Precarious times in Canadian print journalism. Thinking of all my newspaper writing friends. #cdnmedia https://t.co/nCGufH0JLY
— Heather Barrett (@Barrett_Heather) October 4, 2022
"Monday, Monday, can't trust that day." — Mamas and Papas, 1966
If you need a newspaper to come to tell you it's Monday, there are a lot of Canadian cities where that isn't an option. As of today, you won't get a Monday edition from these SaltWire Network newspapers in Atlantic Canada newspapers:
- The Chronicle Herald in Halifax
- The Cape Breton Post in Sydney, NS
- The Guardian in Charlottetown
- The Telegram in St. John's, NF
Increasing costs on print operations, rising fuel costs. What you might have figured in terms of why the decisions were made.
Given the damage from Hurricane Fiona in that region, people might not have had the power or Internet to read about the storm. Then again, home delivery would also be tough.
Postmedia made a similar decision to not publish on Mondays starting today for 9 of its urban dailies. The Canadian news company, essentially controlled by American hedge funds, owns both newspapers in Vancouver (The Vancouver Sun, The Province); Calgary (Calgary Herald, Calgary Sun); Edmonton (Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun); Ottawa (Ottawa Citizen, Ottawa Sun); and the only English daily in Montréal (Montréal Gazette).
There are digital versions online just not print editions. Sadly, this won't be the last day of the week to go through this ritual.
Jeopardy! champion Mattea Roach finishes amazing run of 23 straight victories
I remember this summer hearing Mattea Roach on a Canadaland podcast episode. I eventually made the connection with her appearances on Jeopardy! earlier in the year. I was pleasantly surprised how well she did on the podcast episode.
Mattea Roach now has a more substantial role with Canadaland as the new host of Backbench. In the introductory podcast entry, Roach went into the story of when she was 5 and met her MP. This started her curiosity with Canadian politics.
The debut episode was Picking Apart Pierre’s Populism.
Fatima Syed, who writes for The Narwhal, was the original host when the program started in 2021. The Canadian politics podcast has featured a variety of panelists, including Celina Caesar-Chavannes, Jason Markusoff, Drew Brown, Emilie Nicolas, Jaskaran Sandhu, Murad Hemmadi, Leena Minifie, and Stuart Thomson.
Emilie Nicolas, who we saw on CBC's Quebec election coverage, hosts Détours for Canadaland, essentially Canadaland but in French. Je ne comprends pas Francaise well enough to follow along. Nicolas does well in English so I imagine she is even better in French.
Nicolas co-hosted a Canadaland episode that explained a lot about the Quebec election that was really informative.
CBC fires Evan Solomon for conflict of interest over art sales
Evan Solomon has taken an intriguing turn in his journalism career. Solomon left a major position at CTV to be the publisher at the online political news outlet Gzero Media. He will be based in New York City.
Solomon hosted Power Play and Question Period on CTV and CTV News Network. Bell Media insists Solomon will continue to "report regularly" on Canadian politics and global affairs as a special correspondent for the network.
We should know fairly soon who will replace Solomon on those major shows. We know Lisa LaFlamme won't be on the list of replacements. Citytv hired former CTV national news anchor Lisa LaFlamme as a special correspondent for the Queen Elizabeth II coverage. Rogers doesn't have a national news setup for Citytv.
Solomon had been with Bell Media since 2015 after being fired by the CBC for ethical violations.
CanadianCrossing.com journalism coverage
Frank was a satirical magazine yet also broke crucial news stories. Now Frank has ceased publication after 35 years as of last month.
The magazine had been based in Halifax. One major story the magazine broke in 2022 was that senior members of an internal RCMP team tasked with providing information to Nova Scotia's mass shooting inquiry were married to 2 top female officers involved in the response..
I heard about Frank from a Canadaland episode about this story. Sorry I didn't get a chance to experience this magazine in my hands. In an effort to get independent voices in Canadian journalism, Frank sounds like something Canada needs.
Nil Köksal slides over from World Report to As It Happens on CBC Radio One
Canadian journalism notebook: CBC News will launch a streaming channel
CanadianCrossing.com radio coverage
Catherine Cullen has replaced Chris Hall as the host of CBC Radio's The House. Cullen has been with the parliamentary bureau for the CBC for the previous 8 years, among her career highlights.
"The program is going to keep its focus, yes, on politics and big dramatic political stories like that — but also on policy, on people," Cullen said before her first show last month.
The Globe and Mail along with the Toronto Star are almost by default the best major Canadian newspapers. The new Toronto Star management may challenge that a bit. Still, there is important content in those newspapers.
They are the most likely newspapers to block content. Even though there are ads on the pages, they want a lot more money to access their pages. Blocking exclusive content is one issue; Canadian Press stories, those you can find anywhere, also get blocked.
Access is not cheap, especially compared to American newspapers. If I lived in Toronto and had a job, I would be glad to give The Globe and Mail $78 Canadian for online access. Difficult to do under the current circumstances. You will still see ads but you can read the stories.
The National Post, the national paper of the Postmedia empire, is a terrible newspaper. Some days, it is a worse pick than the Toronto Sun, also part of the Postmedia empire. To say the National Post is a conservative newspaper with laughable opinion columns is like saying the sun comes up at Cape Spear before anywhere else in Canada.
Here is one huge advantage to the National Post: You can read their terrible content without a firewall. The Globe and Mail and Toronto Star are not controlled financially by American hedge funds, so that might be part of why there is a difference.
We know that newspapers are having a rough time financially. We hate the walls but we get that on some level. Access, especially with ads, needs to be easier. Conservative news with more mistakes is easier for Canadians to read than reasonable, thoughtful analysis. Even the simple act of forwarding links on social media, something that can more eyeballs to your pages, becomes useless if people can't read those links.
CBC News is accessible online but without the deep analysis.
Twitter capture: @Barrett_Heather
photo credit: Backbench/Canadaland; The Globe and Mail
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