POLL - Sun Media Cuts 600 Jobs and Starts Closing Papers

[MapleCityStar]

Sun Media announced in December that they would cut 600 jobs in their newspaper divisions. In 2008, newspaper shares in the US dropped an average of 83.3%. Canada has started losing venerable chronicles at an escalating pace.

In a Chatham Daily News editorial on March 27, 2009, Bruce Corcoran writes that they have not escaped the suffering. He partially blames the internet, and citizen journalism. However, he claims that they are still sitting up and taking nourishment - engaged in investigative journalism, much to the chagrin of various public figures.

That's a mouthful of sawdust. Exposed all over this website is evidence that the Chatham Daily News has NOT performed nor reported very much investigating except for the shoddy sort, and at least one public figure is likely indebted for the intentional oversight. It's laughable, right Bruce? (It's a tough job keeping their political manipulation in check, but I'll take credit for the citizen journalism part since it's the only kind being done right now, and we know Bruce reads this site.)

What's going to happen in Chatham, with Sun Media's more ethical Chatham This Week and its sleazy sister competing in the same market? Has the last puppy to be trained on the Chatham Daily News been born yet?

[SurveySez]

Don't know about this Corcoron guy, but they still have that reporter their that makes up his interview quotes. Bob somthing. Been doing this forever and getting away with it. Can't beleive a thing he writes for sure.

[MacIntosh]

Newspapers are yesterday. All their good for is the Sunshine girls even that's online now.Start saving trees i say.

[MacIntosh]

Word is floating around that the Chatham Daily News building on Fourth Street has been sold to make a parking lot for the Capitol Theatre. What poetic justice for that negative rag. Plan A is to run everything out of Sarnia. Plan B is to combine with Chatham This Week which is redundant. That's one business Chatham would be better off without.

wasn't their alot of Sarnia news in the paper a few days ago? Mayor Hope plastered all over too.

[MapleCityStar]

I have heard this story from two different sources now. Each says Dan Warrener has purchased the Chatham Daily News building on Fourth Street for demolition, to make way for more downtown parking. I don't know if this is supposed to mean that a deal has been closed, or if it's merely an offer. Normally Warrener restores buildings, but there's not many historical aspects left of the Chatham Daily News building to restore. The third story was removed years ago, and the press was taken out more recently, leaving a huge empty space at the back.

What square footage remains is very underutilized and expensive. Most of the composing and pagination is done in Sarnia now. All the darkrooms are gone and photo editing is done digitally. Only a few of the pages are written locally. Rarely do they seem to run more than 6 or 7 pages of local content, with the remainder filled with material from QMI that's inserted in Sarnia. The need for a sprawling headquarters to house a handful of desks and computers is long past.

Several years ago, I interviewed an editor who had been downsized out of a job. He stated that Osprey Media was contemplating a sale to Quebecor, which had a strong history of consolidating and closing smaller papers. Osprey began some of that restructuring in advance to make the purchase more attractive. Their plans were to eventually maintain a small staff of advertising reps and reporters in a Chatham satellite office, and transfer everything else to Sarnia.

The sale to Quebecor went through, resulting in Chatham having two competing papers under the Sun Media banner. Chatham This Week now shares a publisher with the Chatham Daily News, and largely duplicates the news items found in the daily. It can only be a matter of time before a business decision is made dealing with these former rivals.

There hasn't been anything mentioned in the Chatham Daily News about this sale. However, it would not be the first time they ignored news that was dropped in their own lap and got scooped by the Maple City Star. They aren't nearly so transparent when it comes to affairs involving themselves. It will be interesting to see how the local newspapers emerge from any restructuring that a change of address may bring.

[MapleCityStar]

I would say that my information was fairly accurate indeed, and we broke the news two days earlier than the Chatham Daily News. There's still no mention of the sale on their online edition.

Wait until my accurate facts about mayor Randy Hope, Mary Lee, Doug Sulman, and various other elected and unelected officials start being known. You know, all the facts the Chatham Daily News also missed...