Cuts in print, broadcast operations
raise concerns about local coverage
Hundreds of journalism jobs are being
eliminated in CanWest Global's print and broadcast
newsrooms across the country as the company continues
its inexorable march toward centralization and convergence
of media platforms.
A fresh round of nationwide
buyouts and layoffs is expected to pare as many as 15 staff
at each of CanWest's metro dailies.
CWA Canada, which represents newsroom employees at
CanWest's Montreal Gazette, Ottawa
Citizen, Regina Leader-Post and Victoria
Times-Colonist, is very concerned
about the job losses but also the impact they will
have on the papers.
"Cutting editors and reporters doesn't make for
better newspapers," says Arnold Amber, Director
of CWA Canada. "Existing staff were already having
a hard time keeping up the amount of local coverage
readers were used to," he notes.
Amber acknowledges that newspapers
are "facing
challenges from other forms of media. But rather than
cutting back, they should be working harder to attract
and keep readers."
The Canadian Association of Journalists has also expressed
its concern that the cuts could reduce the breadth
of local news coverage.
"The CAJ has for years
been sounding the alarm that centralization risks
reducing local control over news coverage, and with
it the variety of voices
in communities across Canada," president Mary
Agnes Welch says in a news release.
"Readers benefit when
more viewpoints are available to them. News people
who are familiar with local issues are in the best
position to report, place and set that news in context."
The company, which announced last month it would be
cutting 200 jobs at Global Television and centralizing
its broadcast operations in four cities, is taking
a similar approach with its newspapers.
Pagination of some newspaper pages and sections is
now being done in Hamilton, Ont., at CanWest's non-unionized
production facility. How much of the layout work will
eventually be done in Hamilton is unknown. However,
The
Tyee reports that the Vancouver
Sun expects that
up to half of the newspaper layout will eventually
be outsourced.
The only newspaper that appears impervious to the
shifting of work to Hamilton is the Victoria
Times-Colonist.
Chris Carolan, president of
the Victoria-Vancouver Island Newspaper Guild, a
CWA Canada Local, says "It
won't happen here. We have very strong contract language
on jurisdiction." He notes that it is that language
that prevented the company from moving circulation
jobs from Victoria to its call centre in Winnipeg.
A memo circulated yesterday to all
staff from Dennis Skulsky, President and CEO of CanWest
Publishing, to announce that Scott Anderson was leaving
his editor-in-chief post at The Ottawa Citizen to
become a senior vice-president of content, might lead
an outsider to believe that the company is building
local operations rather than slashing them and centralizing
production.
"We are exploring new online opportunities and
partnerships with leading brands such as YouTube and
Google," he writes. "At the same time,
we are also developing robust local content strategies
that will position our market-leading newspapers and
websites for a tremendous future, delivering local
news and information to their expanding audiences."