Famous businessman Mitch Garber expressed interest on Wednesday in buying Quebec’s only English-language daily, the Montreal Gazettewhich is currently in a more than precarious situation, while the quarter of the newsroom is in danger of being fired soon.
In a series of messages on Twitter, Mitch Garber regrets, however, that his offer was ignored by the leaders of Postmedia, which owns the Montreal Gazette since 2010. He took the opportunity to tackle the company, which owns several other dailies in the country, including the National Post and the ottawa citizen.
“There Gazette is profitable and worth revisiting investments, but the owner must be prepared to sell it rather than choke it to death. At the moment it is not,” wrote the former dragon, who made his fortune in the casino industry.
That is correct. An offer to discuss any type of local investment in the Gazette made at the very highest levels of Postmedia, has been ignored. https://t.co/F16smkHQAP
—Mitch Garber (@mitchgarber) February 15, 2023
Mitch Garber regrets that Postmedia, which is administered from Toronto, is majority owned by the American fund Chatham Asset Management. He believes that the historic daily life of the English-speaking community deserves to be managed from the metropolis, by people who are familiar with reality. The entrepreneur acknowledges having been approached to be part of an advisory committee to relaunch the Montreal Gazette after the current wave of cuts, but he says he declined the offer. “I don’t think I can be helpful in getting local advertising support for a [journal sans profondeur] held by a foreign hedge fund, ”explained the one who is, among other things, a shareholder of the Kraken, the Seattle hockey club.
It is first in an article published earlier Wednesday on the independent site The Rover that he hinted for the first time his intention to acquire one of the oldest newspapers in the country. “Do I have a project? No, but I want to do what I can to help. I am a capitalist, I believe in smart investments and I know that investing in the print media business is not a profitable investment. But some things are more important than money and I think this city needs an everyday English language,” he said.
“Never seen “
The president of the union Montreal Gazette, Ron Carroll, doubts that Postmedia wants to divest itself of its Montreal daily, despite what the recently announced cuts might suggest. “Postmedia can offer national coverage precisely because they have newspapers in all regions of the country. I don’t think they’re going to want to get rid of their only newspaper in Quebec. And anyone who’s gonna want to buy the Gazette going to have to hire a lot of people. Because right now, many things that should be done in Montreal are being done elsewhere in the country, ”he said in an interview with the Duty.
THE Montreal Gazette, which has already had several hundred employees, has experienced several waves of voluntary departures and restructuring in recent years. “But this time, it’s unheard of,” insists a longtime employee on condition of anonymity.
Postmedia management announced in late January the layoff of 11% of its staff in its newsrooms across Canada. But in Montreal, it’s about 25% of the newsroom that could suffer. Postmedia wants to eliminate 7.5 unionized positions. In addition, there are three management positions. The newsroom of Montreal Gazette is composed in all and everywhere at present of the equivalent of 40.5 employees.
A loss for democracy
The syndicate is confident of reaching an agreement so that the losses are less significant than announced. Those who want to accept a voluntary retirement plan have until Friday to come forward. Otherwise, dismissals will be made in order of seniority.
“We will not close this time, but it is a vicious circle. In a year, a year and a half, we may end up going bankrupt. It would be a disaster for the English-speaking community, but also for all of Quebec. It would be a loss for democracy, for the diversity of opinions,” worries this same experienced employee who did not want to be identified.
Originally bilingual, the Montreal Gazette was founded in 1778. A petition was launched in the last days by “Friends of Montreal Gazette in the hope of persuading management to reverse the announced layoffs. By the time her lines were written, she had garnered over 2,500 names.