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THE NATIONAL POST BOXES ACROSS CAMPUS SEEM TO BE EMPTY LATELY

The National Post boxes across campus seem to be empty lately. Business problems or a cancelled subscription? Rita Poliakov reports.

Ryerson has been receiving substantially fewer free copies of the National Post on campus, but the paper can’t get its story straight as to why this is happening.

Two seperate representatives from the national newspaper are giving conflicting reasons for the decrease in distribution.

According to National Post reader sales co-ordinator Monica Palit, all universities are receiving fewer papers.

The Post’s former university distribution sponsor recently dropped out, leaving the newspaper without a financial supporter.

 

“They pay for the papers (being sent out) and advertise on the racks.” Palit couldn’t say why the Post’s sponsor was lost or who the sponsor was.

“I can say that we’ve worked successfully with this sponsor for a long time. (We lost the sponsor) fairly recently,” said Palit.

But Anne Mattingly, the Post’s corporate sales representative, gave a conflicting explanation for the lack of papers.

When asked how many papers were delivered to Ryerson, she quickly answered with 200 per day before correcting herself.

“Oh wait. That’s strange,” said Mattingly as she looked through her files. “It says here that Ryerson cancelled their subscription on Oct. 2.”

However, Ryerson’s vice-president student affairs Linda Grayson said. Ryerson has not cancelled its subscription.

She said that with the Post’s campus readership program, it’s up to the newspaper to distribute papers around the school.

Palit was just as surprised by this announcement as Mattingly.

However, while the number of free Posts on campus decreased, the Star’s readership will most likely increase, said journalism instructor David Nayman.

“If a paper is free, people will read it,” said Nayman.

“When you pay for something, you’re making a choice on how to spend your money. Each paper has its own voice. The Post is seen as pro-business. They support Harper (and the Conservative party)… the Star is more Liberal.”

Although fourth- year retail management student Joel Marshall reads The Globe and Mail, he’s not interested in the National Post.

“At Ryerson, I’ll typically read the Star. But I prefer The Globe and Mail because it’s less liberal. It’s less biased. Even if we had more National Posts, I probably wouldn’t read them.”

Palit could not confirm if or when a new sponsor will be brought on board.

For the time being, a free National Post might to be hard to come by.


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