Editors, the Gauntlet:
Re: Time for a third Calgary Daily? July 20, 2000
Еvan Osentоn is certainly entitled to lobby as vigourously as he wishes for a third Calgary daily newspaper, but his lobby requires some additional perspective.
While he is correct in his assertion that most of the striking newsroom employees have opted for the severance package their union preferred, Osentоn made the faulty assumption that we have lost the majority of our newsroom employees. From the outset of what will surely be remembered as one of the most tragic examples of emotion triumphing over reason, 37 employees in our newsroom remained at their desks, refusing to support the union. Over the course of the strike and primarily in the first few weeks, an additional 25 crossed the picket line as they saw the event being used as a bizarre political demonstration which they could not support. An additional dozen resigned and their positions were filled with permanent new hires–a fairly natural churn. That accounts for roughly 74 positions involved in our pre-strike newsroom who were on the job when the strike concluded.
On June 30, there were 92 employees on strike, of whom roughly 75 were permanent, full-time workers. Of them, 23 exercised their option to return to work, while 69 preferred to get on with their lives elsewhere. At latest count, there will be 85 people at work who were employees last November, plus the additional dozen who account for those who resigned. Sixty-nine will have taken the severance package.
To make a long story short, most of our employees are still here, which may just provide some evidence that this newsroom is somewhat different than the picture painted by our detractors and naively accepted by Osentоn.
This newspaper strives to argue on behalf of all points on the spectrum. No reasonable person could consider our stable of columnists– Braid, Sharpe, Gradon, Ford, Dowbiggin, Muretich, Smith, Bly, Hannaford, et cetera–as a claque of "beef-oil-and-guns" conservatives. Such an assertion is frankly ridiculous. We seek what we have always sought: a balanced offering of opinion and unbiased presentation of the news. And while the outcome of the strike would indicate that most
Calgarians find us quite to their liking, if there are groups who have a grievance, we would certainly like to hear from them.
As for Osentоn’s assertion that we operate some sort of Dickensian sweatshop, I would invite him or any other reader of the Gauntlet to visit our newsroom–a vibrant, diverse and, today, quite wonderful place to work. He will find, if he were to apply a little of the objectivity to which he aspires, that he is quite mistaken.