The Dog's Nest Dispatch, ladies & gentlemen!

Get woke, go broke

Vincent J. Curtis

20 Sept 23

RE: Dozens of Metroland papers to close. The Hamilton Spectator 16 Sept 23 p.A22.

RE: Hamilton Spectator to losing its office space as parent company Torstar tries to save money.  CBC News story posted 19 Sept 23, by Bobby Hristova.

From the Hamilton Spectator, to the Hannon Times, to the Dog’s Nest Dispatch (PO Box 3, Townsend, ON, L0L 0L0; J.P. Antonacci, Editor): how far the might have fallen!

A never-ending whine about “trans rights,” “Pride” haters, climate cultishness that no one believes anymore; scolding about masks and vaccinations, the drum-beat of “I hate Ford,” and “Pierre Poilievre is unworthy” and “greenbelt!”  What respectable business owner that is trying to appeal to the mainstream, and has other advertising options, wants to associate himself with endless progressive hectoring, both on the editorial pages and in the news pages?

NordStar, owner of Metroland Media and Torstar, gave the lemming’s excuse: it’s across all print media, we’re no different.  Well, the print media belongs to the liberal hive mind, illustrated by the JournoList, and going well before that.  Nobody thought about making the paper more interesting to read.  Literary flair is racist; never a column by, say, Mark Steyn.  The proprietor doesn’t dine at The Hamilton Club.  A lack of enterprise, which happens when ownership is distant and doesn’t know the business; it’s easy and safe just to keep turning the handle over and over, until you can’t.

With no newsroom, editorial meetings will have to take place via Zoom, or at a Timmies somewhere.  With no space to call its own, the sense of Spectator corporateness will fast disappear.  Hopefully, a white knight will buy the name out of bankruptcy.

Got woke, went broke.  Pity.

-30-