Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Paul Godfrey has a new scam to wring dough out of the federal government!
For the past couple of years, the Postmedia poobah has been after the feds for a subsidy that would bail out his newspaper chain, currently sinking under $261 million in long-term debt owed to U. S. hedge funds.
But there’s more than one way to squeeze Liberal lemons. It’s really very simple: The Canadian government pays Postmedia hundreds of thousands of dollars to print propaganda in its chain of pifflesheets.
Take, for example, the Canada Revenue Agency, which last March paid Postmedia nearly quarter million dollars of taxpayers’ money to print press releases masquerading as news stories praising CRA for pursuing tax cheats.
A fluffer headlined, “How Canada is cracking down on offshore tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance,” appeared in the National Post, March 3, 2017. Presumably, the timing of the “story” was no coincidence. CRA wanted to reassure taxpayers, in the midst of preparing their personal returns, that CRA was in hot pursuit of tax evaders living it large in sunny climes. Sample copy: “The CRA has a proven track record…efforts will continue to ensure that all Canadians pay their fair share, without having to shoulder the burden left by those who seek to pay less than they owe…CRA is on track to uncovering an additional $2.6 billion in revenue for the Crown over the next five years.”
The story, filed in the Post’s “news” section, was “developed” by Toronto ad agency Cossette, in a media partnership that “enables the CRA to inform and educate Canadians.” CRA Postmedia
CRA claims the article was written by a Postmedia reporter, but the byline went to Jared Lindzon, a Toronto-based speed typist hired by Content Works, Postmedia’s fluffer division, in concert with the Cossette spin doctors.
CRA paid Postmedia $223,863 for the deal, which included four different articles, each pretending to be a real news story. They were published nationally, on separate weeks, over a four-week span—prime placement in print and digital.
The revenooers also paid La Presse+ $64,634 to run French translations of the articles and ads.
And we can note that the Chinese government [agency] is buying two pages of the Globe and Mail on Saturday 04 November 2017 for a “China Watch” piece on the end of the Xi Jingping’s takeover of Communist Party of China’s National Congress, where he confirmed his power and a statement on the centrality of his thought.
Not even Steven Harper was able to do that, though Jason Kenney might in his small United Conservative Party of Alberta without oil.
“China Watch” pieces are all over Aussie newspapers, and issues are dumped (mostly unread) on Ontario’s college and university campuses.
And more on double dealing in fair coverage of issues by PostMedia
“Postmedia has committed more than $40M CAD in media dollars in the Indochino brand over the next five years ….by leveraging Postmedia’s powerful network reaching almost two thirds of the Canadian adult population.
Under the agreement, Postmedia will promote Indochino’s premium (overly tight, short-cut, short legged, shiny fabric) “custom suits and shirts to PostMedia’s average of 13.4 million monthly unique digital visitors and 8.3 million weekly print readers in the form of print, digital and native advertising.”
“As part of the agreement, Postmedia will share a portion of Indochino’s revenues in the Canadian market with the option to purchase its stock at current prices.”
Good luck on that.
It is still a private company. And 40 million is not what they are charging for ignored and passed-over adverts in the shrinking 24 Hours freebie daily or their other paid dailies dropped off at coffee shops and hotels.
See the poor review on Fashables on the New York fitting results.
This might be the type you see in Downtown having shrugged off well-fitting general wear from existing shoppes for “custom” and proud to the shortish sleeves, strange V suit opening, pants well above the ankles and such.
You won’t see Paul Godfrey in the suits, though a medium size might be loose enough to hide his 78 year old body. And bon vivant Terence Corcoran must have a full closet of good suits by now.