Montague council 'shocked, surprised and very disappointed' at Guardian bureau closure
Sara Fraser | CBC News | Posted: May 31, 2016 6:17 PM | Last Updated: May 31, 2016
'There's been a Guardian office for as long as I can remember, and I've been in Montague a long, long time'
Town council met in Montague, P.E.I., last night to write a strongly-worded letter to the Guardian newspaper calling for it to reconsider the decision to close its Montague bureau, says mayor Richard Collins.
"Shocked, surprised, and very disappointed," was Collins' reaction to the news yesterday that three journalists were receiving layoff notices along with one administration staffer.
"There's been a Guardian office for as long as I can remember, and I've been in Montague a long, long time," Collins told CBC reporter Angela Walker.
"There's been a Guardian office for as long as I can remember, and I've been in Montague a long, long time," Collins told CBC reporter Angela Walker.
The Montague bureau was small, said Mike Therien, senior director of content strategy at TransContinental, adding the company believes it can effectively cover the Montague region with the current news team in Charlottetown.
Everyone who lost their job in the restructuring will receive severance, Therien said.
Area 'shut off'
The Guardian has served the area "very well" said Collins, adding he can't understand how the paper could "shut off this end of P.E.I. totally without any office here in Kings and part of Queens County and a busy hub the size of Montague and do justice to their newspaper."
The reporter and the administrator based in Montague provided a valuable service, Collins said.
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