The locked-out workers at the Journal de Québec have started their own newspaper, MédiaMatinQuébec, using the talents of the temporarily unemployed journalists and other staff to create 40,000 copies a day and distribute them freely, while the Journal tries to run its paper with a skeleton management staff.

I must say, it’s hard not to be impressed by this. Continuing to report is one thing, but actually printing and distributing another newspaper isn’t an easy task.

The group hasn’t yet setup a website, though the mediamatinquebec.com domain has been reserved. If this lockout goes on longer we might see something similar to the CBC lockout campaign that workers put on, with podcasts and other special reporting from all over the country.

Perhaps the thing this demonstrates most, though, is that these people are probably worth the $50-100,000 their paid to do their jobs (even though I’d kill for such a salary), and that the people who seem most dispensable in all of this are the managers left behind.