Chris Young
Postmedia Network Canada Corp. has shuttered QMI Agency, the news wire service the company recently acquired from Quebecor Inc.
The move to close QMI Agency was announced internally on Tuesday, effective immediately, and affects nine full-time and part-time employees. It comes as Postmedia continues to integrate the recently acquired Sun newspaper chain and other digital news assets, purchased from Quebecor in a $316-million deal that closed in April.
It also marks the effective end of an experiment with proprietary news wires serving some of Canada's most prominent newspapers. Quebecor launched QMI Agency in 2010 to feed news stories between its newspapers as it broke away from its involvement with The Canadian Press. Postmedia also crafted its own news wire but it closed in 2012, five years after it was launched by previous owner Canwest Global Communications.
"Having a proprietary news [wire] business is not part of our core strategy," said Phyllise Gelfand, a Postmedia spokesperson.
The new, combined stable of Postmedia newspapers – which includes titles such as the National Post, Calgary Herald and Montreal Gazette as well as the Sun papers in Toronto, Edmonton and Ottawa – once again has paid access to content from The Canadian Press.
Ms. Gelfand also said Postmedia is "actively trying to place the affected people within the organization," to mitigate or avoid job losses.
James Bradshaw