It is a small hope of mine that Babel-on-the-Bay has some of the same objectives as the Toronto Star. It becomes harder over the years as the Torstar management keep swallowing the smaller fish to keep their big fish afloat. They have done more to deprive Canada of good journalism in recent years than they have encouraged.
Since the Canada Competition Bureau is still reported to be casting a jaundiced eye on the most recent collusion between Torstar and PostMedia to end professional journalism in Canada, I will deal with other bad smells coming from Torstar headquarters at One Yonge Street in Toronto.
Frankly, I have been concerned about the lack of competence Torstar has shown in becoming functional in the electronic world of news reporting. I have been waiting, with increasing impatience, for the wife and I to be able to discuss the day’s news that we can each access at breakfast on our personal table-top tablets. Instead, each version of the Toronto Star electronic newspaper comes out worse and more difficult to navigate than the earlier version and with fewer features.
It is so confused that the other day I received an e-mail from the Star’s programming geniuses. It expressed regret that I had cancelled my subscription to the electronic version and the cancellation would take effect at the end of the month. My opening question to the first person I found in the right department was why would I cancel something that costs me nothing? As a home delivery customer, I have access to the electronic version at no additional charge.
My other recent experience where my curiosity was tweaked was in late December by a news source that I have not been using. It is iPolitics, the Ottawa based electronic news source, concentrating on politics in Canada. One of the iPolitics staff appeared on a Global News panel. She was presentable, spoke well but appeared to have no basis for the opinions she was expressing. It occurred to me that this publication needs some help.
At the time, I was reviewing my ten years of producing a daily posting for Babel-on-the-Bay. My choice is to cut costs somewhere or to find some revenue. Since iPolitics needs help, I sent the publication a quick e-mail politely suggesting we have a chat. I was puzzled when I did not receive any acknowledgement.
All became clear though when I dug deeper and found I had missed the announcement that Torstar had bought iPolitics.
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Copyright 2019 © Peter Lowry
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