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Before I go any further, I’d like to take a moment and applaud husband and wife Mark Lever and Sarah Dennis.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
The owners of the Chronicle Herald have, over the past seven years, managed to cut the region’s largest newsroom almost in half, shedding years of journalistic experience and excellence, cutting well-paying Nova Scotia jobs and aborting untold numbers of stories.
In 2009, Sarah did it on her own, and, if the rumours inside the Herald at the time were to be believed, over the protests of her father and then-publisher Graham Dennis. Back then, the paper cut 25 positions to save money.
I was on the union local’s executive, and it was heart-wrenching to face the company’s first layoffs in its 130-plus-year history.
In December 2014, I was one of 17 journalists who left the Herald, either through early retirement, buyout or layoff, as another round of cuts was underway.
The Herald and its union are now in the midst of contract negotiations, and more cuts are on the way. Lever wants to follow through on his threat a year ago to hack all editing jobs from the bargaining unit, in addition to other layoffs, including the paper’s award-winning photographers. That could be 18 more people out the door.
Readers tend not to think too much about editors, until they see a mistake. But they are just as vital a part of the newsgathering process as reporters and photographers. Personally, I became a far better journalist over the years because I could easily consult with superior peers.
Despite the obstacles put in their way, the Herald’s reporters, photographers and editors still do excellent work, every day. But that work is now threatened by owners who don’t understand journalism and never really liked it.
Advertising flyers, advertorial (stories paid for by advertisers) and weak-kneed community weeklies are where Lever and Dennis want to take their company.
Things like World.Oyster.Go might help pay a power bill, but it’s promotional pap that confuses readers and chases more of them away than it will ever attract.
It’s difficult to see how a groundbreaking series of stories like those from the Rehtaeh Parsons case by Frances Willick and former reporter Selena Ross could ever be done again.
Or, this wonderful profile of Viola Desmond from 2010 by Sherri Borden Colley, which led to a provincial pardon for “Canada’s Rosa Parks.”
Or even a recent story like this by Stephen Cooke, about Nova Scotia filmmaker Michael Melski’s newest film.
And you can forget about in-depth multimedia features such as this on the state of elder care in the province.
The Herald can no longer claim to provide coverage of the whole province. It still has no reporter anywhere in southwestern Nova Scotia, after the departures a year ago of Brian Medel in Yarmouth and Beverley Ware in Bridgewater.
The few people who still have beats are regularly pulled away to cover other things because of successive newsroom cuts.
That matters because without the time, experience and drive to develop sources, gather information and ask tough, uncomfortable questions, important Nova Scotia stories won’t be told.
In the meantime, Herald management plans to move what’s left of the newsroom to its “custom content” department, which produces the Herald’s advertising products.
Lever has apparently told the union that some former newsroom editors could find jobs in custom content, but they would also have to handle paid stories from advertisers along with news stories.
Speaking of that move, newsroom managers at the Herald are apparently now busy with making sure people’s boxes are packed.
I guess it makes sense, since those same managers have been working for the past few months to assemble a roster of replacement workers (or scabs, if you prefer) for when the company locks out its newsroom, perhaps this month.
So, take a bow, Sarah and Mark. You’ve done more in seven years to endanger exceptional journalism than any pissed-off politician or irate advertiser ever could.
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Voice of the City is a platform for any and all Halifax individuals to share their diverse opinions and writings. The Coast does not guarantee the accuracy of, or endorse the views of those published. Our editors reserve the right to alter submissions for clarity, length and style. Want to appear in this section? Submissions can be sent to voice@thecoast.ca.
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This article appears in Jan 7-13, 2016.
Wonderful,could not have put it any better than what you have written,but you know Rick,what goes around comes around so it shall be for Sarah Dennis and Mark Lever.
I understand there are difficulties in the newspaper industry these days, I’m a victim of the cuts myself, having been laid off by Postmedia three years ago — a company that paid its CEO a $7-million bonus last year. The newspapers in the Postmedia chain are still making money, make no mistake — they’re just not making enough to service the company’s debt. So short-sighted cut is laid on short-sighted cut, and eventually people are going to realize that none of the news in the paper is actually news; and what’s there is badly written and very poorly edited.
Yeah, I understand the difficulties posed by loss of advertising, loss of classifieds, loss of subscribers, even, caused by the internet. All true. But look at it this way: the Herald is the only provincial newspaper in a province where the demographic skews to print; it is in a monopoly position and has a wealth (or should have a wealth) of goodwill with local advertisers to fall back on. For someone not to be able to figure out how to make money in this situation, with existing infrastructure and goodwill, speaks to a deficit of management ability, not one of money. The Chronicle-Herald is a privately-held company so there’s no going over the books to see what’s going on, and that’s unfortunate. I’d like to know whether it’s not making a profit at all, or simply not making as much of a profit as the owners would like — or not growing its profit each year, the way business school tells you a good company should. Because in situations like these, especially when there’s a union involved, management always tends to blame workers’ salaries for its poor performance, and makes those people take the first fall. I understand the Herald is continuing to hire managers. To manage what, I ask, and whom? Gut the newspaper staff, you gut the paper, and with no paper, you have no product to sell.
It seems to me that a private company can do whatever the wish with their company, even if it means driving it into the ground…
I am extremely saddened by the turn of events and have some very talented friends working at the paper, in the words of Dylan, “The times they are a changing…” This is the inevitable as it is happening with this media all over the world, even with outlets reinventing themselves, the face of print media is more streamlined. I do agree that GREAT content cannot be compromised, but there is a cost and thru this hurricane, only the strong trees will be left standing. It sucks for all those involved, but it seems unions these days think money grows on trees!
world.oyster.go is great !!
This has nothing to do with Mark and Sarah. Every news paper in the world is facing the same challenges and going through the same process. News papers are done, they are dinosaurs, the question for the Herald is when will it be completely online putting more employees out of work. This is part of progress, the assembly line did not put auto makers out of work it is attributed to creating a middle class and more jobs. I would say your biased since your a disgruntled former employee, and that you were head of the union so you now want to embarrass management. My thoughts are your paper is dying, you either all die with it or scale down to the point that the paper survives and so do some jobs. When the transition to electronic is over hopefully that creates more money to hire more journalists and photographers. At this point that industry is in turmoil. I support the paper I have a subscription, I would also support an electronic paper as well.
It seems Rick forgot to pat himself on the back for his role in the paper’s apparent downfall … “He … was one of the people involved in unionizing the newsroom in 1998.”
So, take a bow, Rick. You’ve done more in those years to endanger exceptional journalism than any bean-counting owner, pissed-off politician, or irate advertiser ever could.
The Herald does not live in isolation. It is part of a changing newspaper world on which few people are readers and the public has lost a sense of the defining lines between which should separate opinion, information, and entertainment. Indeed, these are old values that perhaps belong to an outdated time. Once at The Herald Ltd., we journalists believed that we were important, that we served a public need and fought for the public good. Perhaps we were fooling ourselves. A newspaper is, was, and always shall be a business. It has to make money. In today’s world of internet thought domination, newspapers (and it kills me to say this) are archaic and probably doomed. So are the owners of such dragons. Rick, sorry to say, you’re a knight of the old code tilting at windmills.
Mark Level has a history of running companies into the ground so it shouldn’t be any surprise. I wouldn’t let the guy run a lemonade stand.
Why don’t you, the former newsroom staff and current employees empty your life savings, remortgage your homes and make Mark and Sarah and offer to buy the Hearld. Then you can run it however the hell you want.
Sounds like sour grapes….and not surprisingly a union head out of touch with today’s reality…If the business is so viable, the union should pool together its resources to buy the business from Lever and Dennis for a big price…I’m sure given the direction the new print business is heading, they would be happy to sell. Since the author and the rest of the union is so confident it can be a cash cow, they will no doubt be willing to pay top dollar! Good luck!
This article seriously pisses me off. There are some employees with the Herald who Have had cushy jobs for years that are extremely high paying. Yea because you wrote one good story, got a pay raise and are now editing minimal pages for a huge amount of money… That’s fair. Most of them should be retired now to allow the new up an coming journalist to have a chance. Times are changing, whether you like it or not it’s a fact. Take your payouts and feel blessed for the opportunity you had, because anyone up and coming will tell you that we will never have those opportunities. And to talk about editing!? The Coast have terrible editors and you’re guilty of messing things up too. Look in your own backyard before digging in someone else’s. I remember there was an article about a Coast member buying weed? How is that relevant or even interesting!? Way to try and steal business from The Herald by making them seem like jerks. When in reality it’s what has to be done.
i hear the drivers will be taken a cut on the gas allowances…..well no drivers no paper in the box…..Just Sayin……is the metro hiring……..
So………..lots of whining and no solutions. Typical union position. The CH was going downhill long before Rick left.
I really want to get outraged over this, but as a former journalist who’s worked from BC to Ontario, I’ve seen this happen over and over. I’m surprised it took so long for deep cuts to come to the Herald, actually. I won’t pretend to know how much of this is about bad management and how much is just the normal financial difficulty of running a print newspaper in 2016, but I’ve seen it happen too often for this to engender anything but a weary shrug.
Plus there’s the fact that while the cuts will indeed likely damage the quality of the editoral product, it’s already a pretty shitty paper as it is. Meagre editorial oversight, unimaginative design, reporting riddled with errors. I dunno…Obviously losing the Herald would leave a huge hole in Atlantic journalism, but I’m almost morbidly curious to see what would fill that hole.
It’s unfortunate that some posters write under a cloak of aliases or anonymity. It’s not unlike reporting and quoting an “Unnamed” source..
Newspapers are not dead. Journalism is not dead. What is dead is the business model — advertising plus social responsibility –that propped them up for a century or more. In many respects journalists themselves aren’t helping matters. Anyone who visits CBC.ca regularly will see how the quality of journalism has deteriorated over the last year. So-called ‘public’ journalism is no longer the poster boy for quality. Indeed at times it ranks lower than the worst of the gutter press. In the United States, there have been some great strides forward by not-for-profit online news services. Our new Prime Minister would do journalism and democracy a lot more good by providing help for such start-ups rather than throwing millions back into the CBC.
The Herald, for many years, paid their employees some of the highest wages in Canada and the US.
So, this is Rick Conrad’s way of thanking the Dennises for overpaying him.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
Hey Rick: want to make a bunch of halfwits angry? Just use the word “union” and then talk some smack about incompetent owners/managers. They’ll be frothing at the mouth. How dare you defend good-paying jobs in Nova Scotia when there is such a surplus of them!
THE FREE MARKET WILL TAKE CARE OF MR. Rick Conrad