In the early morning hours of June 3, Saskatoon StarPhoenix columnist Phil Tank sat before his computer, a column already written in his head and ready to pour out onto the keyboard.
The day before he’d attended the closing session of a first minister’s meeting held in Saskatoon. Now he faced a busy week ahead writing analysis pieces and managing the daily Opinion pages of the StarPhoenix and sister Postmedia daily the Regina Leader-Post.
He didn’t expect his morning to be interrupted by a message to join a video conference with management.
“It was 20 seconds,” Tank recalled in an interview with J-Source. In that time, the StarPhoenix employee learned he was laid off effective immediately, and not much more. Then the conversation was handed off to a human resources representative to discuss the mechanics of his departure.
Double shock
It was just the first shock for news readers in a province famously rabid for political debate.
Three weeks later, on June 27, Murray Mandryk, Regina-based political columnist for the Regina Leader-Post and the StarPhoenix announced in his column that it would be his last.
Mandryk, who declined to be interviewed for this story, wrote that he loved his work but it was “time to say goodbye … and thank you.”
For readers, the impact of the two departures was immediate.
The daily Opinions sections, which Tank managed as digital opinion editor for both papers, have been reduced to once a week on Saturdays, with an equal reduction of content online.
Following Mandryk’s departure, the newspapers have published just four columns focused directly on Saskatchewan government policies as of Nov. 1. One was penned by a University of Saskatchewan finance student and three by the Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation.
“To date, Postmedia has not filled the (LeaderPost columnist) position, and has given no indication that the position will be filled in the future,” Carmel Smyth, president of the Communication Workers of America — Canada, wrote in an email to J-Source. CWA Canada represents journalists at the Leader-Post but not at the StarPhoenix, which is a non-union shop.
“It is disappointing that at a time when Canadians need trustworthy news and talented journalists and columnists to help understand the ramifications of political decisions, Postmedia would decide to cut the number of voices providing that help,” she added.
“Fewer voices in media will always be damaging to the public trust, and to a stable democracy.”
No desk to pack up
Tank keeps his opinions about Postmedia’s operations — including the decision to fire him — close to his chest. However, he was willing to share his personal story with J-Source.
“It surprised me and, frankly, everyone I speak to is still surprised,” he said.
He didn’t have a desk to pack up. Postmedia sold the StarPhoenix building in December 2024, sending reporters home to work.
At 11:04 a.m., Joe Ruscitti, vice president of medium and regional markets, sent a three-sentence email to newsroom staff of the StarPhoenix and its sister Postmedia publication, the Regina Leader-Post.
”As a result of organizational changes, Phil Tank is no longer with the Star Phoenix and Postmedia as of today,” read a copy of the email obtained by J-Source.
Ruscitti thanked Tank for his service and wished him well. “Steps are being taken to temporarily absorb some of the daily work previously in Phil’s hand and the vacancy will be filled in a different role,” he concluded.
Postmedia did not respond to J-Source’s questions about the rationale for the decision and the “different role” envisioned. As of November, the only posted positions in Saskatchewan were for two package handlers at Postmedia’s ancillary packaging and delivery business.
Tank’s first thought was to finish writing his column, he recalled. However, he wasn’t sure if his access to Postmedia’s computer system would be cut off, and then the grind of HR procedures took over his day.
Consequently, Saskatchewan people will never read what he planned to tell them about the first ministers’ meeting.
Tank had asked the final questions at the media conference, delivered with the sharp angles of an experienced local journalist.
On a publicly posted video, his voice is heard lobbing questions directly at the premiers of Saskatchewan and Alberta about their relationships with Ottawa, touching off a momentary ripple of politicians shifting uncomfortably in their chairs.
Next, he asked Prime Minister Mark Carney if there was a federal mandate behind a vaguely-worded statement on achieving net zero electricity generation by 2050.
“Because I know there’s premiers that don’t agree with that,” Tank ended plainly, as Premiers Smith, Moe and Ford outraced PM Carney to the microphone.
If the prime minister planned to fly through the press conference with a show of confident unity, that scenario was now challenged by a local journalist experienced in reading the political tea leaves behind official statements.
Readers disappointed
It’s the kind of experience Saskatchewan readers appreciated. Tank’s columns, typically published three times a week, were popular items.
On the morning of the news conference, two of his pieces sat among the top three trending articles on the StarPhoenix’s home page, Tank recalled.
Formerly a news reporter, Tank began writing columns in 2016, with a focus on Saskatoon City Hall, social issues, energy policy and the environment.
With fewer reporters on the ground — in 2016, nine newsroom positions were lost through buyouts and attrition — he found he was sometimes breaking news in his columns, too. He also filled in for Mandryk on the legislative scene when needed.
In recent years, as newsroom staffing shrank, the work of vetting guest op-eds, fact-checking letters to the editor and choosing editorial cartoons fell to Tank as well. In 2022, he was appointed digital opinion editor, responsible for planning releases on the websites of the StarPhoenix and the Regina Leader-Post.
In brief, he filled a bigger role than freelance opinion writers do.
Postmedia didn’t publicly announce Tank’s departure, leaving the paper’s subscribers to wonder what happened to the column and Opinion section.
A week later, Tank shared the news on a Friends of the StarPhoenix Facebook page. He thanked his readers and journalism colleagues, recalled some fond career memories, and tallied his Postmedia article count at 3,207 stories over 15-and-a-half years.
“My columns may have been critical and even sarcastic, if you can imagine such a thing, but it was always aimed at achieving better results,” he wrote.
The comments section soon filled with praise for Tank’s work, with more than one stating the column had been their last remaining reason to subscribe.
“I am deeply disappointed in the Star Phoenix!” commented Cathy Holtslander, director of research and policy at the National Farmers Union. “We are desperately in need of more journalism like yours, and it is very dangerous to our society that our public discourse is being narrowed and even silenced.”
Amid local content decline, federal grants questioned
“It’s weird for me to pick up the StarPhoenix and not see an opinion page in it,” said Tank.
The loss of daily Opinion sections at the two papers follows a gradual shedding of other distinct locally-written sections, like local business news and the arts.
Local and regional news is now sandwiched into three pages and is significantly reliant on wire copy and stories shared between the papers.
On Wednesday, Oct. 15, for example, the Regina print edition carried just one local news story and one provincial story, which was written by a Saskatoon reporter. A full page spread of autumn colour photos occupied the section’s third page.
The same slim pickings were published online a day earlier. This is a common practice since the papers’ presses were shut down and printing shifted to Alberta, requiring reporters to submit stories two days in advance to make the print edition.
CWA Canada has called for greater scrutiny of public subsidies received by Postmedia, charging that money earmarked to boost local journalism hasn’t created improvements to local newsrooms.
In a Sept. 29 open letter, the union critiqued rising executive pay and took aim at Postmedia revenues flowing to Chatham Assets, a U.S.-based hedge fund holding 63 percent ownership, and other U.S. hedge fund investors.
“If Postmedia gets Canadian subsidies, it should be required to use every penny of that money on news content, creating jobs, and decent pay for its workers,” CWA stated. “The money must not go to executive compensation or to fund an American financialization scheme.”
Public records show Postmedia has received over $16 million in federal grants and contributions since 2010. Additionally, in March the chain received $4.3 million from the Canadian Journalism Collective, which disburses money collected from Google’s opt-out agreement under the Online News Act.
Ottawa’s journalism support programs fall under the Department of Canadian Heritage. The funds are meant to promote sustainable, original Canadian journalism, spokesperson Daniel Savoie stated in an email to J-Source.
“Ineligible expenses include dividends, bonuses and other compensation for company shareholders or owners” and outlets must be “majority owned and controlled by Canadians,” he wrote.
Asked how eligibility and results are tracked, Savoie responded, “The Department regularly reviews its program requirements to ensure all support measures remain up-to-date and effective in addressing the needs of Canadians.”
Regarding accountability for Online News Act funds, he referred the question to the Canadian Journalism Collective, which so far has distributed $58 million on behalf of the government.
On its website, the CJC stresses that Parliament sets the guideposts, writing, “The CJC-CCJ applies these existing rules; we don’t create them.”
However, there are signs the group plans to tighten the recipient agreements signed by outlets.
“For Year 1, the language is fairly open regarding how recipients use the funding other than needing to spend a majority on news production,” CJC executive director Sarah Spring wrote in an email to J-Source. “This will be laid out in more detail in Year 2.”
Whoever sets the rules, CWA Canada’s open letter calls on Ottawa “to take a hard look” at Postmedia’s subsidies.
Disappearing pages
In Saskatchewan, the loss is tangible. For over a century, columns, letters to the editor, political cartoons and editorials were central to both newspapers.
A review of the StarPhoenix’s web content reveals how stark and rapid the change has been.
In addition to their columns, Tank and Mandryk verified, fact-checked and edited a steady flow of readers’ letters.
Last year, in September 2024, 32 readers saw their letters vetted and published, alongside 28 staff-written columns and 21 guest op-eds and columns.
The 81 opinion items published that month almost entirely tackled local and provincial issues, with just four focused on national and global topics.
Fast-forward to 2025 and just one reader’s letter was published in September, alongside 13 guest opinions and no staff columns.
Five of the items addressed provincial topics and one tackled a local Saskatoon issue, while the remaining seven focused on national issues written by authors from various locations in Canada.
The decline continued in October, with 12 guest opinions and no letters published.
Notably, many of the letters written a year ago were in response to Tank and Mandryk’s columns — some penned in outrage, others in agreement, and at least one in heartfelt thanks.
“My wife and I are still undecided voters and we’d like to thank Mr. Tank and Mr. Mandryk for their continued and detailed coverage and articles about the upcoming provincial election,” wrote Saskatoon resident Mike Sluchinski during the run-up to a provincial election.
Fewer eyes on politicians
The letter neatly expresses the democratic function of columnists in the public sphere, as described by media scholars.
“The role of columnists is to get beyond the headline itself … and put it in context and the knowledge that they’ve gained from the time they’ve been covering politics,” Dale Eisler, senior policy fellow at the Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy, University of Regina, explained in an interview.
It’s a role historically linked to newspapers, and one not well replicated on other media platforms, he added.
Eisler said he laments Mandryk’s departure and predicts it will lead to “more superficial coverage” of Saskatchewan politics.
But he also thinks the influence of mainstream media pundits shouldn’t be overstated in today’s media landscape, where public discussion has largely migrated to social media.
The world has changed greatly since Eisler was himself a legislative columnist for the Leader-Post from 1979 to 1996.
“In those days, the press gallery was a vibrant place,” he recalled. “The Leader-Post would have four reporters full-time at the legislature. The StarPhoenix had two. Every radio station had a person there. That’s all gone.”
Today “there’s no business case” for such a scenario, he acknowledged, and if that sounds pessimistic, it’s simply a reflection of reality.
“We’re now going to be more at the mercy of the politicians themselves, of all the parties and their rhetoric, because there won’t be the substantive sort of analysis of positions that have been taken, that we had before,” he said.
“And that’s important and we’ve lost it.”
Columnists tend to be among the most experienced newsroom members, typically working their way into the position after years of news reporting.
Murray Mandryk had 43 years with the Leader-Post under his belt, first as a reporter and then as a columnist working out of a press gallery office in the provincial Legislative Building.
His knowledge and his roster of inside sources were legendary, according to longtime gallery colleague Karen Briere, a reporter for the Western Producer.
“He was definitely the dean,” she said.
Although Mandryk wasn’t a news reporter, his presence helped improve Saskatchewan news coverage overall, according to Brierie.
His office banter and pointed questions in scrums lifted everyone’s game, especially for rookies new to Saskatchewan, she said. Reporters and caucus researchers alike relied on his columns as a definitive archive of the province’s hardball politics, she noted.
A scan of online views and shares on X.com in the months before his retirement shows Mandryk’s columns regularly dominated other Leader-Post content by a wide margin.
“People loved to read him,” explained Briere. “They didn’t necessarily love what he said, but they all read him. That’s the job of a good political columnist, to provoke thought.”
Briere notes Saskatchewan has a long history of social innovation and political debate.
“Why are we not worthy of one (columnist)?” she asks. “I mean, I think political columnists provoke you to think, whether you agree or disagree and, God knows, a lot of thinking is lacking these days.”
Narrowed space
For now, the weekly Opinion pages are anchored mainly by freelance Indigenous affairs columnist Doug Cuthand and Montreal-based agri-food expert Sylvain Charlebois. While both offer expert analysis in their respective areas, they don’t cover issues beyond their beats and aren’t part of a news team responsible for putting out the papers every day.
Tank says full-time columnists might be seen as a luxury in today’s media climate but they produce high-value original content for readers.
“It’s an independent voice saying, ‘Let’s zoom in on this issue or let’s look at, you know, homelessness in the city,’ in a way that you can’t as a reporter,” he said.
The space for such in-depth analysis in the news media is narrowing, notes media expert Eisler.
Broadcasters don’t typically employ columnists and while good analytical journalism can be found online, the perspectives are too often siloed, he said.
“Voices emerge on Substack, but there’s nowhere where voices converge,” Eisler said. “It’s important for readers to have their views challenged.”
Briere said Mandryk’s office at the Legislative Building is still there, and she hopes to see him back at his desk in some capacity.
Meanwhile, Mandryk is a regular guest on CBC Saskatchewan’s Morning Edition political panel, which he joined while still with Postmedia.
Tank is now a Saskatoon-based CBC news reporter. He says he has a lot to learn about broadcast journalism, but his new employer has been welcoming and supportive.
Some days he comes across stories that he thinks would make a great column, and has to remind himself he’s a reporter now and can’t step over the line to voice opinions.
“I would have loved to keep on doing what I was doing,” he said.
Meanwhile, the phlegmatic side of his personality has kicked in. He said he knows journalism jobs don’t last forever. He has good memories of the StarPhoenix, and stresses that not once did managers or senior editors try to influence his take on things.
Nowadays, when he’s out covering news he still runs into people who are confused by the CBC badge on his jacket and shocked to learn the familiar columns aren’t coming back.
“They think we’re on sabbatical,” he said.
Patricia W. Elliott is a magazine journalist and assistant professor at the School of Journalism, University of Regina. You can visit her at patriciaelliott.ca.
Patricia W. Elliott is a magazine journalist and assistant professor at the School of Journalism, University of Regina. You can visit her at patriciaelliott.ca.