Skip to main content Skip to search Skip to search

Business & Economics Media & Communications Industries

The Postmedia Effect

How Vulture Capitalism is Wrecking Our News

by (author) Marc Edge

Publisher
New Star Books
Initial publish date
Apr 2023
Category
Media & Communications Industries, Journalism, Media Studies
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781554201983
    Publish Date
    Apr 2023
    List Price
    $9.99 USD
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781554201976
    Publish Date
    Apr 2023
    List Price
    $25.00

Add it to your shelf

Where to buy it

Description

Even as their readers move on-line and their advertisers look elsewhere, daily newspapers continue to be our main source of information, shaping citizens' understanding of the world, and their reactions to events. At the same time, continuing a long-term trend in media ownership, newsrooms have been gutted as new owners prioritize double-digit profit margins. Dwindling reporting staff is able to do less and less actual reporting, as they become more and more reliant on official releases and carefully tailored public relations handouts.

In The Postmedia Effect, Marc Edge takes Canada's dominant newspaper chain, Postmedia, as a case study laying bare the changes in news economics that over the past two generations have hollowed out the nation's newsrooms, undermining not just citizens' trust in what is reported to them, but the very foundations of a democracy steered by an informed electorate.

About the author

A native of Greater Vancouver, Marc Edge began his newspaper career as a writer at the Province in 1974. He later worked in the business section of the Calgary Herald, and in 1982 completed a Master of Labor and Industrial Relations degree at Michigan State University. He was BC Supreme Court reporter for the Province for ten years before accepting a Southam buyout offer in 1993. From 1995 to 1997, he sailed his forty-foot ketch Markenurh around the Pacific. He completed a PhD in Mass Communication from the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University in 2001, and is Assistant Professor in the School of Communication Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He can be contacted by e-mail at pacificpress@hotmail.com.

Marc Edge's profile page

Editorial Reviews

"The mainstream media has been dismantled in recent years. One reason is that it’s been bought up by ‘vulture’ investment funds with no interest in journalism. Marc Edge’s book The Postmedia Effect is a devastating account of what happened to Canada’s largest newspaper chain when such funds got hold of it. It’s a sobering read, especially if one is alarmed about the state of a free and diverse media." Bruce Livesey, author of Thieves of Bay Street

"Like the Murder on the Orient Express, there were so many perpetrators involved in the murder of our newspapers. Now that Edge has given such a clear explanation, we might have a chance to revive the corpse." Mark Bourrie, author of Big Men Fear Me

"The Postmedia Effect is one of Marc Edge’s best writing efforts to date. The story is compelling, informative, and maddening. The narrative he crafts has elements of Greek or Shakespearean tragedy, filled with hubris, self-delusion, deception, power-hungry schemers, and, if you're Canadian, a feast of tragedy." Marshall Soules, author of Media, Persuasion and Propaganda

Other titles by