This week, at Canada's largest-circulation daily newspaper: Layoffs; the possibility of print production and the young-journo developing radio room being contracted out; a reporters' byline strike; and a more definitive timeline on the impending paywall. Belinda Alzner rounds up this week in news at the Toronto Star.
Under the same financial pressures as most North American newspapers, the Toronto Star announced Monday it will look to contract out its production and cut jobs, including radio room intern positions that have proven to be valuable in developing young journalism talent in Canada. On Wednesday, the journalists responded with a byline strike that saw the newspaper full of stories written by simply "Star Staff."
Belinda Alzner has rounded up the coverage and the commentary surrounding the cuts, contracts and byline strikes.
A week at the Toronto Star: A round-up
So far, in things that have happened at Canada’s largest-circulation daily newspaper this week: Layoffs announced; the possibility of production and young-journo incubator radio room being contracted out; a byline strike; a paywall announcement
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Storified by Belinda Alzner· Thu, Mar 07 2013 09:28:22
Managing director Ed Brouwer told J-Source that Pagemasters currently employs about 20 journalists—eight of which are full-time—who provide production services for 22 titles. Pagemasters would need to hire more people if it were to take on the Star’s proposed production services, Brouwer said, though he stressed such moves would not be made before the paper and its union had worked through the necessary processes.
I reached out to publisher John Cruickshank to confirm this, and spoke with Toronto Star director of communications Bob Hepburn the following morning.
John Honderich, chair of the board of Torstar, joined CBC Metro Morning host Matt Galloway this morning, and said the Star was looking at the summer for the paywall launch.
“There’s no question that newspapers are facing hugechallenges. We are going to survive but we are going to have to find adifferent model. And the answer, quite frankly, lies in the challenges we facefrom the Internet. The Internet has offered opportunities for people toadvertise and to do various parts of their life in a different way.
“The revenue that newspapers used to rely on—from things like careeradvertising, from travel advertising to classified advertising—those have alldisappeared. What we’re doing is going through a process to try and adjust towhat the new model will be going forward.”
“We brought this paradigm on ourselves. If you getyour newspaper delivered to your door, you expect to pay for it. But if youread that same content online, you expect it to be free. That doesn’t makesense.
“So, how do we get to a situation where in fact people are prepared to payfor that content? And we believe that given the content the Star provides—theinvestigative reporting, the look at the events of the city—that we have aparticular product in a particular way that should be attractive.”
