Postmedia owns both the Ottawa Citizen and the Ottawa Sun. Speculation that the chain will merge or shut down some of its papers ramped up after the company reported poor quarterly results last week.

Godfrey's assistant emailed the politician's top staffer on Monday morning to request "a 15 minutes call today with Mayor Jim Watson to brief him an item." No further details were given, although Godfrey's staff made it clear the call had to be held that day.

Watson's staff discussed the email internally and then noted there were no "further specifics" about why Godfrey wanted an urgent discussion with the mayor.



In a bizarre twist, Watson's staff then accidentally forwarded the confidential email to a UK-based BuzzFeed News reporter named Jim Waterson.

The mistake occurred as a result of correspondence last week between Waterson and the mayor's staff requesting a humorous interview about how BuzzFeed's Jim Waterson is sometimes mistaken for Mayor Jim Watson online.