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rfmcdonaldFrom the London Free Press:
National Post looks ready for last rites
Herman Goodden, London Free Press
The death watch seems to be on again at the National Post. The latest slide toward oblivion for the five-year-old conservative national newspaper started, appropriately enough, on May Day -- that day of political hubris when the leaders of the Soviet Kremlin used to ritualistically haul out all their weaponry and march it around Red Square in a mighty display of brute force designed to keep all their quivering underlings in line.
This time, standing in for the stone-faced Soviet bosses was Canada's Winnipeg-based Asper family. Longtime owners of CanWest Global Communications, the Aspers may understand TV but have appeared dense and ham-handed -- completely out of their depth and their happiest milieu -- ever since taking control of the National Post and 13 other Canadian dailies they picked up from expatriate Canadian press baron Conrad Black for $3.2 billion as he headed off to England to pick up a peerage in July of 2000.
On May 1, representatives of the Asper family appeared in the Post's Toronto newsroom to announce to the staff that founding editor Ken Whyte and his trusted deputy editor, Martin Newland, had just been vapourized . . . liquidated . . . stuffed down the old memory hole. They were welcome to come back and clean out their desks on Sunday -- under guard when none of their colleagues were around, no less. Whyte and Newland had become unpersons, as succeeding editor Matthew Fraser made gracelessly clear in a front-page editorial May 2 boasting about the Post's brilliant future but neglecting to thank or even mention his predecessors.
When the first issue of the National Post appeared on Oct. 27, 1998, it may have been Black who put up the moolah and funded the vision but it was Whyte and Newland who had personally overseen the creation and launch of a visually stylish, highly literate, aggressive new paper that sent shock waves throughout the industry. Newland's background was with England's Daily Telegraph, so he'd been steeped in a culture where half a dozen national papers jostle and shout for market share every day of the week.
On May 3, popular courts and crime reporter Christie Blatchford insisted on saluting Whyte and Newland at length in her column. Rumours have been flying ever since that Blatchford wants out. Blatchford's Saturday column has been missing in action ever since.
Ditto Mark Steyn, whose incomparably funny and insightful columns have disappeared. For three full weeks now, every Monday and Thursday, we Steynophiles have eagerly turned to the editorial page to find nothing more than the vague promise, "Mark Steyn's column will return." But on his Web site, Steyn writes this week: "To paraphrase my new National Post catchphrase, 'Mark Steyn will not return.' "
Back from his high-profile gig as a speechwriter for George W. Bush, longtime Post stalwart David Frum was bringing a very rarefied perspective to his weekly column until tendering his resignation May 3, citing his disgust at the shabby treatment of Whyte and Newland.
In executing this May Day purge, the Aspers have managed to alienate three of their prize writers and untold thousands of readers like me who are finding it increasingly hard to remember why we continue to support this pale imitation of a newspaper, which once gave Canadian conservatives so much hope. Interestingly, we haven't seen a fraction of the media commentary over the ouster of Whyte and Newland as attended last year's sacking of Ottawa Citizen publisher Russell Mills for disagreeing with the Aspers' pro-Liberal slant. Why?
Most disheartening of all, the Post's failure to secure a sustainable niche as a second national newspaper now appears to be sealed. I suspect this is all part and parcel of the Canadian inability to establish and develop a lasting and coherent political party (or alliance of parties) on the right.
Herman Goodden is a London freelance writer. His column appears in Monday's and Thursday's Opinion pages. It no longer appears in Sunday's A&E section. He can be e-mailed at herman.goodden@sympatico.ca.
National Post looks ready for last rites
Herman Goodden, London Free Press
The death watch seems to be on again at the National Post. The latest slide toward oblivion for the five-year-old conservative national newspaper started, appropriately enough, on May Day -- that day of political hubris when the leaders of the Soviet Kremlin used to ritualistically haul out all their weaponry and march it around Red Square in a mighty display of brute force designed to keep all their quivering underlings in line.
This time, standing in for the stone-faced Soviet bosses was Canada's Winnipeg-based Asper family. Longtime owners of CanWest Global Communications, the Aspers may understand TV but have appeared dense and ham-handed -- completely out of their depth and their happiest milieu -- ever since taking control of the National Post and 13 other Canadian dailies they picked up from expatriate Canadian press baron Conrad Black for $3.2 billion as he headed off to England to pick up a peerage in July of 2000.
On May 1, representatives of the Asper family appeared in the Post's Toronto newsroom to announce to the staff that founding editor Ken Whyte and his trusted deputy editor, Martin Newland, had just been vapourized . . . liquidated . . . stuffed down the old memory hole. They were welcome to come back and clean out their desks on Sunday -- under guard when none of their colleagues were around, no less. Whyte and Newland had become unpersons, as succeeding editor Matthew Fraser made gracelessly clear in a front-page editorial May 2 boasting about the Post's brilliant future but neglecting to thank or even mention his predecessors.
When the first issue of the National Post appeared on Oct. 27, 1998, it may have been Black who put up the moolah and funded the vision but it was Whyte and Newland who had personally overseen the creation and launch of a visually stylish, highly literate, aggressive new paper that sent shock waves throughout the industry. Newland's background was with England's Daily Telegraph, so he'd been steeped in a culture where half a dozen national papers jostle and shout for market share every day of the week.
On May 3, popular courts and crime reporter Christie Blatchford insisted on saluting Whyte and Newland at length in her column. Rumours have been flying ever since that Blatchford wants out. Blatchford's Saturday column has been missing in action ever since.
Ditto Mark Steyn, whose incomparably funny and insightful columns have disappeared. For three full weeks now, every Monday and Thursday, we Steynophiles have eagerly turned to the editorial page to find nothing more than the vague promise, "Mark Steyn's column will return." But on his Web site, Steyn writes this week: "To paraphrase my new National Post catchphrase, 'Mark Steyn will not return.' "
Back from his high-profile gig as a speechwriter for George W. Bush, longtime Post stalwart David Frum was bringing a very rarefied perspective to his weekly column until tendering his resignation May 3, citing his disgust at the shabby treatment of Whyte and Newland.
In executing this May Day purge, the Aspers have managed to alienate three of their prize writers and untold thousands of readers like me who are finding it increasingly hard to remember why we continue to support this pale imitation of a newspaper, which once gave Canadian conservatives so much hope. Interestingly, we haven't seen a fraction of the media commentary over the ouster of Whyte and Newland as attended last year's sacking of Ottawa Citizen publisher Russell Mills for disagreeing with the Aspers' pro-Liberal slant. Why?
Most disheartening of all, the Post's failure to secure a sustainable niche as a second national newspaper now appears to be sealed. I suspect this is all part and parcel of the Canadian inability to establish and develop a lasting and coherent political party (or alliance of parties) on the right.
Herman Goodden is a London freelance writer. His column appears in Monday's and Thursday's Opinion pages. It no longer appears in Sunday's A&E section. He can be e-mailed at herman.goodden@sympatico.ca.
