Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Great Moments in Journalism Dept.


Toronto Star-owned freebie now written by unpaid interns

In one of the more creative ways to save money, the Toronto Metro laid off all its staff writers and hired unpaid interns to replace them.

Union president, Brad Honywill, doesn't think this is such a good plan. "In this kind of environment, layoffs are inevitable," he said. "But we reject the notion they can fill jobs with interns hired three days beforehand."

Metro's group publisher for English Canada, Bill McDonald, has a different take: "We made a small adjustment to our staff. We're managing our business in these economic times." He also said that "content partnerships" will be responsible for providing some stories.

The news comes just a couple weeks after the Metro in Spain was shut down. Apparently, there are no interns in Europe.
--mediabistro.com

This is the same Metro that sold its entire front page to the Ontario Fiberals during the 2007 election. So the loss to “journalism” is probably not that great. But what would Holy Joe Atkinson think of exploiting unpaid labour to pad TorStar’s bottom line? Probably not much.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Star must be on life support. Shoddy journalists and no management.

Anonymous said...

Shoddy journalists and no management describes the Star but now that the union hacks are gone, the Metro probably has some lively, insightful and interesting reporting - should be interesting.

Anonymous said...

Oh the irony for the Unions and mainly the CAW , the CAW for years now held a knife to the throat of GM,FORD,and Chrysler with the endless threats to bankrupt them with strikes as if that was a weapon in a Nation like Canada where 80% of the Autos are exported to the USA.

I have plans to start a business based on the Green market and Accessible products for our aging Population and Workplace Equity for the Disabled , and part of my plan to to set-up regional Micro management via a License agreement and to make sure that the employee numbers don't reach the "Union" level that will bankrupt the owners or cause stress to workers forced to Strike and have a lower income to pay the bills.
My products and Business Plan will reserve jobs for the Disabled
or gender balance with females because the product is Modular and no one part will be heavier than 20 Lbs prior to the main assembly of the base structures.

I want my workers to know they won't be let go as long as I the owner of the Patents , and that a fair wage will also have a bonus plan to share the wealth during the good times but assure loyalty in the bad times on the base salary.

Once the CAW falls the next group will be the Teachers because Private schools are becoming popular , then CUPE will dwindle as the Government uses more E-businesses or Online Services for Citizens.

BTW

Maybe if the CAW members had filled their Houses with Canadian Made items they would have more sympathy by us who are expected to fill our garages with CAW cars.
Thanks to Mexico and China the slave labour increased the buying power for those $60.00 an hour CAW Jobs , but the wage gap for the Mean-Incomes has gotten so big that the average Canadian can't afford to buy those CAW cars .
Ironically , the low-end Focus was from Mexico and the older Escorts were from the USA and by a FORD/Mazda joint venture Plant much like the Ohio Nissan/Mercury Plant for the Villager/Quest .