I agree totally that Post media is nothing but a right wing rag, almost far right. It is dangerous because of its local dailies scope. It’s not even a good business (this from a former newspaper owner who knows a bit about the media business). One caveat about this column: the Globe & Mail was never a Liberal paper. It endorsed the Conservatives in 4 elections from 2006 to 2019. The Star is a Liberal paper although it did endorse the NDP once. As a matter of fact, most Canadian dailies have endorsed the Conservatives in most elections since 2006. Therefore there is no need for Postmedia’s right wing shit.
The Star has been moving subtly rightward ever since Conservative donors bamboozled the family owners into selling it. They summarily dismissed/demoted Irene Gentle and replaced her with Annemarie Owens, former editor of, you guessed it, the National Post. Then PostMedia tried to outright buy the Star (but were thwarted, for now) because apparently it felt that the partial lobotomy given to it via the C-suite was not enough. There is no need for right wing shit period, whether it comes from the actual PostMedia masthead, PostMedia in disguise as Liberals, or PostMedia mimicry from the Globe & Mail.
There may be a market for bullshit but that doesn't mean it has to be packaged as "news". 90% of Canadian media belongs in the infotainment section and that goes for CTV and Global too. CBC is tragically hapless in that it has a mandate to be balanced but just ends up following the race to the bottom as set by the standard of the others. Perhaps the Conservatives should try not adopting baffling with bullshit as their comms strategy, such that intelligent critiques of their bullshit aren't continually labeled as "partisanship." Every party does a degree of spin, but the Conservatives and their pet press are in the business of lying, whether through obfuscation, torquing (Bob Fife's preferred terminology for his hackery) or whataboutism, for fun and profit.
You are definitely right. Postmedia has become a propaganda arm of mis- and disinformation more than anything else. After, they are surprising that their readership is constantly down.
Postmedia has become an arm of the CPC and most likely why the polls are the way they are right now. Not one mention is made of the fact that most Premiers demanded more immigration to combat labour shortages by there's a constant refrain of those immigrants being abandoned by Trudeau's government. This isn't coincidence. This is a strategy by Conservative Premiers and Postmedia. No different than Doug Ford hiding during O'Toole's election and during the Ottawa siege. The goal was to force Trudeau into using the EA in hopes it would be seen as overreach and his government would fall. Ford may be a fool but the people advising him aren't. They know exactly what they are doing. This is big business deciding they don't want to wait for lower taxes, more profits and privatizing a lot of what Canada has left. Harper started the game and now the CPC and their backers want to finish it.
PostMedia might be the worst offender, but it's arguably just one of the more infected boils on the body politic. The CPC and its provincial offshoots are not acting in the best interest of ordinary Canadians, and their propaganda arms are there to bamboozle the public into rejecting governments which are. PostMedia is American-owned, GOP lies, but the cancer doesn't end there. Globe & Mail CEO Phillip Crawley was a protege of Rupert Murdoch's. Editor David Walmsley was responsible for the infamous "Conservatives minus Harper" endorsement. It reflects the interests of its ownership, the richest family in Canada, the Thomson trust, which also owns Reuters wire service. Ted Rogers is a friend of none other than Donald Trump's. Global fired Rachel Gilmore for getting under Poilievre's skin and kept that libelous hack Sam Cooper on board until it legally no longer could. The near entirety of Canada's media landscape is in the tank for the Conservatives, whether overtly or surreptitiously as reflected in their spineless "both sides" coverage and kid-gloves treatment of the CPC/UCP/ONPC/etc while hammering the Liberals relentlessly. It is not fair and balanced as Fox News' Orwellian slogan would have gullible audiences believe. The whole apparatus needs to be gutted before the whole of Canada is sold off part and parcel to the highest bidder by the public tricked into voting against its own interests.
I'm with you 100% with regards to the National Post. It has wreaked havoc on the media landscape; cities like Montreal, Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton (to cite only the cities I know best) have effectively been deprived local newspapers - at least in English. Thankfully, Montreal and Ottawa still have French papers.
I don't know what planet you live on, but on mine the Toronto Star was always the Liberal rag (and avowed enemy of the NDP) and the Globe & Mail was the PC rag - although that has been sorely tested by the merger of PC and Reform Alliance into the CRAP.
As usual I appreciate the sentiment but I don't think the government can do this even with anti-competition laws and so on. Postmedia is just terrible on all levels so we have to hope they keep losing money and that the debt is too much for the hedge fund and the papers shut down. Thankfully we do still have decent media outlets out there so it's not all over.
Speaking of QC outlets, they're on an anti-Poilievre tear these days, so it's really up to Ontario if we get a CPC government I guess.
Vote with your eyeballs (with apologies to Lenin). If you don't like PostMedia's stuff, stop reading it. If enough people do that, PostMedia will close down.
Mind you, it won't bring back the local news sources. But those seem to be closing, whether they are owned by PostMedia or not. (See BCE's recent closure of local radio stations.) The only hope for local news and engagement are social media groups (hi there, link tax), truly local community newspapers, i.e. at the neighborhood level (they still exist), and newsletters like this one.
We have to accept that traditional media, supported by broadly based advertising, are dead or dying. Blame technology.
I had an online subscription to Nat Post for several years. Gave it up about 3 years back mainly because the amount of news content was decreasing and being replaced by opinion content. And the headlines on the opinion content was increasingly clickbait. Couple that with the constant pop up ads which made it the content difficult to read and I'd had enough.
I worked in a small city in Northern Ontario for long periods a few years ago & continued to read the local (Postmedia owned) online newspaper after I came home. Have almost given that up also, since there has been a format change and it's now become 'headline news' for the whole region with little content from the city I was interested in.
I agree totally that Post media is nothing but a right wing rag, almost far right. It is dangerous because of its local dailies scope. It’s not even a good business (this from a former newspaper owner who knows a bit about the media business). One caveat about this column: the Globe & Mail was never a Liberal paper. It endorsed the Conservatives in 4 elections from 2006 to 2019. The Star is a Liberal paper although it did endorse the NDP once. As a matter of fact, most Canadian dailies have endorsed the Conservatives in most elections since 2006. Therefore there is no need for Postmedia’s right wing shit.
The Star has been moving subtly rightward ever since Conservative donors bamboozled the family owners into selling it. They summarily dismissed/demoted Irene Gentle and replaced her with Annemarie Owens, former editor of, you guessed it, the National Post. Then PostMedia tried to outright buy the Star (but were thwarted, for now) because apparently it felt that the partial lobotomy given to it via the C-suite was not enough. There is no need for right wing shit period, whether it comes from the actual PostMedia masthead, PostMedia in disguise as Liberals, or PostMedia mimicry from the Globe & Mail.
"No Need"? According to you? Is that the standard for a free press?
What newspapers did you own? Who decided if there was a need for them?
There may be a market for bullshit but that doesn't mean it has to be packaged as "news". 90% of Canadian media belongs in the infotainment section and that goes for CTV and Global too. CBC is tragically hapless in that it has a mandate to be balanced but just ends up following the race to the bottom as set by the standard of the others. Perhaps the Conservatives should try not adopting baffling with bullshit as their comms strategy, such that intelligent critiques of their bullshit aren't continually labeled as "partisanship." Every party does a degree of spin, but the Conservatives and their pet press are in the business of lying, whether through obfuscation, torquing (Bob Fife's preferred terminology for his hackery) or whataboutism, for fun and profit.
You are definitely right. Postmedia has become a propaganda arm of mis- and disinformation more than anything else. After, they are surprising that their readership is constantly down.
You are correct Mr Scrimshaw … what can citizens that agree with you do? I don’t want this defining outcome of my beloved country.
You got that. Well said.
Postmedia has become an arm of the CPC and most likely why the polls are the way they are right now. Not one mention is made of the fact that most Premiers demanded more immigration to combat labour shortages by there's a constant refrain of those immigrants being abandoned by Trudeau's government. This isn't coincidence. This is a strategy by Conservative Premiers and Postmedia. No different than Doug Ford hiding during O'Toole's election and during the Ottawa siege. The goal was to force Trudeau into using the EA in hopes it would be seen as overreach and his government would fall. Ford may be a fool but the people advising him aren't. They know exactly what they are doing. This is big business deciding they don't want to wait for lower taxes, more profits and privatizing a lot of what Canada has left. Harper started the game and now the CPC and their backers want to finish it.
You didn’t know any of this? 90% of msm is clearly tory. Star is falling right.
PostMedia might be the worst offender, but it's arguably just one of the more infected boils on the body politic. The CPC and its provincial offshoots are not acting in the best interest of ordinary Canadians, and their propaganda arms are there to bamboozle the public into rejecting governments which are. PostMedia is American-owned, GOP lies, but the cancer doesn't end there. Globe & Mail CEO Phillip Crawley was a protege of Rupert Murdoch's. Editor David Walmsley was responsible for the infamous "Conservatives minus Harper" endorsement. It reflects the interests of its ownership, the richest family in Canada, the Thomson trust, which also owns Reuters wire service. Ted Rogers is a friend of none other than Donald Trump's. Global fired Rachel Gilmore for getting under Poilievre's skin and kept that libelous hack Sam Cooper on board until it legally no longer could. The near entirety of Canada's media landscape is in the tank for the Conservatives, whether overtly or surreptitiously as reflected in their spineless "both sides" coverage and kid-gloves treatment of the CPC/UCP/ONPC/etc while hammering the Liberals relentlessly. It is not fair and balanced as Fox News' Orwellian slogan would have gullible audiences believe. The whole apparatus needs to be gutted before the whole of Canada is sold off part and parcel to the highest bidder by the public tricked into voting against its own interests.
I'm with you 100% with regards to the National Post. It has wreaked havoc on the media landscape; cities like Montreal, Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton (to cite only the cities I know best) have effectively been deprived local newspapers - at least in English. Thankfully, Montreal and Ottawa still have French papers.
I don't know what planet you live on, but on mine the Toronto Star was always the Liberal rag (and avowed enemy of the NDP) and the Globe & Mail was the PC rag - although that has been sorely tested by the merger of PC and Reform Alliance into the CRAP.
Thank goodness The Post continues to give Terry Glavin some space...for now.
Hi Evan,
As usual I appreciate the sentiment but I don't think the government can do this even with anti-competition laws and so on. Postmedia is just terrible on all levels so we have to hope they keep losing money and that the debt is too much for the hedge fund and the papers shut down. Thankfully we do still have decent media outlets out there so it's not all over.
Speaking of QC outlets, they're on an anti-Poilievre tear these days, so it's really up to Ontario if we get a CPC government I guess.
Anxiously awaiting the predicted insolvency, but like everything with them it could be a lie.
It’s podcasts for me with journalists I trust
Vote with your eyeballs (with apologies to Lenin). If you don't like PostMedia's stuff, stop reading it. If enough people do that, PostMedia will close down.
Mind you, it won't bring back the local news sources. But those seem to be closing, whether they are owned by PostMedia or not. (See BCE's recent closure of local radio stations.) The only hope for local news and engagement are social media groups (hi there, link tax), truly local community newspapers, i.e. at the neighborhood level (they still exist), and newsletters like this one.
We have to accept that traditional media, supported by broadly based advertising, are dead or dying. Blame technology.
I had an online subscription to Nat Post for several years. Gave it up about 3 years back mainly because the amount of news content was decreasing and being replaced by opinion content. And the headlines on the opinion content was increasingly clickbait. Couple that with the constant pop up ads which made it the content difficult to read and I'd had enough.
I worked in a small city in Northern Ontario for long periods a few years ago & continued to read the local (Postmedia owned) online newspaper after I came home. Have almost given that up also, since there has been a format change and it's now become 'headline news' for the whole region with little content from the city I was interested in.
Opinion costs a lot less than reporting facts. No wonder the former has replaced the latter.
Yep :-)