I've signed this Save The 'Montreal' Gazette Newspaper Petition and you should too, because, although the Gazette has its lame moments, it does have a unique role in the local media landscape.

Canwest is being stupid and short-sighted in centralizing its news in one city: anyone can call up a decent generic news page now by going to Google news or Yahoo news and skimming the headlines, or grabbing a free Métro or 24 heures while commuting. A generic newspaper or newscast isn't needed any more. We can do that ourselves.

What we need a paper like the Gazette for is precisely what Canwest is ignoring: local news, the more local and specific the better. I don't need the newspaper to tell me Madonna's marriage is over, because I already saw that on Google and read some of the jokes on [site name redacted]. But I do need it to tell me what's going on around the corner and down at city hall. We all do. posted at 22:32