Saskatoon’s StarPhoenix employees will continue to work remotely, as Postmedia publications announced that the StarPhoenix building will be up for sale.
On Wednesday, Postmedia announced the transfer of a dozen Alberta community newspapers to digital format will happen on Feb. 27.
The Saskatoon print facility will also be closing, resulting in layoffs of both full- and part-time staff between February and April. The current printing operations will be transferred to Estevan Web Printing.
“It was really a great institution in Saskatoon for most of my time there and most of its 120 years in the city,” said former StarPhoenix columnist Les MacPherson.
MacPherson spent 37 years writing sports and general interest columns and following the Saskatoon city council.
“That’s my window right there,” MacPherson said, pointing to a street-facing window at the StarPhoenix while on location with Global News.
“I spent a lot of time staring out that window trying to think of something to write about.”
The StarPhoenix has inhabited its current building since 1967 and MacPherson expects the loss of the physical newsroom is going to affect the content that is being put out by the journalists.
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“A newspaper newsroom is essential,” said former arts reporter Stephanie McKay. “To lose the ability for all of the journalists to come together and make each other better makes me really sad.”
“There is something really special about the StarPhoenix newsroom. It was the spirit of comradery and collaboration that happened within those walls.”
McKay was employed at the StarPhoenix for 12 years, serving two as an intern.
MacPherson said newspaper owners began to feel lost when writing entered a more digital era.
“Profits were falling on the newspaper side. They weren’t coming close to making up those lost profits on the digital side.”
Pieces of the StarPhoenix’s history can now be found at the city archives.
“There was a time when a newspaper office was a community focal point,” said city archivist Jeff O’Brien.
He said the Saskatoon city archives contain a collection of 400,000 photographs submitted by the StarPhoenix as a result of a relationship with the provincial archives that began in the 1950s.
“If you want to talk about the history of the city of Saskatoon of the people of Saskatoon, that is in those pictures,” O’Brien said. “It’s a way to connect very intimately from the present to the past in a very detailed kind of way,”
“There is a reason why people are so entranced with old newspapers, because it is all about us and all about the community.”
MacPherson said the loss of the StarPhoenix office will be huge for the city of Saskatoon.
“Not just in terms of the institution, but in terms of the coverage of municipal and city affairs.”
The StarPhoenix employees will continue producing content from their homes, as they have been since March 2020.
“I know how adaptable the folks are that work in newspapers,” McKay said. “I believe in them so much.”
Although the StarPhoenix building is going up for sale, the paper will still continue to be printed from a new location.
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