This is my first Blog. I know I'm a little behind the times. Didn't think I'd have much to say but maybe I do. Guess I'll find out as I go along.
I am now part owner and President of a couple of entities, Bullet News Niagara www.bulletnewsniagara.ca and Line 2 Revenue Systems Inc. www.line2revenuesystems.com Bullet News Niagara is now about 10 months old. It was started to provide in-depth local news coverage to the residents of Niagara. In a very short time we now have over 15,000 unique visitors per month and we've had a significant impact on very important issues in our area. With Line 2 I provide sales assistance and technologies to media companies across North America helping them to increase revenues. In just under a year, I've had contracts in Kamloops, Whistler/Squamish, Niagara, Toronto, Ottawa, Halifax, Arkansas, 2 in Texas, Delaware, Pennsylvania and the list goes on.
Thanks to Bob Gale, my business partner who saw first hand the need for strong, credible journalism and has put his money where his mouth is...
I'll give you a bit of background to my history. I was most recently, until last year, publisher of the daily newspaper, The Niagara Falls Review. About 2 years prior to that, Quebecor took over ownership of that paper and all of the Osprey Media papers in Ontario. For the first year, things were decent because Michael Sifton, the founder of Osprey, was placed as President and adhered to the same philosophies as Osprey - that newspapers were there to serve their communities. Content of the papers was to be 'intensely local'. And if this overriding philosophy was followed, well, profits would follow as well.
After a year though Michael Sifton was replaced by Pierre Karl Peladeau as president. I'm only speculating but it appears that there was a significant philosophical difference in how to manage the company through what was becoming a very difficult economy. Mr. Sifton decided to leave.
With Mr. Peladeau in charge, it became a year of thousands of layoffs across the newspaper chain across Canada. In one year, at The Niagara Falls Review, I laid off almost 100 people shutting down the press room and for all intents and purposes the mail room as well. Now don't get me wrong. I don't begrudge a company making a profit and trimming expenses to do so. In fact, the shutting down of the presses and the mail room made economic sense despite being brutally difficult - difficult for me but horrible for those that had many years invested at The Niagara Falls Review. Those two moves were the right thing to do though. It amalgamated press services in Toronto and mail room inserting services in Toronto as well.
But these were moves that did not directly affect the readers. In fact, the printing was far superior because it was done on brand new state of the art presses.
What became troubling though were the moves that did affect the reader and the quality of the product was affected immensely. I won't bore you with the details but here are some of the things: the layoff of 3 reporters, the centralization of classified services in another city, and the centralization of delivery services in another city. In each of these instances, we were no longer in control of the quality of service and it suffered immensely. But we were responsible on the front lines for explaining it, trying to fix it, etc.
But the biggest problem came locally. We had, very proud to say, developed a culture of not being afraid to tackle issues of local concerns. The editorial department was encouraged to ask the tough questions and get to the bottom of things. With two major issues though, the NHS and The Niagara Parks Commission, the pressure was always there from my direct boss to sort of back off because of the pressure on her from significant community citizens who had obviously put the pressure on her. Not always overt but always there. Once you merely become a cheerleader for special interest groups then what credibility do you have answering to your readers - especially if the things you failed to dig into do indeed get exposed. By the way, I came up through the advertising side of the business and get to live vicariously through the editorial department. Can't have sales without readers. Can't have readers without great content.
There are still very, very good and dedicated employees at all of these properties trying to do the best they can with what they still have.
Without blathering on, I felt it was time to leave and handed in my notice last April and started up Bullet News Niagara. We have two full time reporters who have broken both the NHS and Parks issues wide open. Change has been affected and for the better.
Parks - http://bulletnewsniagara.ca/2011/07/30/provincial-auditors-find-niagara-parks-commission-engaged-in-inappropriate-and-unacceptable-conduct/
NHS - http://bulletnewsniagara.ca/2011/07/29/nhs-seeks-help-to-fix-image-problem-regain-public-confidence/
A lot more than just those stories but a good example.
Anyways that's me and this is where I am.
Will get into why we joined the Ontario Press Council next.
