30 - Mark Dailey

Mark Dailey lost his lengthy battle with cancer today and Toronto media have lost an iconic voice and a gentleman friend.

As the Citytv obit says: A Legend Lost.

Mark was only 57, but two generations of television viewers and radio listeners are familiar with the dedication of the Ohio-born newsman.

The Voice of Citytv" since 1979, Mark survived prostate cancer in 2004, but in September he told viewers he had kidney cancer and that cancer later spread to his lungs.

You would be hard-pressed to find media people who crossed paths with Mark over the years and came away with a negative feeling about him.

Competitive as he was, going back to his first days at CHUM in 1974, Mark got the story being chased by Sun, Globe and Star staffers without trouncing on toes.

In later years, he anchored CityPulse and CityNews. 

As the "voice" of Citytv, he also promoted Citytv movies, sometimes selling them as gems -  but often as turkeys, which was always appreciated.

When it came to loyalty, Mark was Citytv through and through. He - and his fedora - celebrated 30 years with Citytv in 2009. 

Our condolences to his wife, Kim, and daughter, Nicole. 

Dozens of tributes have been posted on Citytv, including this one, which sums it up for us:

"He is the voice and face of Toronto news as far as I am concerned. A dedicated and wonderful career." 

Reader: Enough!

Add the Stratford Beacon-Herald to the list of Sun Media newspapers publishing letters to the editor critical of its content and, in this case, Quebecor's political agenda.

Ian Taylor Strafford writes:

"The front page headline on Saturday's Beacon Herald was not the dreadful economy or the dire situation in Korea, nor cholera in Haiti. Nope. It was that SUN NEWS (in upper case large font lettering) Gets Approval. Really!"

His letter continues with comments about Sun Media's CBC-bashing columnists and ends:

"I always enjoy reading the editorials by The Beacon Herald's editors. They are well written, very well balanced and rarely political. I'm fed up to my eye teeth wading through the murky mire of the QMI writers who fill page after page with bilious complaints about Liberals and liberals, not to mention those quasi Commie Dippers. But this past Friday's issue takes the cake."

The Stratford letter, along with recent letters in the London Free Press, Brantford Expositor and North Bay Nugget, reflect the loss of carefully packaged and balanced "community" news.

Murphy is back

Darren Murphy, the former dual publisher of the Peterborough Examiner and Lindsay Post, is returning to Quebecor Dec. 13 as a "solutions director."

Murphy bowed out of Sun Media last April in favour of a real estate job with Century 21 in Peterborough.

An Examiner story says he has taken the job with QMI's national sales division in Toronto because he misses the newspaper business.

Re what counts?

In this age of 140-character Twitters and abbreviated text messages, it might be convenient for some to defend the decline in the care taken by print media to get it right.

Take this American university study:

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty unesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mattaer in whaht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm.

Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt!

If readers can understand the message, why the fuss about spelling?

Pride and professionalism come to mind. Hopefully that line of thought is not yesterday's mentality.

As a TSF reader said in a posted comment,  you can miss typos under pressure. 

"I do my best, but like most editors, if I've made a mistake I keep reading like it was right all along," says the reader.

As we do with the jumbled words above.

Proofreaders are focused on text and early Toronto Sun proofreaders did an admirable job in making the tabloid look professional. 

Not perfect, nobody is. But not as embarrassing as mistakes being made without proofreaders.

Peter's the story

Updated 2/12/10 re Peter's column on "My date with a serial killer"

It was Clifford Olson's parole hearing, but his invited guest, Toronto Sun co-founder Peter Worthington, became the story.

How the Montreal Gazette saw Worthington's presence inside the hearing room: "Was he a journalist, or was he a serial killer's adviser."

Worthington tops that with a full column: My date with a serial killer.

He writes:

"Why I accepted this role, and why I have continued 20-plus years of talking with Olson, is easy. It was a chance to get a jump on journalistic colleagues who were trapped in another room watching events on TV.

"Also, keeping in touch with Olson was a chance to get greater insight into the thinking of a serial killer whose actions have never been fully examined. When he pleaded guilty of murder in 1982, the trial ended. No examination of the whys and wherefores."

One-upmanship, tabloid style.

OT: Quacking up

With thanks to Freddy Vette at CJBQ in Belleville, who keeps us rockin' at the keyboards through the night online. Apologies to Elvis.

5-in-one pub

Sun Media execs have been called on to multi-task in recent years, but a five-in-one publisher could be a record.

Maureen Spence, a Winnipeg Sun ad sales staffer for more than 20 years, has been named group publisher for the following weeklies:

The Selkirk Journal;

Stonewall Argus and Teulon Times;

The Interlake Spectator;

The Lac du Bonnet Leader;

The Beausejour Review.

She moves from advertising sales manager to her new Interlake papers job immediately.

Spence says in a Winnipeg Sun story she is looking forward to the challenges.

Expositor errors

Darren Zettler, a Brantford Expositor read fed up with typos in the Sun Media daily challenged the editor to print his letter to the editor.

It got published.

Zettler writes:

"I am a subscriber of the Expositor six days a week and read it daily. Over the years the number of spelling mistakes I find in the newspaper has been astonishing to say the least. 

"Saturday's headline that read "Judge sides with city on injuction" was the straw that broke the camel's back. This was a front page headline. 

"I would strongly suggest that the Expositor staff all turn the spell check feature to ON in the settings of their computer's word processing program and that those people in charge of proof reading (assuming that there is someone who does this) please start to do their job.

"I also wonder if the editor of the paper has the courage to print this letter."

To their credit, editors at the London Free Press, Sudbury Star, Brantford Expositor and other Sun media newspapers are publishing letters critical of their products.

What is done about reader complaints is another matter.

In the old days at the flagship Toronto Sun, letters from readers taking the tabloid to task for botching something in print usually prompted an apology and a promise to shape up.

But those were the days when we had ample staff, including proofreaders, and the time to minimize errors before the presses rolled.

Bono's back

It's the op-ed page, not upfront news columns about the average guy on the street, but we'll take full columns by Mark Bonokoski any day, on any page.

The veteran Toronto Sun columnist has had several op-ed columns recently on relevant topics and his call today for Sun Media to destroy morgue photos of  Russell Williams in uniform is a must read.

A Quebecor pledge to never publish another photo of killer-rapist Williams in uniform would no doubt be widely supported by readers of Sun Media's print and online newspapers. 

As for Bono, a gem for Sun Media since the 1970s, may be continue to write columns well into his 80s, as Peter Worthington continues to do with flare.

In fact, Quote of the Week comes from Worthington, who told Clifford Olson's parole hearing: "I don't see him as the danger that other people do, but if it were up to me he would have been executed a long time ago."

Parole denied, of course. 

Niagara -9?

What would the Christmas season be without reports of Sun Media layoffs? 

We are two weeks shy of the second anniversary of Black Tuesday, when 600 Sun Media employees across the chain  were pink-slipped on Dec. 16, 2008.

That was followed by PKP's "Noel 2008" video.

Today, news of nine layoffs in production at the Niagara Shopping News. A TSF tipster writes:

"Heard a rumour last night of nine layoffs in production at the Niagara Shopping News. Some of these guys had been laid off by Sun Media before, then rehired at the Shopping News. Now, thanks to jobs moved to India, they are gone again.

"The competition in Niagara for this type of work - junior graphic design, page layout or copy work and writing - is fierce. Most employers are offering $12 per hour or less. Maybe $14 if you are web-savvy. (Yes, that is how you spell 'savvy'!) 

"It's a sad prospect for a print media specialist to face, right before Christmas - and advertising's busiest season. But isn't that PKP's specialty? Offering pink slips as a Christmas bonus?

"Seriously, a piece of advice for our latest victims would be to face the fact they need to move to stay in this industry, or quickly switch gears. 

"Check out the related courses beginning in January at a community college or a university. Upgrade, or specialize to meet the region's biggest industry: Tourism. Start a small business; learn web design. Seek and ye shall find hope. 

"And for those of you left behind at the Shopping News, don't forget your friends. Call often. Let them rant. Listen. One day, it could be you."