Warren Kinsella, who recently started writing for the National Post as a media columnist, wrote this on his blog today:

The Toronto Star's anti-CanWest ICBM, Zerb, continues to spread disinformation about the Post to boost sagging morale at One Yonge. She shouldn't. It's not fair, and it's not accurate. I was at one of the information sessions on Don Mills Road yesterday, and here's what I heard: THE NATIONAL POST IS HIRING PEOPLE. Editorial, advertising, you name it. HIRING PEOPLE. That, to me, is not the behaviour of an organization that is in trouble; it's the behaviour of an organization that is growing. Meanwhile, Ed Greenspon this week told the Wall Street Journal that his newspaper is heading towards a "cliff," quote unquote. Why doesn't she write about that? Maybe I will.

Here is some of what Antonia Zerbisias wrote in a posting Wednesday about the N-P:

On the upside: The first half of this fiscal year has been good and the hope is to break even by 2008. There is a new ad strategy ready to go. The online side will get overhauled. There has been some hiring and there will be more hiring in editorial. There be a renewed focus on Toronto.

Downside: No more home delivery in the Maritimes where apparently there are only some 2,000 subscribers. Toronto will be targeted for growth.

That doesn't seem to be particularly unfair to me (Note: I toil in the BellGlobemedia empire). Kinsella didn't link to the post that offended him so. Was that what he had in mind?

As for the Greenspon quote, here it is, taken from the Feb. 27 Wall Street Journal story:

Mr. Greenspon says he doesn't know what kinds of change will result from the staff-driven makeover. But he says he realizes his paper's relative success may not be good enough in the long run. "Newspapers are falling off the cliff," he says. "But we're at the back."

It seems to me that what Greenspon actually said is wildly different from what Kinsella implied he said. That's not accurate.

For background, the WSJ story proclaims the Globe to be the winner of the great Toronto newspaper war, noting its circulation rose five per cent for the six-month period ending Sept. 30, while average daily newspaper circulation in the U.S. fell by 2.6 per cent in that period.

Kinsella didn't mention that. That's not fair.

So who's playing the disinformation game?

Update:

Zerbisias replied at her own blog.