Toronto Star
 | |
| Type | Daily newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Broadsheet |
| Owner(s) | TorStar Corporation |
| Editor | Fred Kuntz |
| Founded | 1892 |
| Political alignment | Liberal |
| Headquarters | 1 Yonge Street, Toronto, Ontario |
| Website | www.thestar.com |
The Toronto Star is Canada's highest-circulation newspaper, though its print edition is distributed almost entirely within Ontario. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Ltd., a division of Star Media Group, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation.
The Toronto Star's parent company, Torstar also owns:
- Metroland Media Group publisher of 3 daily and 105 community newspapers throughout Ontario.
- Harlequin Enterprises Ltd, the world's leading publisher of romance novels.
- 20% of CTVglobemedia, owners of the CTV television network and The Globe and Mail, a rival newspaper to The Toronto Star.
History
The Star (originally known as The Evening Star and then The Toronto Daily Star) was created in 1892 by striking Afternoon News printers and writers. The paper did poorly in its first few years. But it prospered under Joseph "Holy Joe" Atkinson, editor from 1899 until his death in 1948.
Atkinson had a strong social conscience. He championed many causes that would come to be associated with the modern welfare state: old age pensions, unemployment insurance and health care. The Government of Canada Digital Collections website describes Atkinson as "a ‘radical’ in the best sense of that term...The Star was unique among North American newspapers in its consistent, ongoing advocacy of the interests of ordinary people. The friendship of Atkinson, the publisher, with Mackenzie King, the prime minister, was a major influence on the development of Canadian social policy."
But Atkinson was also a shrewd businessman who became the controlling shareholder of The Star and amassed a considerable personal fortune. The Toronto Daily Star was frequently criticized for practicing the yellow journalism of its era. For decades, the paper included heavy doses of crime and sensationalism, along with crusading zeal for social change.
Its early opposition and criticism of the Nazi regime saw the paper become the first North American paper to be banned in Germany by its government.
Beginning in the mid-1950s, the Star sought increased respectability by elevating professional standards and avoiding the sensational excesses of the past. It hired some of the country's most respected journalists and advocated expansion of the welfare state.
In 1971, the Toronto Daily Star was re-named the Toronto Star and moved to a modern office tower at One Yonge Street and Queens Quay. The new building originally housed the paper's presses. The printing plant was moved outside the city to Vaughan in 1992. The original Star Building at 80 King Street West was demolished.
On September 5, 2006, The Star launched Star P.M., a free newspaper in PDF format that may be downloaded from the newspaper's website each weekday beginning at 3:30 pm.
Atkinson Principles
Shortly before his death in 1948, Atkinson transferred ownership of the paper to a charitable organization given the mandate of continuing the paper's liberal tradition. Ontario's Conservative government passed a law barring charitable organizations from owning large parts of profit-making businesses. The law required the Star to be sold. The five trustees of the charitable organization circumvented the law by buying the paper themselves and swearing before The Ontario Supreme Court to continue the Atkinson Principles:
- A strong, united and independent Canada
- Social justice
- Individual and civil liberties
- Community and civic engagement
- The rights of working people
- The necessary role of government
Descendants of the original owners, known as "the five families", still control the voting shares of Torstar. And The Atkinson Principles continue to guide the paper to this day. Recent editorials have been headlined "Fairness for the deaf" and "Public policy fuelling poverty." In February, 2006, Star media columnist Antonia Zerbisias wrote on her blog: "we all have the Atkinson Principles—and its multi-culti values—tattooed on our butts. Fine with me. At least we are upfront about our values, and they almost always work in favour of building a better Canada."
Editorial position
Proudly Liberal, the Star remains to the left of centre in the Canadian context. Its precise position in the political spectrum — especially in relation to one of its principal competitors, The Globe and Mail — is hotly disputed. The paper finds room for left-leaning columnists and op-ed commentators who would be consigned to more marginal publications or websites in the United States. The paper was long a voice of Canadian nationalism and vigorously opposed free trade with the United States in the 1980s.
Editorial positions sometimes surprise readers. The Star was an early opponent of the Iraq War and sharply criticizes most policies of George W. Bush, but supported Canadian participation in U.S. continental missile defense. Recent editorials have denounced political correctness at Canadian universities and opposed proportional representation.
The paper has almost always endorsed the Liberal Party federally. The Star was the only major daily to do so in the 2006 federal election while many of the other major papers endorsed the Conservatives. The Star has never endorsed the social-democratic New Democratic Party, though it came close to doing so provincially in 1990. The paper endorsed the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario in many of the provincial elections from the 1940s to the 1980s. (Star journalist Claire Hoy coined the nickname "Big Blue Machine" in 1971 to describe the PC political organization which frequently ran on a moderate agenda.)
That said, today few major North American dailies are further to the left than the Star. But the paper's editorialists and columnists usually avoid strident advocacy of radical social change. They prefer incremental reform, fuelled by earnest exhortation and appeals to compassion. Supporters praise the Star 's continuing commitment to its founding principles, applauding its ability to attract a large readership for many stories unlikely to be printed elsewhere.
Detractors call the newspaper "the only paper in the world edited by a dead man" (a derisive reference to The Atkinson Principles), or target formulaic "sob sister" stories that focus on the plight of the poor and downtrodden. In recent years, critics have even revived a previous put-down, "The Red Star", alleging (not without reason) that the paper is a mouthpiece of the Liberal Party. This stems from how the paper has been a vocal proponent of almost every major Liberal policy (with the recent exception being the Star's support of a $10 minimum wage, advocated by the provincial NDP).
Strikingly, the board of the paper's parent company, Torstar, includes business leaders, a former president of the University of Toronto, a former Supreme Court of Canada justice and a former executive of The New York Times. As well, the Star is the only Canadian newspaper that employs a public editor (ombudsman). Other notable features include an immigration/diversity reporter, a community editorial board, and charitable campaigns that solicit contributions from readers.
Features
The Star says it favours an inclusive, "big tent" approach, not wishing to attract one group of readers at the expense of others. It publishes special sections for Chinese New Year and Gay Pride Week, along with weekly sections entitled Condo Living and Shopping. Each day's newspaper is thick, often running to six or more ad-stuffed sections. A particular strength is local coverage of Toronto. In recent years, the newspaper has promoted "a new deal for cities." In October 2006, the Star launched a new annual competition, called Greater Toronto's Top 50 Employers, to profile the best places to work in the Greater Toronto Area.
Competitive position
With four conventional dailies and two free commuter papers in a greater metropolitan area of about 5.5 million inhabitants, Toronto is the most competitive newspaper city in North America. The advent of The National Post in 1998 shook up the market. In the upheaval that followed, editorial spending increased and there was much hiring and firing of editors and publishers. Readers, advertisers and reporters benefited from the fierce competition; shareholders arguably did not.
Unlike some of its competitors, The Toronto Star has been profitable in most recent years. But margins have declined and some losses have been recorded. In 2006, several financial analysts expressed dissatisfaction with The Star 's performance and downgraded their recommendations on the stock of its parent company, Torstar. In October 2006, the publisher and editor-in-chief of The Star were replaced amid reports of boardroom battles about the direction of the company. Torstar announced 85 layoffs just before Christmas, 2006. But Toronto newspapers, including The Star, have yet to undergo the large-scale layoffs that have hit almost every other North American market in the last few years.
The residual strength of the the Star is its commanding circulation lead in Ontario. The paper remains a "must buy" for most advertisers. Some competing papers consistently lose money, are only marginally profitable, or do not break out earnings in a way that makes comparison possible. In common with many papers, the Star has long been criticized for inflating circulation through bulk sales at discount rates.
Management
Publishers
- Joseph E. Atkinson (1899-1948)
- Joseph S. Atkinson (1948-1966)
- Beland Honderich (1966-1998)
- John Honderich (1998-2004)
- Michael Goldbloom (2004-2006)
- Jagoda Pike (2006-Present)
Current executives and editors
Editorial
- J. Fred Kuntz - Editor-in-Chief
- Robert Hepburn - Editorial Page Editor
- Sharon Burnside - Public Editor
- Joe Hall - Deputy Editor
- Phil Bingley - Executive Editor
Business management
- Peter Bishop - VP Corporate Development
- Wayne S. Clifton - VP Advertising
- Brian R. Daly - VP Human Resources
- James K. Fealy - VP Finance
- Gregory T. Loewen - VP Digital Media & Strategy
- Edward A. MacLeod - VP Consumer Marketing
- Glenn P. Simmonds - VP Production
News Section
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Current columnists
News and op-ed columnists
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Notable former columnists
- Pierre Berton
- Greg Clarke
- Nathan Cohen
- Milt Dunnell
- Graham Fraser
- Ernest Hemingway
- Naomi Klein
- Michele Landsberg
- Duncan MacPherson
- Lou Marsh
- Peter C. Newman
- Robert Service
- Walter Stewart
- Charles Templeton
Among its best known current columnists are Geoff Baker, Linwood Barclay, Rosie Dimanno, Carol Goar, Linda McQuaig, Cleo Paskal, Ellie Tesher, Thomas Walkom, and Antonia Zerbisias.
Superman and the Star
Joe Shuster, one of the two creators of Superman, worked for the Star as a paperboy in the 1920s. Shuster named Clark Kent's paper The Daily Star in honour of The Toronto Daily Star. The name of Kent's paper was later changed to The Daily Planet.
See also
- Old Toronto Star Building
- One Yonge Street - Current office space of the paper
- Star Media Group
- Metroland Media Group - Largest division of company
- Torstar - Parent Company to The Toronto Star
References and external links
- Atkinson Biography, Government of Canada website http://collections.ic.gc.ca/heirloom_series/volume4/88-91.htm
- The Toronto Star
- History of the Toronto Star.
- Harkness, Ross (1963) J.E. Atkinson of the Star, Toronto: University of Toronto Press
- Templeton, Charles (1983). Charles Templeton, an anecdotal memoir. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart. ISBN 0-7710-8545-1.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters:|accessyear=,|origmonth=,|accessmonth=,|month=,|chapterurl=,|origdate=, and|coauthors=(help) - Trista Vincent (1999). "Manufacturing Concern". Ryerson Review of Journalism (Spring): –.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) - Walkom, Thomas (1994) Rae Days, Toronto: Key Porter Books, ISBN 1-55013-598-8
- The Atkinson Principles
- Star article about Superman and the Star