John Fraser (journalist)

John Anderson Fraser, CM (born June 5, 1944), is a Canadian journalist, writer and academic. He served as Master of Massey College in the University of Toronto from 1995 until his retirement in June 2014.

As a journalist, Fraser received multiple national awards and chaired the Canadian Journalism Foundation until 2008. He teaches a course on Canadian newspaper history at St. Michael's College, University of Toronto.^[1][2]

Education

During his teenage years, Fraser attended four high schools: Toronto's Upper Canada College, Oakwood Collegiate Institute, Lakefield College School in Lakefield, Ontario, and Jarvis Collegiate Institute. A classmate of his at Upper Canada College was Conrad Black who, years later, was his employer when Fraser was editor of Saturday Night magazine.^[3] He subsequently received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Memorial University and a Master of Arts^[4] degree from the University of East Anglia.

Career

Journalism

At 16, Fraser started summer work as a copy boy and junior reporter at the Toronto Telegram^[5] and in following summers worked as a journalist at the Sherbrooke Daily Record and the St. John's Evening Telegram. In 1971, he was named music and dance critic for the Toronto Telegram and, after that newspaper's demise was briefly in the same position at the Toronto Sun. He has also written regular columns for the Toronto Star and the National Post.^[6] From 1972 to 1987, he was a dance critic, theatre critic, China correspondent, Ottawa bureau chief, national columnist, national editor and London correspondent at The Globe and Mail.^[4] From 1987 to 1994, he was the editor of Saturday Night magazine^[7] where he pioneered the use of mixed circulation with inserted copies in The Globe and Mail and other newspapers in the old Southam Newspaper Group across Canada, with circulation increasing from 115,000 to 400,000.^[8] He also began a "Saturday Night" imprint of books with the publishers HarperCollins Ltd. that produced nearly two dozen titles in five years.

Fraser's journalism has been published in many leading international journals and newspapers, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Christian Science Monitor, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, Time, The New Republic, George, The Spectator, Paris Match and the Far Eastern Economic Review. Twice during his reporting career he became the subject of international media attention: in 1974 when he was instrumental in the dramatic defection of ballet super star Mikhail Baryshnikov,^[4] and in 1978 when he addressed tens of thousands of citizens in Beijing during the short-lived and brutally suppressed Xidan Democracy Wall movement during the Beijing Spring.^[4]

Massey College

In 1995, Fraser was elected the master of Massey College and chair of its governing corporation to a seven-year term and was subsequently re-elected to two further seven-year terms. Among his achievements at Massey have been a $3.5-million renovation to the Robertson Davies Library, St. Catherine's Chapel and handicap access to the college. Other achievements include increasing its endowment to approximately $12,000,000 ($7,577,184 in the college's 2005 tax return and $4,000,000 held for student bursaries at the U of T's School of Graduate Studies). Other achievements include tripling the number of senior fellows and increasing the number of non-resident junior fellows; creating bursary support to non-resident junior fellows; pioneering academic support programs for "Writers in Exile" and "Scholars at Risk"; and establishing the Quadrangle Society in 1997 which extended the college's mandate to be a bridge community between "town and gown". The Quadrangle Society originally started with 99 (one fewer member than the Junior Fellowship at the suggestion of the then don of hall, Marc Ozon), and has now expanded to over 200. He has taught university courses at York University (drama criticism) and the University of Toronto (Canadian culture, and currently the history of Canadian newspapers). Fraser retired as master of Massey College in 2014, and was succeeded by Hugh Segal, retired Senator from Ontario.

Awards

Fraser has received honorary degrees from Memorial University of Newfoundland (D.Litt.), University of King's College in Halifax, Nova Scotia (D.C.L.), and York University in Toronto (LL.D.). He has received medals from the Queen (Silver Jubilee, 1977; Golden Jubilee, 2002; Diamond Jubilee 2012) and also the 1967 Centennial medal. In journalism, he has won three National Newspaper Awards, seven National Magazine Awards, and "Editor of the Year" from the Canadian Magazine Editors Society. His book, The Chinese: Portrait of a People was a Book-of-the-Month Club main choice in 1981 and was nominated for the Governor General's Literary Award in non-fiction. A book on the American Ballet Theatre and Mikhail Baryshnikov, Private View, was a Book-of-the-Month Club alternate choice in 1989 and won a Dance Magazine "book of the year" award. In 2001, he was made a Member of the Order of Canada.^[4][9]

Personal life

Fraser is married to Elizabeth MacCallum,^[10] and the couple have three daughters.^[11] He is a committed Anglican, and has served as both a Sunday school teacher and as rector's warden at his church, St. Clement's-Eglinton in Toronto.^[12] He is a monarchist.^[13]

Selected bibliography

• Kain and Augustyn, 1977
• The Chinese: Portrait of a People, 1981^[4]
• Telling Tales, 1985
• Private View: Inside Baryshnikov's American Ballet Theatre, 1992^[4]
• Saturday Night Lives! Selected Diaries, 1995.
• Stolen China (novel), 1996^[14][15]
• Eminent Canadians: Candid Tales of Then and Now, 2000^[6]
• Mad About the Bay (with Elizabeth MacCallum), 2004^[10]
• The Secret of the Crown: Canada's Affair with Royalty, 2012, House of Ansi Press, Toronto, ISBN 978-1-77089-035-0.

References