Transcontinental Trashing English Content in Montreal Newspapers

To me the whole concept of a community newspaper is to be inclusive.   Local Papers are the lifeblood and only source of information for many communities.   L I N K

“Five bilingual weekly newspapers in the Montreal area are now publishing in French only.”

Transcontinental has bought a lot of local papers and now is eliminating English content in its Montreal outlets.   CJAD covered the story this morning on The Tommy Schnurmacher Show and it was heartbreaking to listen to one gentleman who’d been writing about the local Legion activities, for free, for 41 YEARS! only to be told that his services were no longer needed.

We talk about shopping locally.   It also pays to advertise locally.

When I started this newspaper we talked about having a weekly print edition.   I chose to not nibble on the corners.   I believed that the future of this industry is online and we have focused our time and resources on the net.

For some reason, in this city, and I’m not saying it’s exclusive to Cornwall, but the local media has not only not responded to this new paper, but has been outwardly hostile, especially to some advertisers.  When we release that we will not charge for Help Wanted ads we don’t expect an outlet that sells those ads to cover the story, but is there a reason this isn’t news for the local Radio Stations John Bolton and Lorne Wiebe?  I know you guys read us?  Do you not want to be in our charity hockey pool in September?

Media outlets need each other to survive.   We all feed off each other (Right Kevin? 😉)

In Cornwall local radio is controlled by a National Media Company (Corus)  The Standard Free Holder (Sun Media)  and Seaway News (Transcontinental) are controlled by National Media Company’s also.

There’s nothing wrong with that, but there basically is when you try and mush the new kid into the boards.

Let’s all play nice and maybe even work together where possible to give this community the best news content it can get and deserves.

And yes, if someone wishes to submit content to us in French and it’s germane to what we print it will be printed.

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