Friends tell me notices have appeared on National Post boxes in downtown Toronto saying they will no longer be serviced after Saturday. Similar (or the same) notices popped up on boxes at service centres on Highway 401 east of Toronto earlier this week.
He also points out that the paper is essentially high-tailing it out of Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
Another, perhaps relevant series of factoids: BCLSB regular Jermo Sapiens recently placed this piece in both the National Post's on-line and print editions, but received nothing in the way of recompense. Now, I remember The Star publishing some of my stuff as Op-Eds back in the 1990s, at which time they paid out $150 per article. Finally, if you read the on-line NP these days, you'll see a fair bit of content being supplied by various Blogging Tories (Taylor and Janke esp.). So, as things go sour on The Natty Post, are they turning to writers who are willing to wordsmith for free? Are they using bloggers as unpaid labor?
PS. The Natty Post website is silent on what they pay for Op-Eds.
8 comments:
Resorting to publishing Janke and crew tells us all we need to know.
The NP doesn't need to be in SK at all, they own the Leader-Post and Star Phoenix anyway. And I pitched to a SP editor that I ghost write his column some day, but he turned me down! ;-) imagine that.
I'm frankly stunned to find out, during these past 8 years, that commerce, when it gets into trouble, does more of what got it into trouble in the first place. I thought the money-losing National Post would have sobered up a long time ago and realised it's not appealing because its editorial slant is too "conservative," but because it's just too dumb. Its solution? Get even dumber.
The NP has not been available for home delivery in Sask for some time.
I also notice that fewer and fewer retailers (e.g. convenience stores, supermarkets) seem to carry it.
Over two years ago, I was vacationing in Saint John, NB, and stopped by the news stand in the largest mall in the city centre: when I asked for the NP, the woman behind the counter told me that as far as she knew, the paper had gone out of business, since it hadn't been for sale there in quite a while.
Clearly the 'retrenchment' (nice euphemism) has been underway for some time.
"retrenchment" = "they're preparing for a last ditch effort"
What's the point of having the National Post? There are very few who wouldn't get their fill of Harper's brand of conservatism in the Globe and Mail.
Asper on CBC radio tonight : Apparently it's all about saving trees and appealing to the young online.
*snerk*
Appealing to the young? More like contributing the delinquency of minors with more InfoPorn than can possibly be good for them.
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