National Post

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Type	Daily newspaper
Format	Broadsheet
Owner	CanWest Global Communications
Editor	Doug Kelly
Founded	1998
Political allegiance	Conservative
Headquarters	300 - 1450 Don Mills Road, Don Mills, Ontario
Website: www.nationalpost.com

The National Post is a major Canadian English-language national newspaper based in Don Mills, Ontario, a district of Toronto.

Contents 1 History 2 Editors in chief 3 Current Editorial Positions 4 Columnists 5 Controversy 6 See also 7 External link

[edit] History

The Post was founded in 1998 by Conrad Black to combat what he saw as an "over-liberalizing" of editorial policy in Canadian newspapers. Black built the new paper around the Financial Post, an established business-oriented newspaper in Toronto which he purchased from Sun Media in 1997. (Financial Post was retained as the name of the new paper's business section.) Outside Toronto, the Post was built on the editorial, distribution, and printing infrastructure of Black's national newspaper chain, formerly called Southam Newspapers, that included papers such as the Ottawa Citizen, Montreal Gazette, Calgary Herald, and Vancouver Sun. The Post became Black's national flagship title, and massive amounts of start-up spending were dedicated to the product in its first few years under editor Ken Whyte.

From the beginning, the Post had a strongly conservative editorial stance by Canadian standards. It was widely considered to be the unofficial mouthpiece of the Reform Party of Canada. Its editorial page featured the writings of many prominent neo-conservatives and libertarians from the United States and Canada, such as Mark Steyn, Diane Francis, Andrew Coyne, and David Frum. While the Post's editorial positions were often controversial, due to its British-style blurring of opinion and news, its unique magazine-style graphic and layout design won numerous awards. It is a retro look — with echoes of 1930s design — jazzed up with eye-catching touches, such as oversized headlines, layering of multi-coloured type, reverse type, and jarring colours.

The flamboyant entry of the Post into the national newspaper market shook up Canada's cozy journalism world long used to the comforts of local quasi-monopolies. The paper's initial success, despite financial losses, was partly due to its appeal to conservative readers, particularly in Western Canada, long ignored in a largely liberal media landscape. At one point, it appeared the Post was about to overtake the paid circulation numbers of its arch-rival, the Globe and Mail, which was struggling with the reputation as the "grey lady" of Canadian journalism. Shortly after the Post burst into the market, Globe and Mail editor William Thorsell was fired to make room for a new editor, Richard Addis, brought in from Fleet Street where fierce competition is a daily reality (many of the Post's key editorial staff were imports from Conrad Black's broadsheet British title, The Daily Telegraph). Under Addis, the Globe and Mail responded to the competitive threat with an overhaul of its design and editorial features.

The Post was unable to maintain momentum in the market without continuing to spend heavily and accumulate mounting financial losses. At the same time, Conrad Black was becoming preoccupied by impending troubles with his debt-heavy media empire, Hollinger International. Black finally decided to divest his Canadian media holdings, including the Post -- a move that shocked Post supporters and delighted the paper's ideological adversaries. Black sold the Post to CanWest Global Communications Corp, controlled by Israel Asper, in two stages -- 50% in 2000, along with the entire Southam newspaper chain, and the remaining 50% in 2001. CanWest Global also owns the Global Television Network, and there has been heavy cross-promotion between the company's newspaper and television properties. In late 2001, the Aspers imposed an austerity regime on the paper, forcing editor Ken Whyte to drop the arts and sports sections. The move triggered a plunge in circulation from which the Post never fully recovered, even when the dropped sections were restored.

In early 2003, Izzy Asper purged top management at the Post, including Whyte and deputy editor Martin Newland, due to political differences and the paper's heavy financial losses, which were estimated to have peaked at $60 million annually. Asper hired Matthew Fraser as Editor-in-Chief. He had been the paper's media columnist from its inception and was regarded as close to the Aspers. Fraser's tenure at helm of the Post was marked by drastic budget cuts, restructuring, staff layoffs, and pervasive doubts about the long-term future of the money-losing paper in its continuing commercial war with the Globe and Mail. Fraser also was forced to fire two Post writers, including a high-profile columnist, for plagiarism. Another high-profile gossip columnist was fired for a salacious article about Canada's head-of-state.

Under Fraser's editorship, the Post gained notoriety in Canadian media circles for its regular feature called "CBC Watch" -- inspired in part by the Daily Telegraph's "Beeb Watch" in Britain -- which pointed out errors of fact, evidence of entrenched left-wing bias, and in particular bias against Israel at the public broadcaster. "CBC Watch" infuriated the CBC's supporters in the Canadian media elite, and critics claimed the Post was attacking the CBC to defend the commercial interests of the private television network, Global TV, owned by the Asper family. Izzy Asper had long railed against the state-owned CBC, and once declared publicly that it should be "expunged".

Izzy Asper died suddenly in October 2003, leaving his media empire in the hands of his two sons, Leonard and David Asper, the latter serving as chairman of the Post. Fraser departed in 2005 after the arrival of a new publisher, Les Pyette -- the paper's seventh publisher in seven years. Pyette, a former publisher of the racy tabloid, Toronto Sun, aggressively took the Post downmarket with tabloid-style headlines and pictures. Fraser's deputy editor, Doug Kelly succeeded him as editor, though Pyette was regarded as in contol of the newsroom as a hands-on publisher. Pyette suddenly departed only seven months after his arrival, replaced by Gordon Fisher, a career Southam newspaperman who had briefly served as interim publisher a few years earlier.

The Post has retained a conservative editorial stance under the Aspers' ownership, but has become somewhat less strident. The Asper family has long been strong supporters of the Liberal Party, though they have always had libertarian leanings. Izzy Asper was once leader of the Liberal Party in his home province of Manitoba. The Aspers had controversially fired the publisher of the Ottawa Citizen, Russell Mills, for calling for the resignation of Liberal prime minister, Jean Chretien.

However, the Post -- careful to retain the loyalty of its conservative readers -- endorsed the Conservative Party of Canada in the 2004 election, which the Conservatives lost narrowly to the Liberals. For a short period after the election, the Post was highly critical of the Conservatives and their leader, Stephen Harper, and supportive of the Liberal government of prime minister Paul Martin. The paper switched camps, however, in the runup to the 2006 election (in which the Conversatives won a minority government). During the election campaign, David Asper appeared publicly several times to endorse the Conservatives.

Without the personal backing of a colourful media magnate like Black or Izzy Asper, the Post recently has been drifting without its original spark and sense of purpose. It has largely abandoned its neo-conservative voice, and many of its rival papers have copied its unique design and layout features. In a national newspaper market considered too thin to sustain two products, the Post has struggled against the Globe and Mail, which has the advantages of a loyal readership and a history stretching back to the mid-19th century. The Post's entry into the Canadian newspaper market, while dazzling during its aggressively marketed start-up phase, was badly timed because the entire newspaper sector was entering a period of structural decline, which continues today, as readers turn towards the Internet and other sources for information and distraction.

The Post continues to lose money -- financial analysts estimate annual losses at about $15 million -- and rumours persist that the Aspers will close down the Post due to its lack of profitability. Others believe, however, that the Aspers will keep the newspaper going in order to have a political voice in Canada, notably on issues such as Israel. The Post today operates under the editorial direction of David Asper, an outspoken and controversial figure who is generally considered to lack the stature and business acumen of his late father.

The Post's Toronto edition is printed at the Toronto Star presses in Vaughan, Ontario. The Star is one of the Post's commercial rivals in the fiercely competitive Toronto newspaper market.

[edit] Editors in chief

• Kenneth Whyte, 1998–2003
• Matthew Fraser, 2003–2005
• Doug Kelly, 2005–present

[edit] Current Editorial Positions

• Doug Kelly, Editor-in-Chief
• Stephen Meurice, Deputy Editor
• Jonathan Harris, Executive Editor
• Jonathan Kay, Managing Editor, Comment
• Sarah Murdoch, Managing Editor, Features
• Charlie Lewis, Managing Editor, Financial Post
• Terence Corcoran, FP Editor
• Diane Francis, FP Editor-at-large

[edit] Columnists

• Adam Radwanski
• Conrad Black
• Don Martin
• John Ivison
• Shinan Govani
• Terence Corcoran
• Robert Fulford
• George Jonas
• Jonathan Kay
• Barbara Kay
• Gerald Owen
• Fr. Raymond J. de Souza
• Andrew Coyne

[edit] Controversy

Main article: 2006 Iranian sumptuary law

On May 19, 2006, the newspaper ran two pieces alleging that the Iranian parliament had passed a law requiring religious minorities to wear special identifying badges. One piece was a front page news item titled "IRAN EYES BADGES FOR JEWS" accompanied by a 1935 picture of two Jews bearing Nazi insignia. Later on the same day, experts began coming forward to deny the accuracy of the Post story. The story proved to be false, but not before it had been picked up by a variety of other news media and generated comment from world leaders. Comments on the story by the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper caused Iran to summon Canada's ambassador to Tehran for an explanation.

On May 24, 2006, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper, Doug Kelly, published an apology for the story on Page 2, admitting that it was false and the National Post had not exercised enough caution or checked enough sources.[1]

[edit] See also

• Media in Canada
• List of Canadian newspapers
• List of the largest Canadian newspapers by circulation

[edit] External link

• Official website