Skip to main content

At the Media Apocalypse, only the cockroach survives

A short history of newspapers in Canada (as told by the cockroach)





I started out my journalism career as a scab, and now I am a cockroach.

While all the successful journos are either retired, packaged or punted out of the newsrooms, I survive.

I don't have a nice house, or a pension, I exist on crumbs thrown at me by the rich and powerful who have systematically dismantled the media landscape and rewarded themselves with big bonuses. I make $200 here, $50 there. I don't have a legacy or a career; I have a drawer full of clippings.

And a blog.

I was a scab when I started because that was the only way I could get work. I crossed picket lines, watched other scabs get their tires flattened by irate pressmen, the ones with the unions, the ones with a promise of a pension. I was little, I was small, I got in through the cracks to make my living.

That newspaper died in 1980 when the giant head decided to consume its tail in search of maximum profit.

The newspaper I worked for died along side another one. So sad, they were great Canadian newspapers -- the one I worked for, the other one shut down by the corporate lip-smackers. Now they exist in the fond memories of paperboys, and on microfiche at the Library of Parliament.


People left the business, took good government jobs with pensions. They bought houses and country club memberships, but I kept it up. Cockroaches know, when the time comes to tear down the house, she can always move to another one. We live in the walls to save money.

I moved to the walls of another great newspaper. That newspaper also had a legacy, a purpose. Alas, forty years later, it, too is foundering. Instead of being closed, it is being molded into something new, a hybrid concoction, a mixture of white flour and wheat, flax seed and butter. Nobody is quite sure what it is -- it has a tabloid heart and a broadsheet skin.

Now people are leaving, again. Tossed out on their ears. Nothing to show for their dedication, blood, sweat and tears.

The head is eating its tail again.

More good people are leaving, but this time there aren't good government jobs to go to. Distinguished writers are getting sick in the street. Even the posh leather bars they once frequented are closing.

Big giant heads are repairing to their log homes in the country, appearing on all news channels for the same $200 as the cockroach, writing books that are either discounted on Amazon, or they languish as rock bottom remainders at Chapters.

The news hole now is even too small for the cockroach who moves on to the last great battleground -- ghetto publishing. The bosses live in far off lands, places where people still believe that print is not dead. They soon begin eating their tails, and set the cockroach free again.

Now there are no walls to live in, no newsprint to eat, no clippings to collect.

There is just the cockroach standing, at the Media Apocalypse, and she is eying her tail.


Comments

  1. What can I say, Rosie? Except that when I got 'right-sized' out of my newspaper career decades ago, I had no idea how lucky I was.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ashley Simpson: Conversation with Derek Favell Revealed

  On April 2, 2017, a family friend of Ashley Simpson opened her Facebook Messenger and got the surprise of her life.  Cathy MacLeod had been trying to correspond with Ashley's boyfriend, Derek Favell, who was the last person to see the St. Catharines native before she disappeared from her home in Salmon Arm, B.C. a year before. She wanted to know more about what happened to Ashley, and why Favell had refused to take a polygraph test when many others close to the missing woman agreed to do so. "I wanted to poke the bear," she said, and sent several messages to Favell pleading with him to talk to her.  " Please help us," she wrote. "It's been 10 months of pure hell. A lie detector would help if you have nothing to hide. I beg of you, help us, take the test to clear your name if there’s nothing to hide." Many, including members of the Simpson family, found Derek's behaviour, at least, curious. Ashley had disappeared on April 27, 2016. Yet it took

Ashley Simpson: A Father Remembers

I have asked Ashley Simpson's family and friends to give us a glimpse into the life she lived before going missing nearly a month ago. Here is how her father John remembers his sweet girl. Ashley was a treat when she came into this world, a smashing 9lbs 8 ounces with a  head full of hair and nails that needed to be clipped. She has made many friends in her journey of life and continues to make them as we speak. She has made this world a better place by her love of mankind and this place we call Earth; unfortunately this life she has lived hasn't been the best for her. She has suffered through unbearable pain and suffering through her menstrual cycles. She has cysts on her ovaries that make those 10 days a living hell. She had one of her ovaries removed when she was just 14; the other they won't take out till she is 40 or older. Years of hell for my Ashley. I so feel her pain every month but she doesn't quit, doesn't give in.   That's my

Jack Van Dusen: 90 Years Old and Not a Drop Wasted

A heart is not judged by how much you love; but by how much you are loved by others."  -- L. Frank Baum It's not easy standing out in a family like the Van Dusens. They are like tribbles; they are everywhere. In politics. In the media. In the fine arts. Even on stage at local fairs raising money for good causes. But Jack Van Dusen is no ordinary Van Dusen. He's a trailblazer. He was the voice of Ottawa anchoring the local news in the early days, with the sidekicks you see in the photo above. He was on Parliament Hill rubbing shoulders with the likes of John George Diefenbaker and making mischief with the relatively small cabal of ink stain wretches who were the first generation to talk to Canadians over the air waves. After a successful time in the media, Jack had a second career as a public relations guy. That's when I met him sitting at the lunch table at the National Press Club with his brother Tom, the columnist Charles Lynch, Sergeant-at-Arms Gus Clou