Toronto Star hires new publisher who is, gasp, a journalist

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/544204

John Cruickshank, a one-time reporter who has led news operations at the Globe and Mail, Chicago Sun-Times and the CBC, has been appointed publisher of the Toronto Star.
The 55-year-old is considered a Canadian journalistic heavyweight who cares about quality reporting and the role of newspapers in serving their communities.

I read the guy when he was a reporter at the Globe & Mail. First rate journalist.

I love this quote about his tenure at the Chicago Sun-Times regarding Lord Black & David Radler, Black's hatchet man.

Cruickshank once confided in a New York Times interview that Radler "was constantly demanding that we write negative stories about non-advertisers and positive stories about advertisers - which, of course, we didn’t do."

He added that Radler "wasn’t averse to quality journalism, he just thought it should go on someplace else."


The Star is notoriously Toronto-centric but it is still one of the most socially active and liberal-minded newspapers in the country.

Any Canucks here work with Cruickshank?

 

well, it is the TORONTO Star

 

I thought the media weren't liberal.

 

It's not.

The Star is. Most Americans would think it was positively communist. Still has the highest circulation of any newspaper in Canada.

However, it's balanced by the Globe & Mail (conservative) and the Toronto Sun (think NY Post).

 

No, even by most city newspaper standards, it is. They look at the whole world through Toronto glasses,

As someone posted on another thread "Huge Atomic Blast kills 8 Torontonians, millions of others"

 

This cannot end well.

 

Mr Bastard,

End well? Four posts in and already eight Torontonians are dead.

o-<

 

the Star isn't a national paper. They think like most "city" papers do - localize the big story.

Difference in what Globe - and other national papers do - is "nationalizes" the big story - what does it mean to Canadians (or Americans in case of NY Times or Wash Post etc) vs Star/Sun approach - what does it mean to Torontonians

It's like that classic line in the movie The Paper, which has been noted on this board a million times and I'm too lazy to find

 

The difference between the Star and the Podunkville, Saskatchewan Sun-Times is that the Star's importance as a city newspaper is, in fact, national.

When the Star comes out for or against a particular leader of say, the Liberal Party, that has a demonstrable impact across the country.

Reason's simple: it's the single biggest newspaper in the biggest and most important market in the most populated province in the country.

The Globe is only a national paper in Toronto, Ottawa and the boardroom on Front Street.

 

vastly over-stated.

I understand the Star's impact in southern Ontario, but it does not resonate beyond those borders. Its being paid no heed in Atlantic Canada or Alberta, for example. The Honderichs only wish it were so.

The Globe is sold in every major market - the Star is not.

 

I disagree, in a sense. The Star's presence in the GTA, if not elsewhere in southern Ontario, means that whatever it can influence in this part of the province will certainly have an impact on the rest of the country.

Case in point - the recent federal election. The Star-supported Fiberals took 20 of 22 seats in Toronto, seven of nine in Brampton-Mississauga-Oakville and five of nine in York and southern Durham. That's 32 of 40 seats, while the Conservatives were held to six of those 40 seats. The largest concentration of Fiberal support in the entire country, obviously, played a significant role in why we once again have a minority Parliament. And the Star made that possible; for that, it should take a lot of the blame/receive a lot of the credit. ;D

You can't say the same for either of Canada's so-called national newspapers. Their influence just isn't that significant.

 

Sirs, Madames,

I've always thought--even when I worked there--that the Globe is a national paper in the sense that it's read by Torontonians across the country.

o-<