The new force at Thomson Newspapers is Stuart Garner, a cocky Brit with unorthodox attitudes. The newspaper business forever sees the Gauls at the gate. There is a wonderful story about Roy Thomson working up to a full head of steam almost a half-century ago. At a 1952 meeting of Canadian Press, Canada's wire service, a fellow publisher wallowed in a long lament about the future of their endangered business.
Circulation is down . . .
TV is killing us . . . According to Braddon Russell in the biography Roy Thomson of Fleet Street, the gloomy discourse continued for 10 minutes before Thomson spoke. He owned 21 papers at the time. All these years later, the lament is louder than ever. Nobody reads in a visual age . . .