POSTMEDIA POSTSCRIPT

Torontonians probably don’t feel it the way those of us in affected cities do – Postmedia’s latest job-killing, democracy-sapping manoeuvre was all too obvious on the front page of my Vancouver Sun.

On the day Postmedia merged the newsrooms of The Sun and the city's other large and venerable Vancouver paper, The Province, and laid off a total of 90 workers in similar mergers in newsrooms in Edmonton, Calgary and Ottawa, there were no big headlines announcing the news in The Sun.

Postmedia Job Cuts Hint At A Growing Media Monopoly In Canada

George R. Gauld Junior Public School doesn’t look as old as it feels.

The 91-year-old building is painted in bright blues and yellows on the inside, and though the letters spelling out the school’s name on the outside are a little faded from the sun, the building looks all right.

But the exterior belies the problems hidden beneath the walls. The boilers are so old repair technicians aren’t trained to service them anymore. The roof needs to be replaced, and a few cracks and warps in the library ceiling show where the water pours through when it rains, though the librarian usually puts down a bucket so the books and floor aren’t damaged.

Canada's largest newspaper opens 2016 with an uninformed and biased salvo against Russia

After a hiatus from the Ukraine and Russia file for much of 2015, the editor of Canada's largest daily newspaper has opened the year 2016 with sharp words for Russia, notably the "lightning annexation of Crimea" and the "Moscow-backed separatist rebellion in eastern Ukraine" which Russia is said to have sprung on the world in early 2014. Olivia Ward pens anarticle in the January 10, 2016 edition of the Toronto Star loaded with grim predictions for Russia's economy in 2016 and of "swelling grassroots outrage" against the rule of President Vladimir Putin.

Paul Godfrey, Postmedia CEO, Made More Cash As Company Bled Hundreds Of Millions

Postmedia CEO Paul Godfrey continues to pocket more money as his company loses hundreds of millions of dollars.

The Globe and Mail reported Friday that Godfrey, head of a company that owns some of Canada's biggest newspapers, saw his income boosted from $1.4 million to $1.7 million this year, even as the company had a net loss of $263.4 million.

The tawdry fall of the Postmedia newspaper empire

“I’m not going to lose my job over a fart joke,” Dan Murphy recalls Wayne Moriarty, editor-in-chief of The Province newspaper, saying.

It was the morning of Friday, June 22, 2012. Murphy, The Province’s long-time staff cartoonist, was meeting with Moriarty in the editor’s office on the fifth floor of the paper’s headquarters on Granville Street in downtown Vancouver. The discussion between Murphy and Moriarty was heated; after all, Moriarty was informing Murphy that an animation the cartoonist had produced was being pulled off the web.

Don't Give Postmedia More Local Monopolies

Canada's three dominant newspaper chains will be reduced to only two -- one of them largely owned by U.S. hedge funds -- if the federal Competition Bureau allows Postmedia Network's proposed $316-million purchase of the Sun Media chain.

Postmedia already owns a partnership between the Vancouver Sun and Province. The deal would create four more joint publishing operations -- in Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa and Toronto -- between supposedly "competing" dailies. In three of those markets, Postmedia would own both daily newspapers and would thus dominate the market for print advertising as it has in Vancouver. (Toronto has four dailies -- the Star, Sun, Globe and Mail and Postmedia's National Post -- although the latter two are published nationally.)

Inside the $316-Million Postmedia-Quebecor Deal

Postmedia Network has struck a $316-million deal with Quebecor Media to purchase all of Sun Media's 175 English-language newspapers and digital properties.

The deal is subject to approval by the Competition Bureau, which will likely take several months. But if it goes through, it would give Postmedia a major presence in many Canadian cities -- such as Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa and Vancouver -- where it would own both the daily broadsheet and tabloid newspaper.

Postmedia-Quebecor Deal: Media Ownership Worries Are 'Beside The Point': Expert

TORONTO - Postmedia's plans to buy Quebecor's stable of English-language newspapers and websites may resurrect concerns about whether the concentration of media ownership in Canada will narrow the range of editorial voices the public relies on for information, experts say.

But some say it may be the only way to keep newspapers alive in an industry that's struggling to survive.

"What we're talking about here is one threatened company ... buying properties whose future was in doubt," said Ivor Shapiro, chair of the Ryerson School of Journalism in Toronto.

US Hedge Funds Squeezing Profitable Postmedia: Union

Faceless foreign ownership is behind newspaper publisher Postmedia's push to cut costs at Vancouver's duopoly dailies, according to the head of the union that represents workers at the Sun and Province. "One of the big problems with Postmedia is it's controlled by U.S. hedge funds," said Mike Bocking, president of Unifor Local 2000.

The latest move to trim expenses came with last week's announcement that Postmedia will sell its Surrey printing plant and either contract out printing of the dailies or build a more efficient plant that would cost 70-75 per cent less to operate.