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The CBC came under attack Thursday by executives from legacy and new media, as a panel of MPs looking at how to address the crisis of dwindling revenues in the local news business held its latest meeting.

John Honderich, chair of Torstar Corp., pulled no punches, telling the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage “there is a crisis of declining good journalism across Canada and at this point we only see the situation getting worse.”

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Honderich said The Toronto Star, his company’s flagship publication, will have 170 journalists in its newsroom at the end of this year, down from 470 ten years ago. He noted as an example careers advertising, which once brought in $75 million in revenue each year for the company, and now no longer exists as a revenue stream because of free online portals.

In July, Torstar reported a $23.9 million loss and a 16.9 per cent year over year drop in print advertising revenue in the second quarter of 2016.