National Post
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The National Post is a major Canadian English language national newspaper based in Toronto.
History
The Post was founded in 1998 by Conrad Black to combat what he saw as an 'over-liberalizing' of editorial policy in Canadian newspapers. Black built the new paper around the existing Financial Post, an established business-oriented newspaper in Toronto which he purchased from Sun Media in 1997. (Financial Post was retained as the name of the new paper's business section.)From the beginning the Post has had a strongly conservative editorial stance, and has an editorial page featuring the writings of many prominent neo-conservatives and libertarians from the United States and Canada, including Diane Francis, Andrew Coyne, Mark Steyn and David Frum. This stance is typically mocked by those who refer to the paper as the "Fascist Post" or the "Zionist Post". (The Daily Telegraph in the UK, also owned by Black, was similarly described as the Tel Avivagraph for its pro-Israel stance.) A number of newspaper stands in Toronto holding the National Post for sale have been vandalized with these statements.
The Post's unique graphic and layout design have won numerous style awards over the years. It's a retro look — with echoes of 1930s design — jazzed up with eye-catching touches, such as oversized headlines, layering of multi-coloured type, reverse type, and jarring colours.
In 2001 the paper was sold to CanWest Global Communications, run by Israel Asper until his death in 2003. CanWest Global also owns the Global Television Network, and there has been heavy cross-promotion between the two since then.
CanWest Global and the Post are now managed by Asper's sons, Leonard and David. The Aspers openly admit that they control the editorial content of the paper. One of the family's most notorious positions is its longstanding view that the CBC(Canada's public broadcaster) should be dismantled because of its supposed anti-Israel reportage. The paper has become somewhat less conservative under the Aspers' watch, as they have long been strong supporters of the Liberal Party. However, the paper endorsed the Conservative Party of Canada in the 2006 election, and Leonard Asper appeared with Conservative leader Stephen Harper on the campaign trail.
The paper has been a victim of high staff turnover. In the seven years that the paper has been in operation, it has had seven different publishers. Most recently, a former editor of the Toronto Sun, Les Pyette, was hired to help increase circulation. However, Pyette left the paper in July, 2005 along with columnist Rachel Marsden. Award winning columnist Cleo Paskal left in August to join the Toronto Star. National Newspaper Award winner Andrew McIntosh quit the paper in March 2005 to join The Sacramento Bee in California, while Bill Curry joined The Globe and Mail, Sean Gordon joined the Toronto Star and Robert Fife joined CTV as its Ottawa bureau chief (all in 2005). There were at least a dozen other staff defections under editor Matthew Fraser, who was replaced by Doug Kelly.
The Post
On May 19, 2006, the newspaper ran two pieces alleging that the Iranian parliament had passed a law requiring religious minorities to wear special identifying badges. One piece was a front page news item titled "IRAN EYES BADGES FOR JEWS" accompanied by a 1935 picture of two Jews bearing Nazi insignia. Later on the same day experts began coming forward to deny the accuracy of the Post story. The story proved to be false, but not before it had been picked up by a variety of other news media and generated comment from world leaders. Comments on the story by the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper caused Iran to summon Canada's ambassador to Tehran for an explanation. On May 24, 2006, the Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper, Doug Kelly, published an apology for the story on Page 2, admitting that it was false and the National Post had not exercised enough caution or checked enough sources.[link]
See also
External link
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