The wave of mobilization to support the English-language daily Montreal Gazette seems to have paid off: the owner Postmedia Network announced Thursday the establishment of a local advisory group to find solutions to the newspaper’s decline.
The advisory group will be made up of politicians, business people and community leaders “who believe in the vital role of local journalism,” Postmedia Network said in an English-language statement released from Toronto on Thursday.
The company, which owns the Montreal Gazette and several other dailies in Canada, announced at the end of January that it would have to lay off about 11% of its newsroom staff. In Montreal, about ten positions will be eliminated, or a quarter of the newsroom.
On Wednesday, the famous lawyer and businessman Mitch Garber went public, saying he was ready to invest himself personally in the survival of the media.
A petition launched a week ago to support the newspaper, founded in 1778, also accumulated more than 3,000 signatures on Thursday.
The role of this new group will be to advise, support and develop strategies to increase the revenues of the Montreal Gazette, precise Postmedia. Its members will have no influence on the content of the journal or the editorial direction.
“We admire how Montrealers have rallied around the Gazetteand look forward to measuring the impact that the new group will have on its future,” said Andrew MacLeod, president and CEO of the Toronto-based company, in a press release.