Russell Mills began his career in journalism part-time from 1964 to 1967 at the London Free Press while studying sociology at the University of Western Ontario.
To address the 24 percent drop to 134,266 in weekday circulation over the previous four years, Mills met with Black at New York's Carlyle Hotel to discuss new directions.
A few days later in an article in The Globe and Mail, Black described the changes he envisioned to the "overwhelming avalanche of soft, left, bland, envious pap which has poured like sludge through the centre pages of most of the Southam papers for some time.
"[3] Mills' plan called for less reliance on government and news-wire services in favour of original, authoritative content about local issues or industries that were of interest to readers.
However, CanWest's Leonard Asper, who was interviewed by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, said that the termination of Mills was a result of multiple violations over a period of time of principles and policies that had been set out for, and developed collaboratively with, the editors & publishers of their newspapers.
In Parliament, NDP leader Alexa McDonough stated: "Russell Mills was fired because the Prime Minister's buddy happened to be his boss... That is downright dangerous to democracy.