Edmonton Journal owners now own the Edmonton Sun

[Darren Dirt]

http://postmediaadvertising.com/sun-media/
http://www.postmedia.com/brands/

SUN MEDIA

We?re excited to announce that on April 13, 2015 Postmedia completed the acquisition of Sun Media?s entire network of English-language publications and digital properties.

The deal means Postmedia is now the #1 digital audience in Canada in the News and Information/Newspaper Category. It nearly doubles our print and digital footprint, which means we can help you reach a larger and more valuable audience.

We look forward to exploring new opportunities to leverage the combined strength of many of Canada?s most powerful media brands as we begin integrating our companies in the coming months. We are already working hard to make the transition seamless and to develop innovative offerings to amplify your marketing messages and to meet your strategic advertising objectives.

...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmedia_Network#Newspapers
Newspapers
National Post
Calgary Herald
Edmonton Journal
The Gazette
Regina Leader-Post
Ottawa Citizen
The StarPhoenix
The Windsor Star
etc.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Media#Sun_newspapers
Sun newspapers
Calgary Sun
Edmonton Sun
Ottawa Sun
Toronto Sun
Winnipeg Sun
etc.


so... ummm... competition in the journalism / truth-reporting biz: was a good run, was it not?


PS: apparently it just got APPROVED this week. But it's been at least 6 months in the making: http://www.winnipegsun.com/2014/10/14/letters-october-15-2014

[Mr. Analog]

So which one will become redundant first?

Which one will die the final death?

[Darren Dirt]

So which one will become redundant first?

Which one will die the final death?

Let's play a prediction game! We can call it "The Future Shop Pool"

[Thorin]

Not sure the competition is all gone now, there are still lots of online news sources that Post Media will be competing with.

[Mr. Analog]

Print media is dead

[Darren Dirt]

Print media is dead

These media megacorps mostly started AS print media but have since branched into various other sources of information dispersal ... and CONTROL.

My point.

More power, more "credibility" for the voice, less choice for the audience who will be listening.


I am sure most folks (the non-young'uns anyway) are just gonna continue to rely on the now-DIGITAL version of the print media for most of their "news learnin'" ... not gonna even know about let alone read regularly any of the variety of alternatives that are out there. People, they be lazy 

[Mr. Analog]

ok?

So our 3 main newspaper options with decent circulation are all getting their source for national and global news from news feed services just like everybody else, including online. Otherwise it's all local news and Editorials. The only difference is I don't have ink on my hands or have to make an extra trip to the recycle bin.

Internet is what gives me real options ranging from just the facts reporting to different viewpoints from different sources to crackpot blogs with spurious "news" and questionable creditability.

[Darren Dirt]

ok?

So our 3 main newspaper options with decent circulation are all getting their source for national and global news from news feed services just like everybody else, including online. Otherwise it's all local news and Editorials. The only difference is I don't have ink on my hands or have to make an extra trip to the recycle bin.

That's all I was lamenting: imo the reason most people choose a particular local paper (or media outlet, nowadays) is (if important to that particular reader) they make a choice based on a preference to the way in which a local paper approaches/covers local news and/or the editorial "voice". Up until this huge event (not covered noticeably by the media, har har) there was a perhaps-false-choice between two semi-diverse major options to choose from, now they are merged into one. Which voice will be silenced? Back in my day... #oldManRant

[Mr. Analog]

I'm not a regular reader of either the Sun or the Journal anymore, I was about 15 years ago but after a while I was just sick of it, even the Journal online is rapidly becoming an annoying mess

News in general is a pain to read all around, there's virtually no editing anymore and a lot of time the editorials are just ranting about things and lose my interest fast.

And there's my old man grumpy rant

[Darren Dirt]

I'm not a regular reader of either the Sun or the Journal anymore, I was about 15 years ago but after a while I was just sick of it, even the Journal online is rapidly becoming an annoying mess

News in general is a pain to read all around, there's virtually no editing anymore and a lot of time the editorials are just ranting about things and lose my interest fast.

And there's my old man grumpy rant

You are ranting at the loss of quality rants

I avoid the Sun or Journal too, unless a particular article is linked from Google News. But also I read the free crappy paper on the LRT some mornings; later in the day I often find some of its contents were an apparent excerpt of a fuller story that is also on the Sun or Journal website. But as you said it might just be from the news feed services. So what's the "diversity level" of those I wonder...

Kids these days (or their kids), they ain't never gonna realize what "The Fourth/Fifth* Estate" is even a REFERENCE to, are they? Power is finally clearly winning over truth and justice and freedom... while the weak are continually distracted #oldManGrumpyRantBackAtYa





*I mean heck is THIS even delivering the same quality of journalism as it was consistently back in the 80s/90s? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Estate_%28TV%29

[Mr. Analog]

Actually the main problem I find with "kids today" at least the ones that I interact with on a regular basis (i.e. 20-somethings) is that news generally comes to them in the form of social media, which as you know is more like yellow journalism at best and much of the time you do 5 seconds worth of fact checking you find the story is either outright false or of questionable origin.

It's like on one side people on the extreme right are watching Fox news and on the extreme left you have people mindlessly reblogging false information that fits their ethos

Somewhere in between are a small group of skeptical people who look up on snopes or look up the actual story material to see if it's legit

So like a story about an old homeless lady who used to take care of stray dogs had a bunch of stray dogs show up at her funeral on the surface is one of those things that you could have a warm and fuzzy over unless you do 5 seconds worth of fact checking to find out that the funeral was over 300 km from where she lived

The main problem I find with online news is that there are basically 3 camps:
1. People who accept everything they read as true (a problem since the dawn of news media)
2. People who just don't care to follow the news, but will reblog/tweet anything trending (this is a LARGE GROUP)
3. People who don't believe anything that comes from traditional sources and prescribe to echo-chamber "news", where groupthink rules over all sense (anti-vaxxers, homeopathy advocates, 9/11 inside job, etc)

I think online activity just exposes these kinds of people more obviously, maybe they have always existed and it just wasn't obvious before now

[Thorin]

Wouldn't there be the fourth camp there, the skeptics who fact-check, like our little group on here?

[Mr. Analog]

Wouldn't there be the fourth camp there, the skeptics who fact-check, like our little group on here?

We aren't a problematic group so that's why we're not in the list, and there are plenty like us out there, they see these "news memes" (that's what I'm gonna call 'em) go around, do some checking and then reblog with an update on it saying how false it is, with REFERENCES and facts (which is awesome)

Snopes is friend for this but otherwise even doing a little homework reveals a lot, we're all good at this IMO, it's something that I think millennials are picking up on quickly.

[Darren Dirt]

I started this thread because most of the population ain't expending extra energy exercising critical thinking and additional research etc. when they read some news story. Wish they did, but reality is they don't -- and those same under-informed folks are casting most of the votes next month... and every other time.

...btw is this forum its own echo chamber?

[Mr. Analog]

This forum doesn't have enough users to form an echo chamber, also we tend not to agree with each other (on practically everything) which is good IMO