National Post downplays its own role in speculation about closure

The National Post has published an extraordinary response to last week's court decision about moving the money-losing daily into the newspaper division of CanWest. Extraordinary because the tone and content of the editorial attempts to soft-soap the fact that much of the exaggerated coverage of the near-death experience of the paper was based on its own court filings. 

The firestorm of uninformed speculation was ignited by one paragraph in a 33-page court filing pointing out it was doubtful the National Post could sustain operations in the absence of funding for its current — albeit minor — losses. That is the case for any operation until it crosses into profitability.

The Post seems to believe that it was the ill-will of other media that caused all the trouble, when it was the fact that the accumulated $150 million in losses of the paper, including the $12.7 million last year, combined with the debts of the parent company, combined with the hyperbolic court filings of its own lawyers that led people to believe the Post was on its last legs. It's a bit much to have the paper claiming the fault lies anywhere other than at its own doorstep.