Postmedia lays off the newsroom at 24 hours

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Another Vancouver newsroom is closing up for good but the paper will keep printing. Free daily 24 Hours will continue to be printed, even though all of its reporters have been laid off.

24 Hours is owned by Postmedia, which also owns the Vancouver Province and Sun, along with other papers across the country. 24 Hours will be populated with content from the Province-Sun newsroom and with national content from Toronto.

The word is eight people lost their jobs, including three reporters. One of the people laid off found out via Twitter.

Langara Journalism Instructor and former editor at 24 Hours Vancouver Erica Bulman says the move will limit the variety paper readers will see. “You just end up with the same news that’s reaching everybody. You’ve got fewer voices. You have one newsroom covering newspapers that are reaching out to a larger portion of the population. You’ve got less specific news and you’re just coming up with the same points of view, experts speaking to the topics at hand. Fewer voices is the biggest issue.”

Bulman says it’s a shame to lose this newsroom.

She says there was a point in time recently when the Monday to Friday readership at 24 Hours Vancouver was higher than it was for the Vancouver Sun. She credits it to a shift to what’s called enterprise journalism, looking and digging for interesting stories as opposed to simply covering the events of the day. Bulman says we’re losing a valuable source of information.

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