fall of suicide jump, the extra seconds could prevent deaths. If misused, no harm done, except for the loss of a few seconds in the service schedule.

Substantial fines for misuse could help the TTC with its annual budget woes.

Meanwhile, other secretive stats we'd like to see the Sun pursue are the number of suicides attributed to all forms of gambling in Ontario, including casinos. We have heard those stats would be equally staggering.

Re new weeklies

Don Sinclair, a retired newsman and former Bowes executive now living in St. Albert, Alberta, comments on new weekly newspapers being launched in western Canada:

"I continue to read with interest about new weekly newspapers sprouting up in the west. They are, of course, the result of the changes in operational functions of existing weeklies owned by Sun Media (Quebecor).

"My congratulations to the latest venture in Strathmore. Long may it prosper.

"The opportunity for start-ups in rural Alberta are, of course, a gift from Quebecor to former employees, although I very much doubt that they even know it.

"As publisher after publisher bites the dust and more and more publications are being managed by a single publisher living in another community, the window of opportunity for former employees to compete with Quebecor opens wider.

"That is because senior management at Quebecor seems to lack any basic understanding of the products or the markets they serve in communities with weekly papers.

"And while the western management team should know, they are either feigning ignorance, or are towing the company line with little or no protest.

"Having been in the weekly and small daily game from 1962 until my retirement in 2001, I have an intimate understanding of how a paper in a small community works. And as former Executive VP and COO of Bowes Publishers for a dozen years, I was instrumental in acquiring many of the papers Quebecor is set on destroying.

"A weekly is only as good as the people who work there and the publisher, editor and ad manager are key members who liaise with the community every single day.

"Unlike a major city daily, these people know everyone in the community due to their positions. Relationships are formed at the council meeting, the county meeting, the chamber of commerce meeting, the hockey rink, the curling club, the minor hockey league, the local school, the local pub and dozens of other places too numerous to mention.

"The staff in total become part of that community, led by the publisher. When you tear the heart of that relationship out of a community by removing key staff members and managing from afar, you leave a void in that community.

"So naturally, the community loses any sense of feeling for the publication being a real part of their lives, and considers it an outsider since the changes. Throw in the word Quebec and you will find a certain, not unexpected reaction, by many small town western residents. In short, they never thought about who owned it before, but the new owners, and former employees, will now be sure to remind them often.

"And when a new publication comes along, with a few familiar faces from the days they felt the paper represented them, the loyalty is instantly transferred to the new publication. And so are the advertising dollars.

"It is sad to see a management team so blind to the concept that they are unwittingly destroying their revenue stream, bit by bit, community by community.

"But destroy it they will. Sit back and watch it happen over the next few years.

"Don Sinclair
St. Albert, Alberta

Visit my web site: http://mybirdie.ca"

Thank you for your comments, Don.

New Alb. paper

The newest independent Canadian weekly staffed by former Sun Media employees is Alberta's Strathmore Times, launched a few days ago.

One TSF tipster says the publisher, ad manager and production manager are former employees of Sun Media's Strathmore Standard.

Another TSF tipster writes:

"A birdie whispered in our ear that former Strathmore (Standard) publisher Mario Prusina, axed in the last round of (Sun Media) cuts, has started up a new weekly in Strathmore.

"The fledgling newspaper apparently launched this week. It's nice to know that even though the company no longer believes in newspapers, that employees who have given their hearts and souls to the business still do.

"God bless Mario! You give us all hope."

Donato tax wins

Today's Globe and Mail says Andy Donato's charitable ways took him to court on tax charges involving big bucks, but the award-winning editorial cartoonist and Toronto Sun Oner has won his battles.

Paul Waldie's lead reads:

Andy Donato has been skewering politicians, bureaucrats and public figures for nearly 40 years in his editorial cartoons in the Sun newspaper chain. But for the past seven years, Mr. Donato has been waging a personal battle with the government, and federal tax officials in particular.

Waldie's lengthy story details the tax turmoil Andy has been experiencing for seven years and describes his determination to fend off the federal Canada Revenue tax hounds.

In a nutshell, the Globe story says the court cases involved tax credits and capital gains after Donato generously donated 710 cartoons to universities in 1999 and 2001, valued at close to $500,000. He fought both tax battles all the way and won.

Congrats, Andy.

The last paragraph of the story should delight fans of Donato and the Bird:

His contract with the Sun expires next year but he hopes to renew it and keep going. For how long? "As long as I can," he said. "There's so much going on."

You said it.

Macklin's photos

Sandra Macklin, a former news editor, has posted a dozen or so nostalgic "old Sun pics" of fun moments in and out of the Toronto Sun on her Facebook page.

Quite the amiable crowd, circa 1980s and 1990s. Got the job done, partied. Won awards. Enjoyed profit sharing, an annual reflection of the excellent work they were doing.

Sad to say, but just about everyone in the photos is long gone from 333. A few have died. - Nick Ibscher, Lloyd Kemp and Paul Heming - Most of the others have been axed or took buyouts.

Thanks for sharing Sandra. Great to see those familiar faces again.

Say what?

TSF could devote a daily post highlighting typos and other editorial faults in the Toronto Sun, but the underlying cause is lack of staff and overworked employees.

But we can't get past the lead of Don Peat's news story on Page 20 of Wednesday's Sun. If it is still online by the time you read this, click here to see what we mean.

The heading is: Brit boss sued by Mississauga woman sent lewd e-mail: Intern

The lead is: I don't think that's loving your enemies.

No quotes, no attribution.

We consider Peat a competent, productive reporter, so the personalized lead is quite puzzling.

It is a news story, not a column or an op-ed effort.

Did an editor rewrite the story and add the personalized comment?

Is this the "new" Sun, with reporters trying to be cute with the news?

Or are we missing something?

Odds & ends

David Richie, a freelance photographer, got excellent mileage out of photos of an Oakville police takedown of two women. Almost identical photos appeared Monday on the Toronto Sun's front page; the Star's Greater Toronto section front page and Page 11 of the Globe and Mail.

A Canadian Press story says Toronto Star management has filed notice with SONG that 121 jobs in editorial and pre-press will be cut, saving Torstar more than $4 million a year. How many Toronto Sun refugees will be among the bodies cut next month? Stay tuned.

Re the sale of 333: The Toronto Star has quoted sources saying the new owner of the 34-year-old newspaper building "is likely Toronto developer First Gulf, a division of the company that recently purchased the 1 Bloor condominium site in Toronto."

With the sale of 333 and the Sun becoming a tenant in the building it built in 1975, what becomes of the Andy Donato mural on the wall of Red's cafeteria and John and Alexandra Hood's 180-foot-wide commissioned outdoor mural unveiled in 1993?

A TSF tipster says Sun Media's Dunnville Chronicle, once "a mighty community newspaper with its own presses," is down to 1.5 employees - one ad rep and a part time receptionist. A freelancer is being used as M.E.-reporter-paginator, says the tipster. "How long will it last?"

Peter W & Oswald

Newsmen who gathered in the basement of the Dallas city jail on this date 46 years ago thought it would be a brief, uneventful perp walk for Lee Harvey Oswald.

Peter Worthington, dispatched to Dallas by the Toronto Telegram after President John Kennedy was assassinated two days earlier, was standing a few feet from Oswald when it all went deadly wrong.

And there is ample television footage of Peter at the scene.

In the first minute of one clip, Peter can be see up close as print and broadcast newsmen jockey for positions before the perp walk.

Later in that footage and in others, Peter can be seen standing to the left with his hands in his pockets while waiting for Oswald to be walked to an armoured car for transfer to a maximum security cell. The same footage shows him wincing when Jack Ruby's gun is fired.

Other footage viewed in a documentary, but not found online, shows Peter interviewing a cop after the shooting. He was in the thick of it for the Telegram that day in Dallas and, as always, did the paper proud.

Dallas cops involved in the perp walk are another story.

Forty-six years later, the visible lack of security for an accused presidential assassin still boggles the mind. And take note of how accommodating the cops were for the cameras in the hectic aftermath of the shooting.