February will be the tenth anniversary of this newspaper. That’s a long time and a lot of hard work.
It’s resulted in over 1 million human pageviews monthly. LINK
Sadly, CFN never became the creative fount of positivity I envisioned when I started this venture in February of 2009. You can’t do creative marketing for people that aren’t creative as I discovered in a chat with Andre Pommier before Bob Peters told him to stop advertising.
I was warned. I was told that Cornwall was corrupt, uneducated, impoverished, and lacking culture.
I thought I could make a difference and I did in many ways. A lot of nasty dragons have been defeated. A lot of bad guys (and girls) have left town. A few even ended up in jail. We saved beavers even if the flow through devices were ripped out eventually in Guindon Parc by mysterious parties….
At the end it’s been an adventure and like all adventures there are good parts and bad. There are cliffhangers, and there are times the hero gets to kiss the girl and not get herpes.
As I’ve always said if I ever left Cornwall it wouldn’t be because of bullies like Roy Perkins, David #metoo Murphy, Ed Lumley(an alleged wife beater as a bonus) Gilles Latour (now in the pokey) Bob Peters, Denis Thibault, Peter Gault, Rick Shaver, Guy Lauzon, Jim Brownell, Hugo Rodrigues, Chris Savard(run out of town after a few scandals) Traci Trottier, Maureen Adams, Jennifer Burke, Brian Snyder, and our future mayor Bernadette Clement, Elaine MacDonald and their Pink Posse…there are so many more, many sneakily who work in the shadows. (Tammy Hart gets bonus points even if she’s in South Stormont)
The irony is these impotent bullies are enabled by the likes of Randy Sauve, Dwight Dugas, Tracy Champagne, Kathy Coffey, Neil MacMillan, John Towndrow, and far too many to name and frankly who aren’t worthy of naming, circling around hoping for a few crumbs or billboards.
Life is short. Talent is an awesome thing and those of us with some have to cherish that gift and use it wisely.
Cornwall Ontario isn’t the greatest place to invest. It’s not the place to go if you seek attention either ( I always laughed at that lame accusation, I mean, honestly, who would come to Cornwall to get famous?) and sadly it’s shown that it’s not a place to raise a family or build a business. It’s not that you can’t, but it’s like hoping to live to 100 by smoking 3 packs of ciggies per day.
Like the toons in Who’s Afraid of Roger Rabbit the town will be Big Boxed over. It already has in a small way when you contrast the mediocrity of Brookdale with the ghostly strip that is Pitt Street.
It’s a town of cowards who enable the even more mediocre bullies that rule it so inefficiently that what could be a gold mine is routinely overlooked by so many. It’s essentially a government services town where if you aren’t working for CAS, CCH, CCPS, CFS, EOHU, or any other government agency or school board, your income is pretty darn well below the provincial average. And that means towing the line…or else!
It also has more self hatred than any place I’ve ever lived and I’ve lived in a few. If you want to hear this poor city rundown talk to a local, especially if they’ve moved away as I have far too often recently.
I’ve seen a lot of good people leave in the last 18 months with more moving in the next 12.
With all this there still are pebbles of goodness, even if they are meek and dimly lit.
Ten years of investment in a community is enough in my opinion. It’s time to give someone else a chance.
There have been many in this town that have judged yours truly; like the very special person who chastised me for not graduating University and when I clicked on their facebook profile, they were studying to get their GED.
While ten years have flown by without me judging others there clearly is plenty to judge and the verdict for most wouldn’t be pretty…but that will come out in Dirty Town Under a Crooked Bridge which will be finished in February.
What the new owners will understand, what so many in Cornwall don’t, is that it’s always the audience that counts, not the writer, publisher, editor, or bottle washer. It’s always about the viewers and it drives many of the “clique” nuts, even as they themselves read our pages, that so many read CFN inside and outside Cornwall Ontario.
Do you want the chance to own this awesome newspaper? Email jamie@cornwallfreenews.com if and have the cash to back it up or dial 855 444 1133. 2017 TRAFFIC NUMBERS & REACH LINK
No low ballers please 🙂
Here’s to an awesome next ten years!
Cheers!
j
Jamie, I don’t blame you one bit for wanting to sell the number one information newspaper in town. You’re absolutely 100% right in your comments about the corruption here in Cornwall. They should all be locked up but we don’t have enough cells for these ash holes. If I had the money to buy your paper, I wouldn’t buy it because of the corrupt city leaders.
As I’ve mentioned in the past, I’m looking to relocate in Brockville or Merrickville
Pete the Seaway News has been for sale for over a year. It’s a tough time to sell media although CFN could be rebranded and move being digital.
Cornwall can’t be rebranded. I can’t tell you how much we’ve lost to outside markets because of the soiled Cornwall Ontario brand which apparently my biggest crime was trying to improve. Remember this is a city government that fought a program to have viewers write in about why Cornwall is awesome and then win local shopping sprees. The mayor called it, during a live council meeting, a security issue….it’s on camera.
Jamie your paper is the very best and yours is the first that I look at and I will miss you very much and wish you the best wherever you go. You can have plenty of laughs about me and it will cheer you up when you feel down. Cornwall is exactly what you described and educated people leave and don’t stay down there at all. You are a good man and I will miss you very much. Jamie all the best.
Jules I’m not quite gone yet. Also, the last few attempts to purchase CFN including me staying on in some capacity for at least a year.
I can’t wait to read your book! Best of luck sir!
Jamie, you’re a one of a kind talent. This city is going off the tracks. Maybe Doug Ford can reduce the size of this council to 3 notwithstanding.
I’d say four maximum plus the mayor for council. Ten councillors for 50k in population is obscene.
Hugger the signs say 46K. I’d bet cash that we aren’t even at 40.
Agreed. The point I was making is that ten councillors is a bit much for a city this size. One councillor for 4k to 5k population?? Ottawa has 23 councillors. One for every 38k population.
Arrggghhhh!!!!!
Hugger for over a decade I’ve been saying we need the ward system for Cornwall, especially in the East End and le Village. High population density, low resources. Total inequity which holds the city back.
I agree. as it is now with 10 councillors no one is responsible for an area. Make it ward based and have councillors responsible for areas. That way problems can be dealt with more easily and quickly. I’ve been saying for a while the ward system is the way to go.
Jamie’s paper is the best and not just because I like Jamie but because he tells the truth. All other papers are nothing but pure garbage. Whether you like the truth or not Jamie tells it like it is. I remember some good times in Cornwall as well as the bad and as society goes forward things get worse since people are not civilized these days. I wish all the best there is for Jamie.
Why thank you Jules.
Jamie you nailed it in your description of that backward backwoods town and we left and never to return. When we came back to Ottawa we lived in peace and quiet. Honest to God I can drop a pin on the floor and hear it but in Cornwall it was hell on earth whether we rented or owned – pas trop de difference. Everyone down there thought that our property was theirs and what a battle.
It has been a long time since I looked at the Seaway News. Jamie you are educated and intelligent and why in the hell did you put yourself in that decrepid town called Cornwall. Since we left Cornwall in the biggest snowstorm ever in December 16 years ago and that was sure wanting to leave for sure and we did and the movers had a good laugh. NEVER EVER AGAIN not even in death.
Jamie I mean it fully about you being NUMBER 1 NEWSPAPER IN CORNWALL and there is something mighty important. A disease going around the US and the world called Candida and it is on youtube.com. I gave the address to hubby and it is mighty serious. There is a doctor on youtube talking about it. It is on hospital curtains between patients, in the air being sprayed by planes on aircraft, etc.
Research??
Cornwall is way too small to have 10 councellors plus a mayor. Cornwall lost a great deal of population since my day and I am a 68 year old woman. I have bumped into some people from Cornwall when I used to work in the federal government and we would roar with laughter about Cornwall – nothing left. Cornwalls population cant be more than 35K at most.
The ward system is the best way to go. The rest of the dingalings are only there for a paycheck and the citizens are on welfare or old age and very few have work. The few chosen ones from rich and prominent families work at city hall. The rest have been swept under the carpet like garbage. People with intelligence and a drive to get ahead leave Cornwall all together.
WOW!! Once again….was any research done before saying “citizens are on welfare or old age and very few have work?” It amazes me, but not really, what some people say without seeing if what they say is true. Or is it they just wish it were true?
I do agree on the ward system being used in Cornwall though. This 10 at large councilors is just beyond stupid for a city the size of Cornwall
Hugger you are just trying to protect the derilic house that you purchased as well as your wifes precious town job and if she didn’t belong to a certain family down there she would never have seen the light of day of that job. I have seen this happen in all of my 68 years on this horrible satanic earth of Cornwall and elsewhere. Cornwall is literally finished and all the industries have dried up
Jamie I am not kidding you when I said that your paper is the best. I cant even go on another paper since it is all BS. I click into Ottawas papers and I am bored but when I go on yours it is full of laughs as well as me getting upset, etc. I love your paper and it is the best.
WOW!! Seriously??
First we don’t live in a derelict house and never have.
Second my wife does not belong to “a certain family.” And she is retiring soon. She has had it with dealing with insensitive and uncooperative management / staff at city hall.
I’d ask for an apology for those insensitive comments, but I know that’s asking too much!!
Hugger stop getting your britches all tied up in knots and getting upset. You are only hurting yourself. Laugh it all off or you will have a heart attack. I am laughing just now at hubby getting upset for nothing. Stop and sit down and think about it. Laugh it off and be well. My daughter is another with that Lebanese temperament that drives me up the wall. LOL LOL. ROLF! HELP!!!!
Gilles Latour in the pokey? I knew his brother at CCVS and he was funny and I met up with him once here in Ottawa. Gilles Latour looks like a good man and to be in such a place is very degrading. Gilles Latour must have done something really bad. I thought that Gilles Latour was a respectable kind of a man. The brother and I would have a lot of laughs back in our young days in school.
“stop getting your britches all tied up in knots and getting upset.” How would you feel if you were attacked and insulted the way you attacked and insulted me? I will never accept being attacked, in any form, from anyone.
Hugger you have insulted me a great many times and I don’t get all upset like what you do but instead I laugh it all off because I know where it comes from. LOL LOL ROLF! I have been very much abused as a child and I just read a column a while ago about a little Syrian refugee girl who committed suicide over bullying in Calgary AB and I went through that as a child and I cried to hubby.
Bait and switch. Switch and bait. Have I ever attacked you the way you did me? NO!!! If you can’t / won’t see what you did then I’m done with this thread.
Jamie it is a very tough time to sell anything especially in Cornwall of all places. I sit here every day asking myself How in the hell did Jamie go down to Cornwall and to be abused by the evils of that town. I am not kidding you those are my thoughts. Cornwall is very evil. You have talent Jamie and I mean that. Your paper is the best there is. Cornwall is a place for the evils to die.