The Gazette (Montreal)

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For other newspapers with this title, see The Gazette.

Offices of The Gazette on Saint Catherine Street in Montreal

The Gazette, often called The Montreal Gazette to avoid ambiguity, is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Montreal, Quebec.

In 1778, Fleury Mesplet founded a French-language newspaper called Gazette Littéraire de Montréal. This paper was shut down in 1779, with Mesplet and the editor, Valentin Jautard, being imprisoned. Mesplet began a second weekly in 1785, the Gazette de Montréal, which was the direct ancestor of today's Gazette. The Gazette has evolved from a French language newspaper to a dual French/English format to the commonly known English only paper.

For many years, the Montreal Gazette was caught in a three-way fight with the Montreal Herald and the Montreal Star. The Gazette tended to be second in circulation, eclipsed by the Montreal Star, which had a high circulation in the city, and, in the first half of the 20th century, had a major national presence. However, the Montreal Star, then part of the FP chain (which owned the Globe and Mail and the Winnipeg Free Press), was hit by a long strike action and ceased publication forever in 1979, less than a year after the strike was settled.

During the 1990s, a competing English language daily was started up, the Montreal Daily News, which used tabloid-sized paper instead of broadsheet, and introduced a Sunday edition, forcing the Gazette to respond. After the Montreal Daily News folded, the Gazette kept the Sunday edition going.

For most of the 20th century, the Gazette was owned by the Southam family. Today, the Gazette's audience is primarily the anglophone and allophone communities which account for about 47% of the population of the Island of Montreal. Numerous francophones also read English; more than half of the population of Montreal is bilingual. Recently, the newspaper has aggressively targeted bilingual francophone (French mother tongue) professionals and adjusted their "culture" coverage accordingly.

It is owned by CanWest Global Communications.

Past and present Gazette personalities

• Aislin
• Nick Auf der Maur
• Dave Bist
• T'cha Dunlevy
• Michael Farber
• Joan Fraser
• Pat Hickey
• William Johnson
• Dane Lanken
• L. Ian McDonald
• Joseph A. Schwarcz
• Tommy Schumacher
• Jack Todd
• Norman Webster
• Paul Wells

See also

• List of Quebec media

External link

• [Official website]

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