TransCon again cuts West End news

By Dan Delmar

The parent company to some of Montreal’s local weeklies has again dealt a blow to community news in English Montreal by reassigning some journalists and giving others an extended vacation just before Christmas.

Transcontinental Media is the fourth largest print media company in the country and owns The Westmount Examiner and The West Island Chronicle. Last year, management decided to stop printing The Monitor, converting the 83-year-old NDG institution to an internet publication. It also cut Anglo reporting in its South-West papers, leading this newspaper to expand its distribution to LaSalle and Verdun.

The company’s “rationalization” plan saved $110 million, but left newspapers like The Monitor a shadow of its former self. The website is infrequently updated and has no permanent reporters on staff.

Transcontinental’s vice-president in charge of corporate communications insists the temporary layoffs are just that; temporary. Sylvain Morissette would not comment on “administrative” changes, like a reduction in freelance journalism in its West End publications.

“I’m aware that many layoffs were done in 2009. Many people have left the company,” said Morissette. Around Christmas, some reporters were let go for eight weeks because of a lack of work, and “there were no layoffs. It’s a question of efficiency.”

The editors of both the Westmount and West Island papers have also been reassigned as journalists, while their editing work is centralized.

“I think it’s a shame and it’s not good for local news,” said Jessica Murphy, a local journalist who has contributed to The Examiner since 2005. She was told her freelance services would no longer be needed, as editors would now do the work of reporters. “I don’t think they’ve shown a commitment to local journalism.”