The Saltwire Saga

For more than 40 years, I’ve been writing about the Halifax Chronicle Herald, its predecessors and successors—including its oddly-named and ill-fated recent owner, Saltwire. In 1981, in the aftermath of a failed attempt to unionize the newsroom, I wrote this feature about the paper and its role in Nova Scotia life and politics. That story’s […]

What if Monday disappeared and no one noticed?

The Chronicle Herald has announced it will no longer publish a Monday print newspaper. The “saddest truth,” notes our columnist, is how little that decision seems to matter anymore. The saddest truth about last week’s announcement that Saltwire (née the Chronicle Herald) had decided to stop publishing its Halifax Monday print edition (and those of […]

The Yarmouth ferry subsidy? Still? Still more? Always…

This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner July 30, 2018. I could say I told them so — and I did, way back when “them” was still Rodney Macdonald and his Tories, and from then on forward through Darrell Dexter and Stephen McNeil to whatever same-old-same-old will come next — but I’d have to stand in […]

The gospel according to Mark (Lever)

This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner July 16, 2018. “We believe being in 25 communities is a big strength… I believe telling local stories in Gander, and in St. John’s, and in Corner Brook, and Summerside, and Sydney are going to be what supports this network. Not amalgamating. Not putting the same copy […]

The Herald strike ends, how long will the bitterness linger?

This column first appeared in the Halifax Examiner on September 11, 2017. The question was straightforward. Would the replacement workers who’d taken their jobs for the previous 19 months continue to work in the newsroom, the Chronicle Herald reporter wanted to know? There was a long silence. “Yes,” Mark Lever responded finally. Later, another reporter […]

Mark Lever’s sins against journalism

This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner on August 21, 2017. If Mark Lever really wants to restore public confidence in his post-strike Halifax Chronicle Herald, he could begin by acknowledging — and publicly apologizing for — some of the newspaper’s most egregious sins against journalism during the past 18 months. The problem with […]

Can Mark Lever succeed where smarter, more experienced minds have failed? No

(This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner April 17, 2017) So Mark Lever — a twice failed, never succeeded businessman who has already managed to turn the Halifax Herald into the palest imitation of a newspaper by eviscerating its newsroom and alienating its readers while the Internet chows down on what’s left of […]

Mark Never, Grant Machum and ‘Graham Dennis isn’t around to save you anymore’

When the Halifax Chronicle Herald’s reporters and editors went on strike last January, I, like many readers, cancelled my subscription as a least-we-could-do gesture to support those journalists who produce the news that made the Herald an actual newspaper, and not just another advertising flyer. Although I’d grown up with and subscribed for more than […]