Canadian Newspapers Holding Their Own Despite Doubts

A couple weeks ago, the Toronto Star’s David Olive reported newspapers are not only still profitable, but also readership is at record levels. In fact, StatsCan said the pre-tax profit margin for Canadian newspapers last year averaged out to be 9.9 per cent, and 77 per cent of Canadian adults read a print or online version of the newspaper each week.

The Guardian’s Roy Greenslade blogged about Olive’s article the very next day, and he went so far as to say that Canada is possibly “about to defy the trend in the rest of the west by becoming the last refuge for printed newspapers.” It’s a pretty bold statement coming from someone who lives in a nation where there are over a dozen daily, national newspapers.

According to Suzanne Raitt, vice-president of marketing at Newspapers Canada in an interview with the Star Phoenix, even Canadian newspapers’ online editions are faring better than the American counterparts in ad revenues, up 16 per cent and 8 per cent, respectively.

“…more than half of Canadians read the print product, but they also go for different reasons to all the other devices,” Raitt said.

On March 2, the Financial Post reported revenues at Star Media of the Torstar Corp. (publisher of the dailies including Toronto Star and Metroland) at $416 million, well above the estimated $397 million.

And you thought newspapers were doomed…

TODAY: writer Trevor Cole

Trevor Cole specializes in long-form magazine stories, having been a magazine editor at the Globe & Mail, a senior staff writer at Report on Business magazine, and writer for Toronto Life magazine. He has written three novels: Norman Bray in the Performance of his Life (2004), The Fearsome Particles (2006), and Practical Jean (2010).

Janet Malcolm: “The Journalist and the Murderer” (The New Yorker, 1989)

“This magnum opus had to be split into two parts in order to fit into the magazine (and was later published as a book). It details the personalities and circumstances around the lawsuit of convicted murderer Jeffrey MacDonald against journalist Joe McGinniss, whose non-fiction account of MacDonald’s life and murder trial, Fatal Vision, depicted MacDonald as a sociopathic killer. For anyone interested in long-form journalism, Malcolm’s piece — beginning with the line, “Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible” — offers a complete immersion into the issue of journalistic ethics and a fascinating analysis of the problematic relationship between journalist and subject. When it was first published, it was inhaled by every serious journalist, and for young writers, it’s a goldmine of insight.”

Jonathan Harr: “The Burial”(The New Yorker, 1999)

“This piece profiled Mississippi lawyer Willie Gary and the lawsuit he fought and won against the huge Canadian funeral home company, The Loewen Group. To me, this story is the whole package: a terrific profile of the main protagonist in this drama, Willie Gary, a great narrative, and an in-depth case study. It takes its time, like all the best New Yorker pieces, and it delivers a big, satisfying payoff (if you cheer for the underdog). The fact that the villain in the story is a Canadian company means that it was a story available to any Canadian journalist and any magazine willing to devote the money and space.”

Gene Weingarten: “The Peekaboo Paradox” (Washington Post Magazine, 2006)

“Some profiles, like Esquire‘s undoubtedly great piece “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,” take on greater significance because of the size and fame of the subject. But this Weingarten story is a fine example of what can happen with a relative unknown when a writer follows his instincts and digs past the obvious surface. It’s a profile of a children’s entertainer, The Great Zucchini. What starts as an amusing story about a guy who makes big money hitting himself with balloons and wearing soiled diapers on his head becomes something much larger and darker as the writer looks harder. Why is The Great Zucchini always unshaven? Why is he so short of cash? But most important, to me, is that the writer never leaps to judgment. He approaches his subject with a clear, unbiased eye, and that allows him to get to the heart of a story that is, in the end, quite tragic.”

(Editor’s Note: Both of the New Yorker stories are only accessible by subscription)

At 12:25 p.m. on February 11, the biggest breaking news worldwide was of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s resignation. In that moment, not only was the news consistent within the national and local newspapers’ websites, but also the accompanying photograph.

Photographer Suhaib Salem’s Reuters picture of a crowd of enthralled men in Egypt was canvassed—to give specific examples—on the websites of the Globe & Mail, the Toronto Star, the National Post, and even local newsie the Toronto Sun.

It’s a good photo. The facial expression—most notably the eyes—of the man featured in the centre is impossible to ignore. It’s not Mr. Suhaib’s photo that needs review here: it’s the undeniable ubiquity of wire services in our news coverage.

Hopefully one day our national newspapers (the local ones are off the hook here) will be able to prioritize and afford to send their own photographers/reporters to the breaking news scenes around the world without giving into the short-term fix of wire services. Then it will be easier to see which paper is presenting the news, and not which wire service.

TODAY: journalist and author Craig Silverman 

Craig Silverman is the digital journalism director at OpenFile.ca, as well as managing editor of PBS MediaShift. He also writes a weekly column for the Columbia Journalism Review. He has written two books: Regret the Error published in 2007, and Mafiaboy, a memoir which he co-wrote with the book’s subject Micahel Calcep published in 2009.

Gay Talese: The Kingdom and the Power: Behind the Scenes at The New York Times: The Institution That Influences the World (1969) 

“This is the story of The New York Times, as written by one of the greatest non-fiction writers of all time, who also happened to have been—at one point—a reporter at The NY Times. I picked it because it’s a wonderful mish-mash of things. You have fantastic storytelling. You have the story of one of the greatest journalism institutions of all time. It’s all rolled up into one package and told by a legendary narrative, non-fiction journalist. It’s fascinating, but it tells a lot about the ways of how the media used to be.”

Jay Rosen and Dave Winer: Rebooting the News 

“It’s a podcast run by two people, Jay Rosen and Dave Winer. Rosen is a professor of journalism at New York University and one of the leading thinkers in journalism — as far as I’m concerned —when it comes to citizen journalism, future models of journalism, and really what journalists should be doing and how we should be serving the profession and the public. Winer is a programmer but he’s also the guy who invented RSS. He was a very early blogger. Between the two of them, the combination is some really unique, original thinking about the world of news, journalism, journalists, computer programming, the internet and the network world. It’s something that puts a lot of important elements together in one place.”

Shattered Glass (2003)

“Obviously, I’m going to pick something that has to do with accuracy or fact-checking. Number one, it’s a film that doesn’t feel like you’re watching homework. It’s actually a film that is enjoyable and well done, but tells a lot about fact-checking, the failures of fact-checking and how these failures and weaknesses are easily exploited. It also communicates that fact-checking is not a foolproof process, no matter what you do. Ultimately, the responsibility comes on us, the journalists. We can’t outsource it to fact-checkers or to copy editors or to other people, and I think that’s a good message for journalists to come away with.”