National Post

30 posts / 0 new

Thu, 2009-10-29 15:23

robbie_dee

National Post

[url=http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/091029/canada/canada_us_canwest_natio... Post may close after Friday[/url]

Quote:

TORONTO (Reuters) - The National Post, the flagship daily newspaper of Canada's beleaguered Canwest Global Communications, will likely be forced to close after Friday if it isn't transferred to a new holding company, Canwest said in a court filing.

Creditors of the company have indicated they are no longer prepared to fund continuing losses at the Post, which employs 277 people, Canwest said.

The creditor group "will not continue to support funding the National Post Company in the long or short term past October 30, 2009," Canwest said in a court report released on Thursday.

Canwest said the Post has no other sources of funding its "ongoing losses." A failure to transfer the newspaper into a different holding company by October 30 "would likely result in the forced cessation of its operations and commencement of liquidation proceedings in respect of the National Post Company."

Thu, 2009-10-29 13:52

robbie_dee

Moderators could you please move this to the "News" or "Media" forum?

Thu, 2009-10-29 20:43

guy cybershy

And a dark chapter in the history of canadian journalism comes to and end. I'll be glad to see the last of those ugly yellow boxes.

Thu, 2009-10-29 21:04

M. Spector M. Spector's picture

The ugly yellow boxes I could tolerate. It's what's in them I can't stand. Good riddance to bad rubbish!

Thu, 2009-10-29 21:08

oldgoat

Where are all the hacks who write there going to go?

That's not an invitation to wishful thinking, can the SUN chain absorb all of them? There's always south of the border I guess.

Thu, 2009-10-29 21:11

Michelle

FOX News! :D Godspeed to them all. Sorry in advance, Yanks. :)

Thu, 2009-10-29 21:28

Sineed

Ironic, isn't it, how this heroic defender of unfettered capitalism was a chronic money-loser from day 1.

Thu, 2009-10-29 22:08

martin dufresne

Only ironic if you don't take into account that the NP helped firmly situate little Stevie in power. The armed forces can also appear like a losing investment if you ignore what they permit, in terms of capitalist/imperialist gains.

Thu, 2009-10-29 22:30

Le T

I hope Barbara Kay has to get a paper route.

Thu, 2009-10-29 22:32

#10

Krago

martin dufresne wrote:

Only ironic if you don't take into account that the NP helped firmly situate little Stevie in power.

How did a newspaper that nobody reads make Steven Harper Prime Minister? Did they cause the sponsorship scandal? Or do you think their endless cheerleading for the "Unite the Right" movement wore down Peter MacKay enough to make him throw in the towel?

Thu, 2009-10-29 22:48

#11

martin dufresne

The National Post has been very influential. I have seen it quoted to no end by other media. It can be argued that it probably forced other mainstream media to adopt a more RW politic than they would have done otherwise, e.g. maybe not rooting explicitly for Harper but endlessly lauding him as strategic, cunning, etc.

Thu, 2009-10-29 23:26

#12

canuquetoo

Lord Black of Whatever Obscure Backwater spent a great deal of money - probably from the Dominion Stores Pension Fund he pillaged - to establish the NP.

Izzy must be spinning in his grave seeing what a fiasco his progeny have made of his empire. The National Post is a good counterpoint to much of the political opinion in Canada and its demise will create an opportunity for others to challenge the hubris of the Globe and Mail as 'Canada's daily".

Its too bad the left can't get past their own selves and rise to the challenge to establish a national daily that reflects the leftist POV rather than whingeing endlessly about the nasty MSM in sacrosanct lefty forums with overtaxed moderators guarding them from themselves.

I, personally, would like to see the National Post survive and see the talents of entities like the Tyee become a leftist national flagbearer. Much more interesting than the crap served up by the chain dailies.

Thu, 2009-10-29 23:34

#13

jrootham

To be blunt, why would a leftist newspaper make any more money than the Post?

What leftist organization has that much money to piss away?

Thu, 2009-10-29 23:35

#14

saganisking

the National Post had a very big influence on the voting public you say ? I'm willing to take a bet that if I randomly stopped 1,000 people on the street - 0 would have read it and most would barely have even heard of it

there's a reason it's going bankrupt

Fri, 2009-10-30 14:52

#15

George Victor

Yep. It was dropping too many complimentary copies into college campuses, etc.

Its absence there will have a wonderful effect on campus politics.

Fri, 2009-10-30 15:10

#16

M. Spector M. Spector's picture

saganisking wrote:

the National Post had a very big influence on the voting public you say ?

I daresay it did on certain sectors of the voting public.

In fact, the NP never made money; its existence was solely to provide a "national" media mouthpiece for right-wing ideologues, and the right-wing ideologues who owned it had no problem pouring $millions into it to keep it going. I can't say they wasted their money, because they got exactly what they wanted out of it. At least till the money ran out.

Fri, 2009-10-30 15:52

#17

Frustrated Mess Frustrated Mess's picture

Isn't the National Post proof positive Conservatives can manage neither a business nor money?

Fri, 2009-10-30 16:30

#18

Doug

Your supply of bird cage paper is not in danger. The Post will continue printing for the moment.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/court-okays-canwest-nation...

Fri, 2009-10-30 16:38

#19

N.Beltov

canuquetoo wrote:
Its too bad the left can't get past their own selves and rise to the challenge to establish a national daily that reflects the leftist POV rather than whingeing endlessly about the nasty MSM in sacrosanct lefty forums with overtaxed moderators guarding them from themselves.

I, personally, would like to see the National Post survive and see the talents of entities like the Tyee become a leftist national flagbearer. Much more interesting than the crap served up by the chain dailies.

Robert McChesney and others have been writing about the Media Reform Movement in the USA for some time now. You might want to have a look over at some of his work.

In any case, I think your assessment is incorrect. It's not that "the left can't get past their own selves" etc. so much as there are elements in the left, as well as the centre and the right, who don't want to see such a paper. The NDP comes to mind immediately. That's more a question of sectarianism than anything else.

Fri, 2009-10-30 17:11

#20

Frustrated Mess Frustrated Mess's picture

Newspapers are a dying media anyway.

Fri, 2009-10-30 18:11

#21

N.Beltov

Yea, let's give up now and avoid being disappointed later on.[/end sarcasm]

For fracks sake, even the Communists manage to put out a weekly paper. And yet, their entire membership can probably fit on the head of a pin.

SOMEHOW, however, the Canadian Labour Congress - the largest democratic and popular organization in Canada with over three million members - is powerless to do so. What a crock of shit. They don't want such a paper. What would they write in it? All the struggles they're ignoring?

No. Pathological anti-communism is so deep and wide in this country, even today, that implementing the Leninist idea (shudder!!) of using a newspaper as an organizing tool brings on fits of McCarthyite epilepsy among all the "progressives".

Fri, 2009-10-30 18:21

#22

remind

Not me! All is too big of a brush

Fri, 2009-10-30 19:18

#23

al-Qa'bong

So how do we subscribe?

Fri, 2009-10-30 21:17

#24

George Victor

Canada post delivers us a weekly - published in Winnipeg, the geographic and cultural centre of things.

Fri, 2009-10-30 21:33

#25

N.Beltov

Hell. We should do it. Call it babble blather or somethign like that. Frack 'em all.

Fri, 2009-10-30 21:51

#26

remind

Surely if babble wanted to do such a thing they would have long ago?

Sat, 2009-10-31 09:27

#27

Farmpunk

No one likes truthfull reporting, where-ever they happen to align themselvs on the political spectrum.

Sat, 2009-10-31 09:48

#28

Tommy_Paine

Well, I drive up to Dundalk from time to time, and I like to use the county roads instead of the King's Highways, and I can tell you that someone is still making horse drawn carriages.

It will be that way for newspapers. A few will survive, and the survivors will be the ones that concentrate on being the newspaper "Of Record." The Post, being a Vanity Press, will not. Nor will other publications that are unabashed organs of any political party or economic dogma. Subtle ones, yes. Unabashed, no.

Yesterday, the Post was moved over to the Newspaper division, where profits from some will keep it going for a while. I wonder how readers who hold those other papers dear will like their favorite daily with the National Post cement shoes on?

Observers say this will position CanWest Global better when it tries to sell off it's newspaper division. I'm not sure there are any right wing pockets deep enough to swallow this paper that is worth about 40 million in assets but carries a 150 million dollar debt load.

As a home owner, I wonder how I can get a mortgage for three times the value of my house? Paint a Tory ad on it?

Anyway, even an insane right wing rich dude would most assuredly cut this paper loose if he or she buys it from CanWest.

Sat, 2009-10-31 15:14

#29

thorin_bane

My parents are fed up with their southam newschain paper(windsor star servicing 400,000) and are cancelling once their annual sub is up. My dad is pissed that both the monday and tuesday paper are thinner than the weekly paper he gets from the small suburbs in the area(you know publishing to a potential audience of 6000) Mondays/tuesday is only about 32 pages at best, 4 sections of 6-8 pages(page numbers with all their ads) after no publishing on sunday...no news happens 4 days a week apparently.

Oh well good by house organ of the cons. The Star(windsor) has been taken a hit but rarely publishes how the newspapers are taking a beating. More self interest as oppose to making a difference newsmaking. It was a very good paper back around 1990...excellent in fact. People that come back to town always comment at what a piss poor paper it has become from when they left.

Sat, 2009-10-31 16:21

#30

canuquetoo

N.Beltov wrote:

canuquetoo wrote:
Its too bad the left can't get past their own selves and rise to the challenge to establish a national daily that reflects the leftist POV rather than whingeing endlessly about the nasty MSM in sacrosanct lefty forums with overtaxed moderators guarding them from themselves.

I, personally, would like to see the National Post survive and see the talents of entities like the Tyee become a leftist national flagbearer. Much more interesting than the crap served up by the chain dailies.

Robert McChesney and others have been writing about the Media Reform Movement in the USA for some time now. You might want to have a look over at some of his work.

In any case, I think your assessment is incorrect. It's not that "the left can't get past their own selves" etc. so much as there are elements in the left, as well as the centre and the right, who don't want to see such a paper. The NDP comes to mind immediately. That's more a question of sectarianism than anything else.

I suppose the leading lights of the left are as much concerned with their own entitlements as the right wing are of theirs. It is in all their interests to maintain the status quo rather than rocking the (gravy) boat by actually pursuing progressive objectives.

Progressive objectives such as pension plan reform appear to be very complex issues while political pension entitlements must be very simple when one considers the speed with which the latter are adopted.