I used to freelance for a newspaper until they decided they wanted to lower freelancer rates. There are countless places online where a half decent writer can make twice as much as a newspaper will pay. So they're seeing a pretty steady rise in wages for even decent writers, never mind top talent. They're also seeing reduced readership and advertiser dollars. It's a perfect storm and we're basically all just watching the slow death of an entire industry.
What a bunch of newspapers are doing now is hiring the cheapest freelancers they can get, often not even based in Canada, to repurpose stories from the wires like Canadian Press. Well, if you want to read Canadian Press stories I can think of dozens of websites where you can do that immediately after the story drops. Or, I guess you can wait until tomorrow for the traditional newspaper to be printed and delivered in order to read the exact same thing that's online for free.
It sucks to see people lose their jobs like this because management has failed to modernize their industry in a meaningful way. And by modernize, I don't mean put your repurposed Canadian Press stories behind a pay wall on your website.
__________________
|