How a cranky senior became a unexpected newspaper publishing success story

TORONTO — LeRoy St. Germaine is a cranky old senior citizen who’s probably going to be sued by a Toronto city councillor for doing what cranky old men have been doing for ages: complaining. What makes St. Germaine uniquely qualified to be the first-ever target of a City of Toronto-funded libel lawsuit is how he marshaled the power of citizen journalism to make sure his complaints and accusations couldn’t be ignored. He didn’t just write a letter to the editor. He didn’t just complain to family and friends. He started two eccentric, anti-establishment free newspapers and blogs (Ward 31 and Ward 32 ) and a NowPublic.com channel to publish his allegations that councillor Sandra Bussin’s involvement in a Beaches-area development was corrupt.

We’re not going to reprint St. Germaine’s allegations. Neither The Walrus nor I have any evidence that they’re true. It’s his use of media that interests me. When huge news conglomerates are in rough financial shape, eulogies for print news are printed frequently and old media doesn’t trust new media to pick up the slack, there’s something heartening about watching a regular guy start up two local rags, filled to the brim with ads, without the hand-wringing and doomsaying that’s been dominating the news – even if it’s going to get him sued.

So I called St. Germaine to find out how he does it, and I hoped to hear some good news about journalism. Some highlights, below the jump:

(more…)

KEMBLE—As a daughter of Bruce County, I am an expert on storm survival. At fifteen I wore khaki shorts and Bass Weejuns without socks when the snow drifts were thigh-high just to show winter what for.

A storm is on the  way so I am preparing.

Up until this week I wasn’t sure, but now I am. Reality is disintegrating. First Bell got a free pass on throttling internet data and now Twitter has turned off SMS for Canadians.

The mayor of Toronto, David Miller, and a bunch of his fellow droners tossed up a utopian smokescreen by holding a two day Web2.0 conference. Use of the term ‘civic engagement’ was so wanton and reckless that they effectively drained all meaning from it.

The last straw came this morning when I realized my new unibody Macbook Pro does not get as hot as my previous model and so now I can no longer use it to warm my feet as I drift off to sleep at night.

Plus there’s all that economic depression (which I predicted) and Prime Minister Steven Harper wrangling. Not to mention a sensational new grab bag of reasons to get horrified and feel historically distinct from brown people by gossiping about their violence and pretending we’ve got nothing to do with causing it. (aka Mumbai)

So what’s a country girl to do?

I’m breaking out my shorts and penny loafers.

Time to buy stock with enthusiasm and go house hunting for dives. I’m making a pipe of the tweets I want sent to my free email-to-SMS phone address thus subverting Twitter’s SMS pull-out. I’m emailing my ISP each time my Skype chat is throttled down to an echo-chamber. I’m running Photoshop and Final Cut Pro just before bed to really heat up the processors in my Mac.

And, most important, I’ve elected Roky Erickson as my Mayor and Prime Minister – or rather my interpreter now for the oh-so-distant spectral realm of Canadian professional politician.  As Roky has explained to me:

We can for a long time talk and talk but no matter how long we may talk,
We are not talking.