Former Edmonton Journal Editor Looks at the Damage Being Done to Canada’s Newspapers

My Postmedia career began September 2013 with a tour of the Edmonton Journal’s downtown office.

Stephanie Coombs, the managing editor of the historic city newspaper, led me through the empty first floor; where the once-mighty department for the classifieds once resided, now occupied by two clerks at a front counter. We wandered through empty halls of forlorn cubicles and desks, past relics of a prosperous past—a glossy magazine, photo studio, employee fitness centre. Past the large, now-shuttered cafeteria. A handful of people were huddled in Finance and HR on the second floor; half of the third-­floor advertising department was empty; a few techies were tucked in a fourth­-floor corner beside the abandoned library and darkroom. We arrived finally at the fifth floor, at a newsroom built for a robust staff of 200 that now held fewer than seventy journalists. My new team.

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