Peter Ballard, long-time publisher of the Vancouver Courier, told the Straight his January 28 firing from the urban community paper was due to his being “not corporate enough”.

The popular 60-year-old Vancouverite once played sports against fellow sexagenarian Premier Gordon Campbell in their high-school days. However, last week Ballard was taken into the corporate equivalent of the principal’s office—in this case Vancouver-based CanWest community-publishing head honcho Rob Leuschner—and given his marching orders after 33 years at the paper.

“Those were his words: ”˜not corporate enough’,” Ballard said by phone. “He [Leuschner] is a reasonably nice guy, but this caught me by surprise.”

Leuschner, president of Community Publishing Group, a division of CanWest MediaWorks, did not respond to messages by the Straight's deadline.

“They said I was more protective of the Courier’s fate than I was of CanWest’s—in other words, that I did not promote the company, but just promoted my division of the company,” Ballard said. “We have said all along that it was always our intention to be somewhat off-base with the [ Vancouver] Sun and the Province, because we didn’t just want to be seen as a third CanWest paper.”

When Ballard spoke to the Straight on January 30, he said he had just come back from a two-hour workout at the gym, was experiencing “ups and downs”, but was preparing to run his 81st marathon in May.

“I think I am going to be fitter than ever,” he said. Later he added: “Things are changing, and I suppose just in passing we all have to understand that newspapering is changing. It is partly why I may be past my due date as far as the present generation goes.”

Speaking by phone February 1, Courier editor Mick Maloney called Ballard “a great boss”.

“I worked with him for a long time and we got along fine,” Maloney said. “He did a good job for his employees, and everyone at the paper loved the guy. I can’t comment on anything else because I don’t know anything else.”¦There has been a large hole left. People are getting used to that idea—well, not yet, I guess, but they will be. I think it was shocking to people.”

Maloney confirmed that Marlyn Graziano is interim publisher and said he has no word on a permanent replacement for Ballard yet.