2015.07.10
Conrad Black echoes union’s call to Postmedia
to boost quality journalism
CWA Canada’s oft-repeated advice to Postmedia to boost its bottom line by offering readers quality journalism is now being parroted by Conrad Black.
The disgraced former media baron and founder of Postmedia’s flagship National Post publicly scolded CEO Paul Godfrey during a conference call Thursday to discuss the company’s latest, dismal quarterly financial results.
“Please build the quality, otherwise you’re going to retreat right into your own end zone,” said Black, an investor. He had previously used his column in the Post to lash out at Postmedia for its “endless and rather undiscriminating cost-cutting” at its newspapers.
Martin O’Hanlon, president of CWA Canada, which represents employees at many of Postmedia’s and its recently acquired Sun Media dailies, has maintained all along that success in the Internet age hinges on producing unique, quality, local content.
When Postmedia was cleared in March to buy Sun Media’s English-language newspapers, O’Hanlon said the union was troubled by the near monopoly but hoped that more money would be injected into journalism, which had “been on life support under Quebecor.”
Godfrey told Black during the call that Postmedia has already taken steps to improve the Sun papers, but offered no details.
Postmedia, which emerged from the ashes of a bankrupt Canwest five years ago, has laid waste to newsrooms across the country by slashing jobs and exporting work to centralized, non-union facilities.
The latest job cuts came in June at the two Vancouver papers, the Sun and the Province, where all staff were offered buyouts. Newsrooms at The Ottawa Citizen and Montreal Gazette have been particularly hard hit over the last three years, with dozens of workers taking buyouts, some as recently as February.
CWA Canada, which represents more than 6,000 workers at media companies coast-to-coast, has members at Postmedia's Ottawa Citizen, Windsor Star, Montreal Gazette and Regina Leader-Post, as well as at Sun Media's Kingston Whig-Standard, Northumberland Today, Peterborough Examiner, St. Catharines Standard, Barrie Examiner, North Bay Nugget, Sault Star, Sudbury Star and Brantford Expositor.