The Canadian Press, already embroiled in restructuring, took a major blow from Quebecor Inc., which announced it will pull out of the news co-operative in mid 2010 to cut costs, and grow its own in-house news agency, said reports.

Quebecor — owner of the Sun Media and Osprey chains — is CP’s biggest media member group. In 2007 CanWest Global Communication Corp. dropped out.

Reports by the Globe and Mail, Reuters, and Maclean’s, which posted “an apparently authentic Quebecor memo.”