A former local newshound still has a special place in his heart for the paper and ink of days gone by.
For this week’s edition of People of Collingwood we sat down with George Czerny, former publisher at The Enterprise-Bulletin and recipient of the Order of Collingwood in 1993.
Q: How long have you lived in Collingwood? What is your background?
A: I moved from Orillia to Collingwood in June 1977. I moved away for a short period of time in December of 1991 to December 1994 to work at a daily newspaper in Woodstock (The Sentinel-Review).
Q: What made you want to pursue a career in news in the first place?
A: In journalism? I always wanted to be a writer. I always wanted to work for a newspaper. That was back in the ’60s. At the time, I was following a family tradition of working in the construction industry. It was fine, I enjoyed that too, but my heart was in newspapers and writing.
Q: Did you go to school for journalism?
A: Nope. I was accepted to Centennial College the first year it opened in 1967. That summer I was working and saving money to go to school. A buddy of mine and I decided to go to Europe and hitchhike around. So in 1967 we went to Expo in Montreal and we flew to Europe and we travelled around a bit. We went to London, England after travelling in France. We didn’t see a lot of Europe.
I never did go to journalism school even though I had been accepted.
Before I left that summer I had gone to the Barrie Examiner, they had an opening for a junior reporter. I had thought about trying for that until I got accepted.
When I came back from Europe, I went back to the Barrie Examiner and I talked to the managing editor and said, ‘If you still have any openings, I’d love to try for one of them.’
He said they didn’t have any openings, but the Orillia (Packet & Times) had an opening, so I should call the editor there and ask if I could come for an interview.
I went for an interview the next day and I got the job. I started in Orillia on Jan. 6, 1968. That was back in the day when newspapers were newspapers. It was a completely different newspaper world than what it is today. It was even a completely different world than it was in the 1990s, because papers used to be hot metal (typesetting) in the ’60s and ’70s, they had been converted to cold type (typesetting), and computers were taking over more and more. I’ve seen quite a few changes in the newspaper business.
Q: Can you clarify your position at The Enterprise-Bulletin?
A: I came here as the publisher. I was the managing editor at the Orillia Packet & Times when I left there. I’ve gone through every job in a newsroom while I was there for nine years before coming to Collingwood.
Q: Back then, the role of a publisher was very different than the role of a publisher now. What was the role of the publisher back then? Was it mostly overseeing advertising or did you participate in editorial as well?
A: I did. I was an anomaly because I came from news. Until I came to Collingwood, I had spent all my time in a newsroom.
I was the publisher and I managed to get a really hard-working great guy named Don Wilcox, he came over from the Packet to be editor at The Enterprise-Bulletin in the 1970s, and we worked together with a wonderful team of people in all departments. We had a terrific team of people.
Q: How long did you work at The Enterprise-Bulletin?
A: From 1977-1991. If my math’s good, that’s 14 years. (laughs)
Q: Were there any stories you broke of which you’re most proud, or that sticks out as memorable?
A: An interesting one was, we had a mayor in town named Harry Bell. Everybody loved Harry Bell... that was back in the ’70s. Harry was an institution, he was a wonderful gentleman.
(At that time), things were moving along at a very strong pace. New legislation was coming in, there was regional government coming in in some places, school boards were amalgamated... the municipal sphere was changing.
I used to cover Collingwood council in the early days of my arrival here because at first, we only had one reporter and we needed staff. I enjoyed doing that.
When it came time to run for the mayor’s seat again, The Enterprise-Bulletin editorialized against him, in favour of the fellow running against him.
The interesting part is, Harry won. He came to the old building – we used to be at 27 Simcoe Street – the day after he won with his fedora and long coat. He came in to shake my hand, and I congratulated him on his victory. He said, ‘I’m still mayor!’
Things change. The newspaper business changed, lots of things around us change.
Q: How did you deal with the entrance of competition, like the Collingwood Connection?
A: Before the Collingwood Connection, there was the Collingwood Times. The Collingwood Times was independently owned. It was healthy to have newspapers competing with each other because it gave people different viewpoints editorially, and it gave people different kinds of coverage. People could make up their own minds.
Back then, paid circulation was a big thing. I remember in 1988 or 1989 when we moved to the new building -- which is now the old building -- there was a lot of hoopla. Back then, paid circulation for The Enterprise-Bulletin was 7,208 a week. That was verified by independent auditors. The fly in the ointment was the free distribution newspapers, like the Collingwood Connection.
Some people said, ‘Well, we don’t have to buy the paper.’
They had a remarkably efficient flyer-distribution method.
At about that time, the internet was coming on-steam. At the same time, I left to go edit the daily Sentinel-Review. I kind of lost track of things that were going on here. (laughs)
Q: Was it very competitive?
A: It was. Ultimately, the Collingwood Times closed its doors. Some people said we put them out of business. We didn’t. Our advertising rate was higher at the time... we charged for our newspapers. I think the readers, at that time, decided which newspaper they liked the best and advertisers took their cue from that and decided to stick with The Enterprise-Bulletin.
Then came the internet, and the world of newspapers exploded. (laughs) It changed dramatically.
Q: When The Enterprise-Bulletin closed in November 2017, how did that make you feel?
A: I was very sad. I have a lot of memories from The Enterprise-Bulletin. I used to be a jack of all trades. I would deliver the newspaper, I would do anything. We all worked together. All of us just sort of took on any jobs that needed to be done.
When a newspaper closes, whether it’s here or anywhere in Canada, it’s a sad day.
It bothers me because it remains to be seen what happens with the democracy as we have less and less of the old type of news, and coverage gets diluted by anyone being able to start an online newspaper, online blog or website. There’s a lot of stuff out there now and you have to wonder, where did the people get the information they did? Some of them have no credibility, some have less, some have a lot; it’s all over the map.
Q: How do you feel about the way news has changed over the years?
A: The news hasn’t changed – it’s still there. There are lots of stories there. I just think they don’t get broken as often. I try to occasionally make my views known about some things.
I’m older. My pride and joy now is my grandchildren and my family. I have other interests now.
Q: What have you been doing since retirement?
A: Since I retired, I did some other jobs. I became the part-time manager of the Great Northern Exhibition (GNE) for about five years back in 1997. I worked with 300 volunteers to put it together. I started doing things that I really wanted to do.
I wrote some books – I wrote a book about travelling around Georgian Bay and published it in 2004... called George’s Georgian Bay. I thought of Georgian Bay as the centre of my universe. I also wrote about the Collingwood Shipyards. I was concerned about people forgetting about the shipyards.
I used to belong to different organizations years ago like the Collingwood Chamber of Commerce.
In my retirement years I have supported a few organizations, like Home Horizons. They help youth who are in transition and need a helping hand. I think that’s extremely important.
My latest project is a book I plan to write about how to be a better Canadian.
Q: How can people become better Canadians?
A: I want to find out! I want people to tell me. The working title of the book is “Kiss the Ground You Walk On, Canada.” We’re very fortunate to have the things we have and I think people take a lot of that for granted.
EDITOR’S NOTE: To send in comments for Czerny’s latest book, email [email protected].
Q: Is there anything else you want people in Collingwood to know about you?
A: This is a special year for me. I’ve been married for 50 years. When I didn’t go to journalism school and took off to Europe, one of the outcomes was that I met my wife-to-be in England.
She came to Canada and we got married in December 1968. We have two beautiful kids and they’ve got beautiful kids. That’s my pride and joy.
Q: Are you going to do anything special to celebrate?
A: Kraft Dinner sounds pretty good. It would be a flashback to the old days when we started out.
For our feature People of Collingwood, we’ll be speaking with interesting people who are either from or are contributing to the Collingwood community in some way. This feature will run on CollingwoodToday every Saturday. If you’d like to nominate or suggest someone to be featured in People of Collingwood, email [email protected].
