By Marianne Ackerman 07.02.2010
Alex Norris has a great idea. During a panel discussion on the future of newspapers, namely The Gazette – currently bankrupt and for sale – the former journalist turned Mile End councillor called on wealthy citizens of Quebec to pool their resources and buy the damn thing. Rescue our community newspaper from the clutches of remote money-makers who have run it into the ground.
There was considerable amount of excitement in the pool when Norris issued his challenge, not to mention money – the pool being the Bain St-Michel where Infinitheatre is currently staging The Daily Miracle, a new play about the dying days of a Montreal newspaper which strongly resembles the one we still have (at least for now). The event was a $100-a-ticket fundraiser for the theatre. Paying patrons had to work for their free wine and snacks served later in the locker room. Following a performance of the play, a panel of journalists, including Gazette managing editor Ray Brassard, took over the newsroom/stage to discuss the future of print newspapers.
A predictable number of audience members declared they no longer look at the publication. Others had suggestions on how to improve it. Devote two pages to letters-to-the-editor, said Infini board member Michael Shafter, whose day job is running Shafter Bros. steam heat business on Van Horne (which may explain why he likes the idea of blowing off over his morning coffee).
It was that kind of event, a reminder (as is the play) that not only do “words matter” but so does The Gazette. Which is why we should all channel our anger and frustration over the mess it’s in (let’s forget for a moment the mess it has created) and seriously address The Norris Plan.
Where would the money come from? Consider this: if each of the 160,000 people who buy the Gaz every day invested $100 in shares, their investment would provide $16-million equity. A pittance of the cost, but an IPO would be a good way to ensure customer and community loyalty.
Setting aside what acquiring the cripple might cost, let’s look at potential revenue. My inside sources have estimated Montreal’s only English-language newspaper could easily make $10-million a year while still being able to afford both a quality staff and a long-term survival strategy. Apparently buyers currently looking at it say they would have to make at least $50-million to make ownership worthwhile, meaning a takeover might well have no significant difference in quality, or longevity.
A glance at my morning edition (February 5) suggests somebody somewhere must be making money:
44 pages of grey, blurry newsprint, approximately 35% ads
68 pages of flashy, glossy four-colour ads, no editorial copy
24-page supplement about the Olympics, grey and blurry, mainly ads
These are but the most cursory observations, designed to tempt prospective buyers. Seriously, Alex Norris has the right idea. Mr. Brassard said the web will save the print edition. At least he expressed hope, though he didn’t seem to feel it in his bones.
Inspiration is to be found in the story of Fleury Mesplet and how he came to found The Gazette, how he went to jail for his ideas, and adapted to the times. La Gazette/The Gazette for and by Quebecers? Stranger things have happened.
Post your comments below, and if you agree with The Norris Plan, write to our freshly elected man at city hall while he’s still enthusiastic about change: alex.norris@ville.montreal.qc.ca.
P.S. Curious as to how much I’m paying for all this sylvan devastation, I phoned The Gazette circulation department at 3:26 p.m. Friday. My call was “monitored for quality assurance” but the office was closed. So was the advertising department, although the voice-activated attendant seemed mystified by the sound of my voice: “I’m not sure I understand what you said.”
Noses to the grindstone, eh? This too could change.
Comments ( 4 )
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Elise Moser on Sunday 7, 2010
This is a great idea. It’s about time we recognized that “unprofitable” businesses are often simply not profitable enough for the gargantuan appetites of their multinational owners. They could make enough to operate while supporting their staffs and providing services to their communities. It is immoral to lay the burden of generating fortunes for distant, faceless and uncaring owners or shareholders on a business that is actually a group of people whose livelihoods are thereby put at risk.
On the other hand, The Gazette doesn’t need any more space for letters to the editor. Half of them are written by the same four people as it is. -
Ann Diamond on Sunday 7, 2010
Sounds like a great new Ponzi scheme, Marianne.
What will make the “new” Gazette any different from the “old” Gazette, I have to ask? Who will run the “new, resurrected” Gazette? The same employees and die-hard freelancers who are organizing the “Save the Gazette” campaign? Who will pay? The big investors, I would guess, wealthy Quebecers such as … well… um … the Bronfmans, Molsons, Websters. The same corporate families that support McGill, Concordia, our social services, while enjoying close ties with pharmaceutical companies like Merck… the people who bring us all those nice vaccinations, anti-depressants, and the classified bio-chemical warfare projects that have turned McGill campus into a toxic waste dump, and make Quebec such a wonderful place to invest. due to the abundance of financially desperate human guinea pigs … who depend on the Gazette for information
How will a new Gazette change any of this, pray tell?
My advice to you all: walk away from the Gazette, with its hallowed roots in “enlightened” secret societies (let’s name it: Freemasonry) and its ties to some of the most backward and reactionary groups on the planet. Refresh your mind, do your own research, study the past, think critically, and start dreaming about a future created by citizen journalists of every persuasion — and join the thousands of Monteralers who experiences a surge of happiness and became much better informed when they stopped reading it.
I know I’m annoying. So is the truth.
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Sujata Dey on Sunday 7, 2010
There was actually a great symposium at Colombia University on the ownership of newspapers that I read about in Le Devoir. It suggested that governments give money to community groups so that they can run newspapers as non-profits.
It is interesting, the model proposed by Norris because Le Devoir has the Friends of Le Devoir, which has managed to create investments for Le Devoir, and that has been one of the ways that it has maintained its independence. That and investment from the FTQ Fonds de la solidarité and other such investments.
And I disagree with Ann Diamond on the fact that the new Gazette wouldn’t be a change. There is a lot of unused potential at the Gazette just waiting to unleash itself. And I do believe that having a decent quality newspaper in English (or even several) is essential to a healthy democracy.
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Nigel Spencer on Sunday 7, 2010
Numerous buyouts like this have been tried in the past–including some by employees, but the “laws of the marketplace” have stifled them or made them worse than their earlier incarnations. The kind of English readership left in Montreal is certainly not more discerning than when The Montreal Star went under years ago, and The (inferior) Gazette survived, to decline still further. It would be hard to do a worse job than the kind of remote-control execized from Winnipeg by the Aspers, but I don’t see a buyout reversing the already moribund state of print journalism, whether in quality or profitability. The solution might be a strictly online alternative of the kind taken up by the locked-out Journal de Montreal journalists in La Rue Frontenac. There may be a market for English-language journalism to support something on that scale.
