After Postmedia and Quebecor, it’s Global News’ turn to announce new newsroom layoffs. The layoffs “undermine democracy in Canada,” the Unifor union, which represents 800 members of the media giant, denounced on Thursday.
The layoffs by Corus Entertainment, owner of Global News, primarily affected journalists and digital (online) journalists who make videos for the web, Unifor union said in a press release.
This union represents more than 10,000 media workers across Canada, including 800 at Corus Entertainment.
The union says the Global News sports section team in Edmonton, Alberta — the city’s only sports channel — has also been gutted.
long line
These layoffs are news in a long line in recent years at this media giant, which has twenty newsrooms across seven Canadian provinces — including one in Montreal.
In July 2020, Global News announced that it had to cut part of its workforce due to a Major restructuring. Losses in ad revenue and the COVID-19 pandemic made that need clear, said Troy Ripp, Corus’ vice president of broadcast networks at the time.
Almost two years ago, in 2018, nearly 80 jobs were cut across the country.
“It has become incredibly difficult for those working in these media outlets to face regular restructurings and layoffs,” Unifor National president Lana Payne said in a statement Thursday. Journalists are the backbone of our democracy. We need to save local news and invest in newsrooms — not eliminate them. »
In Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, journalist Teresa Wright announced on Twitter that she was among those fired by Global News on Thursday.
“It’s a bad day for journalists and for democracy when journalists lose their jobs,” she wrote on Twitter.
This veteran reporter is assigned to National Health Coverage. She previously worked in Parliament in Ottawa for The Canadian Press, and for a decade at the newspaper Watchmanin Prince Edward Island, according to his biography still available at Global News.
“Music guru. Incurable web practitioner. Thinker. Lifelong zombie junkie. Tv buff. Typical organizer. Evil beer scholar.”
