The Gazette (Montreal)

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The Gazette
The Gazette (Montreal).svg
TheGazetteA1page.jpg
The March 7, 2011 front page of The Gazette
Type Daily newspaper
Format Broadsheet
Owner Postmedia Network
Founder Fleury Mesplet
Publisher Alan Allnutt
Editor Raymond Brassard
Managing editors Catherine Wallace
Founded June 3, 1778
Political alignment Canadian federalism
Language English
Relaunched August 25, 1785
Circulation 116,446 daily, 133,438 Saturday in 2011[1]
ISSN 0384-1294
OCLC number 456824368
Official website montrealgazette.com

The Gazette, often called the Montreal Gazette to avoid ambiguity, is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, with three other daily English newspapers all having shut down at different times during the second half of the 20th century.

Founded in 1778 by Fleury Mesplet, The Gazette is Quebec's oldest daily newspaper.[2] The oldest newspaper overall is the Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph (coincidentally, also the only English-language newspaper in its city), which was established in 1764 and is published weekly.

Contents

History [edit]

Offices of The Gazette in the Dominion Square Building on Saint Catherine Street in Montreal.

Fleury Mesplet founded a French-language newspaper called La Gazette du commerce et littéraire, pour la ville et district de Montréal on June 3, 1778. This paper was shut down in 1779, with Mesplet and the editor, Valentin Jautard, having been imprisoned for their participation in the American Revolutionary War.

Mesplet began a second weekly, La Gazette de Montréal, on August 25, 1785, which had a dual French-English bilingual format. It is the direct ancestor of the current newspaper. It was later purchased by an anglophone businessman and converted into an English-only paper in 1822.

On April 25, 1849, The Gazette published a special edition in which its editor-in-chief, James Moir Ferres, called the "Anglo-Saxon" residents to arms after Royal Assent of a compensation law for Lower Canada.[3] This is the lead event of the burning of the Parliament Buildings. Ferres was subsequently arrested.

In 1968, The Gazette was acquired by the Southam newspaper chain, which owned major dailies across Canada.[2]

For many years, The Gazette was caught in a three-way fight for the English newspaper audience in Montreal with the tabloid Montreal Herald and the broadsheet Montreal Star. The Gazette was second in circulation to the Montreal Star, which sold more newspapers in the city and had a significant national reputation in the first half of the 20th century. The Montreal Herald closed in 1957, after publishing for 146 years. The Montreal Star, part of the Free Press chain (which owned The Globe and Mail and the Winnipeg Free Press), was hit by a long strike action and ceased publication in 1979, less than a year after the strike was settled.

A statue in Westmount of man reading The Gazette.

In 1988, a competing English-language daily, The Montreal Daily News, was launched. The Montreal Daily News adopted a tabloid format and introduced a Sunday edition, forcing The Gazette to respond. After The Montreal Daily News folded in 1989, after less than two years in operation, The Gazette kept its Sunday edition going until August 2010.

In 1996, the Southam papers were bought by Conrad Black's Hollinger Inc. Then in August 2000, Hollinger sold the Southam newspapers, including The Gazette, to Canwest Global Communications Corp., controlled by the Winnipeg-based Asper family. In 2010, a new media group, Postmedia, bought the Gazette and other papers from the financially troubled Canwest.

To celebrate its 150th anniversary, The Gazette published a facsimile of one of its earliest issues. Much effort was made to use a type of paper that imitated 18th century paper, with fake chainlines and laidlines to make the paper look old.[4]

Today [edit]

Today, The Gazette's audience is primarily Quebec's English-speaking minority. The Gazette is one of the four dailies published in Montreal, the other three being the French-language newspapers (La Presse, Le Journal de Montréal, and Le Devoir).

In recent years, The Gazette has stepped up efforts to reach bilingual francophone professionals and adjusted its coverage accordingly. The publisher of The Gazette is Alan Allnutt, who served as editor-in-chief of the paper from 1996 to 2000. The current executive editor is Raymond Brassard, while the managing editor is Catherine Wallace.[5]

Editors-in-chief [edit]

Present personalities [edit]

Past personalities [edit]

See also [edit]

Portal icon Montreal portal
Portal icon Journalism portal

Montreal newspapers [edit]

References [edit]

  1. ^ Audit Bureau of Circulations e-Circ data for the six months ending September 30, 2011. Retrieved February 16, 2012.
  2. ^ a b "About Us". The Gazette. Retrieved April 25, 2012. 
  3. ^ Moir Ferres, James (April 25, 1849). "The Disgrace of Great Britain accomplished!". Wikisource. Retrieved April 25, 2012. 
  4. ^ "Document Doubles" in Detecting the Truth: Fakes, Forgeries and Trickery, a virtual museum exhibition at Library and Archives Canada
  5. ^ The Gazette staff listing

External links [edit]

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