WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FIRES PUBLISHER MURDOCH DAVIS

Hold the presses!!

The Black Rod has just learned that the Winnipeg Free Press has parted ways with publisher Murdoch Davis.

Davis had been impossible for reach for days but no one could figure it out. Then this morning a high-level meeting resulted in the unceremonious dumping of Davis without so much of a "wish him well."

Morale skyrocketed among the ink-stained wretches of the newsroom when the terse memo was released today at 2PM. "Davis wasn't all bad", it was suggested. After all, he had managed to unload the former editor, the not-missed Nicholas Hirst, as well as longtime Sports writer Scott Taylor and editor Buzz Currie as fallout from the Taylorgate affair.

Co-owner Ron Stern pledged to "work more closely with the newspaper" and he made reference to the "fine team" at the broadsheet, in the short memo announcing Davis' departure.

Wags say the man on the spot is now incoming editor Bob Cox, hired by Davis mere weeks ago to fill Hirst's chair and get the newspaper back on track as something worth reading.

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