Today we mark the passage of Tom Kent, the man who got it right about the state of Canada's news media and was ignored to the country's great disservice.

Kent -- who had a distinguished career as a journalist, code-breaker, senior civil servant, Liberal Party activist, adviser to prime ministers, businessman and academic -- was asked in 1980 by the government of prime minister Pierre Trudeau to lead an inquiry into what was then so clearly going wrong with the Canadian newspaper industry, and by extension the rest of the media.

Just when it didn't seem like another drop of blood was left to squeeze from its various Alberta stones, Don Mills, Ont.-based Postmedia Network Inc. pushed another five senior newsroom employees out the door of the Edmonton Journal on Friday.

The carnage at the Journal included two veteran copy editors, two graphic artists and a National Newspaper Award winning photographer.

Reports from Alberta's deep south indicate a similar number of newsroom staffers were made to walk the plank at the Calgary Herald about a week earlier.