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National Post, ten years later
October 28, 2008
- Posted by
By
Kirk LaPointe  Ten years ago this week we launched the first edition of the National Post newspaper and its then-ambtious nationalpost.com site. I was its executive editor, working for editor-in-chief Ken Whyte (now publisher and editor of Maclean's), publisher Don Babick (now interim publisher of the Toronto Star) and proprietor Conrad Black (now writing columns while serving a jail term related to financial wrongdoing). Whether you are a friend or foe of the Post, it is inarguable that Canadian media were improved by its arrival. The Post was not so much a breath of fresh air as a new oxygen supply to Canadian journalism. People who loved it read it voraciously, but they were the milder readers -- people who hated it seemed to memorize its every word. Even its most bitter rivals should thank the Post for either regenerating their moribund newsrooms or enhancing their resources to perform at a higher level. And many journalists I could name, but won’t, owe the Post thanks for lifting the phone and inquiring of their availability -- telling the boss about getting that call was usually worth a larger salary, more holidays and a better beat. It has changed the acceptable tone of daily journalism in Canada, the design of the best newspapers, and the aggression of our journalists -- no doubt, all for the better. I connected with the project more than a year earlier while editing The Hamilton Spectator, mainly due to geography. Whyte, then editor of Saturday Night magazine but clearly the anointed leader of the project, needed a newsroom with access to wires and pagination software and Hamilton's was the closest newsroom Southam had to Ken in Toronto. He brought along Michael Cooke (then editor of The Province in Vancouver, now editor of the Chicago Sun-Times), Brian Kappler (then national editor, now editorial page editor of the Montreal Gazette) and Carl Neustaedter (then design chief of the Ottawa Citizen). We were joined eventually by my successor at Southam News, Giles Gherson (who went on to be editor of the Star and the Edmonton Journal and now is a top Ontario public servant) and a few others in those early days. A couple of Spectator colleagues helped us with some of the grunt work of pagination, and I became increasingly drawn into the project because I knew the chain's newsrooms (which were going to be vital in contributing content), had a few of those eccentric ideas that seemed to hold sway, and had a good Rolodex in Canadian media. By April of 1998 I was there full-time. By then we had analyzed our competition, determined they were largely institutional and grey, and designed a livelier, riskier format that would change several times over in the weeks to come. We prototyped two full editions, both bearing Times Canada as  the title. We'd played around and tested The National (associated too much with CBC), The Sentinel and The Reporter. As I was being hired the Post was making a play for Ed Greenspon, then the Ottawa Bureau Chief (and eventually the editor) of the Globe, but when that fell through, Ken enlisted Martin Newland from the Daily Telegraph as deputy editor (who later returned to England to be editor of that paper and now has launched The National in Abu Dhabi).We plucked dozens of great journalists here and abroad for the team, paid them competitively and made them work feverishly. The scale of the enterprise grew from an anticipated staff of 35 to 40, to one of 60, then 80, then 100, then (when the big deal was done in July to trade newspapers and cash for the Financial Post newspaper, which would anchor the business coverage), upwards of 200. The budget grew along with it. We weren’t spending like drunken sailors. We were more like power shoppers. Christie Blatchford, Roy MacGregor, Cam Cole, Terence Corcoran and Robert Fulford were joining the likes of Diane Francis, Jonathan Chevreau and the Post stable to create an extraordinary daily team. As we approached launch, our prototype got into the hands of our competitor and we feared the worst -- that our best ideas would be appropriated in advance of late October and that we’d have to come up with a Plan B (actually, by then it would have been about Plan L). But it never happened. Instead the competition waited until we launched, until it became clear they had underestimated our appeal, until it became clearer they were in need of a major facelift, and then they went about shaking up their ranks and pages. Everyone suddenly had larger photos, bolder voices, spicier themes and sharper delivery. I kept a diary for about six months before and three months after the launch, and for good reason it'll likely go to my grave. But when I look back on those days there was an exceptional sense of journalistic mission. Sure, there were miscues and nearly-missed deadlines and many laughers of journalistic pursuits that were goofy mistakes, but there were also breathtaking columns, stories, packages and pictures, and a Web site that made the first real attempt in this country at connecting with a new audience. Newland and I looked over the Southam headquarters atrium from the third-floor newsroom that first day and realized that likely nothing would be as good as how we felt at that moment. But the Post has done some extraordinary things since and it continues to fight well above its weight class. It has been challenged in making a profit, but that day will come. Meantime, it deserves a happy birthday from all of us. Kirk LaPointe is managing editor of the Vancouver Sun, adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia's graduate school of journalism and a J-Source contributing editor. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
In reply to Claude Adam's question:
I didn't challenge it; I was already in a difficult position (long story short, the NP apparently didn't want me, but didn't want to pay severance, so had created a sort-of job) and needed the work. But there was no viable appeal; the order came from pretty near the top.
As I tell my j-students (I teach at Ryerson), ultimately you can quit. Otherwise, as the saying goes, news is what the city editor says it is.
Dan
"Looking the other way" seems to be the current modus operandi for way too many journalists.
It occurs at all mainstream news agencies, and is one of the reasons news consumers lost trust. How the 2010 Olympics is reported in Vancouver is a perfect "real time" and easily monitored example of tailoring the news to fit the advertiser at the expense of the community.
Back in the day, people only suspected bias occurred, but now we can communicate with each other and confirm that only half the story is being reported.
Once news consumers compared notes they didn't like what they saw and bailed.
Good luck getting them back Kirk.
It stuns me that in this era a news agency responsible for reporting in an unbiased manner is allowed to accept millions of dollars in advertising revenue from an organization that uses tax money in a manner that has a negative impact on the community.
While the Vancouver Sun makes a small fortune selling advertising to VANOC, and primarily reporting the Olympic side of the Olympic story, our community crumbles under property values and taxes artificially and obscenely inflated by Olympic frenzy.
Where is the CRTC in all of this? Where are journalism schools? How is it possible that no one in the journalism community finds this bias disturbing?
Looking the other way won't protect your jobs forever.
I ask this with full understanding that you were new on the job, Dan, but when you were told by a superior to do something that so clearly violated professional ethics and practice, did you challenge it, or take it to someone higher? I think j-students everywhere could learn from this . . .
I was working at the Financial Post when the NP bought it. As one of the mid-level editors, I helped put the last FP to bed with a scoop on Friday, and started at the NP on the following Monday, the day before the first edition.
To be in on the launch of a major daily was a never-to-be-repeated experience. It was wild, and fun, and over the top exciting. Champagne in the cafeteria!
It was all the things Kirk said. But I must disagree with him on one key point.
The paper was graphically brilliant, and the fresh attitude and risk-taking was energizing. But it introduced an ugly element to me, overtly biased reporting. In 19 years of reporting and editing at the Globe and FP, I had never been told to slant a story to make a political point. But at the Post, about Day 3, I was directed to write a story making a certain point, and told to phone a certain person who would provide the quotes to make an ideological story look legitimate. (Luckily the person was out, allowing me to duck a dilemma.) Some of paper's stories were assigned on that basis, and some stories were out-and-out one-sided.
This was new to me, and I think not a positive development.
Full disclosure: My time at the NP was not happy, although the key problem was not the politics. Kirk, who I first met in about 1980 when we were both punk reporters, did me an immense favour and bailed me out of a difficult situation by arranging for me to work at Southam News. That ended badly, too.
Dan Westell
I think the Post did inspire a lot of positive change in journalism - for awhile, at least.
I can recall, when the paper launched in 1998, how strident and aggressive it was in tone and content: they had a tonne of must-read columnists, lots of terrific feature articles, lots of splashy, eye-pleasing colour, even a glossy Weekend section. It was, roughly from 1998 to 2000, a tremendous newspaper. Whether you hate him or begrudgingly respect him, Conrad Black poured buckets of money into that operation while he was owner. He did a great job setting it up and hiring all the right people to make it happen.
Another positive aspect of the Post's launch? It made the Globe better. The Globe had clearly gotten complacent with its product and it needed a challenge to get better. The Globe did shake things up as a response to the Post and the result was quite positive in the long-term: the Globe's still reaping benefits from that era.
Of course, CanWest buys Conrad's newspaper chain and it all gradually goes downhill. That's the thing about the Post: it was a great paper when the money was there to make it great. The Aspers bought into the same convergence nonsense everyone else did in 2000 before the dot-com crash. They thought they could cut corners with gradually phasing out the best aspects of the paper. The paper's columnists didn't sign on to work for the Aspers, that's for sure. They cut and cut and cut until the paper had almost nothing left from the Black days. Inevitably, it becomes a hollow shell of its former self. It's now stocked to the nines with very young journalists who work long, grueling hours and settle for low salaries. I haven't read the paper since 2004, and I don't plan on doing so anytime soon.
"But the Post has done some extraordinary things since and it continues to fight well above its weight class."
I wonder what weight class we're talking about, Kirk?
NEWSFLASH "Supermodel/actor/journalist Monika Schnarre has abandoned her comfortable Toronto home for Rwanda, and will file a daily report to the National Post. This is her first dispatch:
Most people try to lose weight before a big trip; I decided to take the opposite approach.
I have gained five pounds as a ‘‘cushion,’’ in case I get malaria, yellow fever, or tuberculosis (although people who know me might blame one too many summer BBQs and Mojitos for the extra weight).
Anyway, I feel the less attractive I am the better. God forbid a silverback takes a liking to me, as did that emu in Australia who chased me around a wildlife sanctuary after deciding he wanted to mate with me. . . . "
God forbid she stumble on a genocide.
The National Post's impact on the other dailies in the Southam/Hollinger/CanWest chain has not, imo, been fully tallied. Did establishing the National Post bleed revenue from the Vancouver Sun, Montreal Gazette, Edmonton Journal, et al? Would those dailies be better newspapers if they had not financially propped up the National Post? Considering media everywhere outside of Toronto, was the National Post really good for Canadian journalism?