User:Oceanflynn/sandbox/Timeline of events related to media objectivity (Canada)

Timeline of events related to media objectivity in Canada

Media objectivity in Canada is a timeline in reverse chronological order.


 * May 26, 2020 In the wake of a crisis of revenue which had resulted in the staff cuts and the closing of a number of its newspapers, the publisher of the Toronto Star, John Honderich announced the $CDN52-million sale of Torstar Corporation, to Nordstar Capital LP, which is controlled by Jordan Bitove, a "private equity fund manager", and Paul Rivett. The sale was backed by Torstar's shareholders, including its largest shareholder, Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited, where Rivett served as president for 17 years until his February 2020 retirement.  The sale means that the public company will now be private. While the new owners lack direct publishing experience, their wealth is "substantial" and their success in investments has a proven record. At the time of the sale, along with the Toronto Star, Torstar owned the "Hamilton Spectator, Waterloo Region Record, St. Catharines Standard, three other dailies and some 70 weeklies."


 * By 2016, the Postmedia Network, with Paul Godfrey as its director, owned the majority of Canada's newspapers. A 2016 Globe and Mail article, said that Godfrey's company was "principally owned by New York hedge funds" that did not operated as a "hands-off player". The article cited as examples, the 2015 Canadian federal election, where advertisements for former Prime Minister, Stephen Harper were featured on the "entire front page" of Godfrey's Postmedia's major papers.


 * 2006 A Senate of Canada committee produced a "comprehensive report on the state of the media" in Canada.


 * January 1, 1998 an article entitled "The End of News: How the News Is Being Swamped by Information, Manipulation and Entertainment. And How This is a Threat to Open, Democratic Society" was published in the Canadian Journal of Communication.


 * By 1997, Conrad Black owned 60 out of 105 of Canada's daily newspapers. Journalist, Barbara Amiel provided content. The 1997 non-fiction, co-authored by Maude Barlow—The big Black book: the essential views of Conrad and Barbara Amiel Black —said that the "content of their often controversial views, disseminated to millions of homes each day, should be of great concern to Canadians."


 * In 1981, then Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau commissioned the Kent Commission to investigate the media.


 * 1980 Canada’s competition law watchdog sparked a federal enquiry into a corporate takeover of two newspapers companies (Hackett and Zhao 1998:5).


 * 1977 The Toronto Star holding company, which had been formed in 1976, was renamed Torstar Corporation. The Toronto Star became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Torstar.


 * In 1972, K.C. Irving changed his residence status to Bermuda. His newspaper holdings were transferred to his sons. The case against them proceeded but it was overruled by by the Supreme Court on the grounds that the plaintiff had failed to prove that the monopoly had caused "public detriment" "beyond a reasonable doubt".


 * In the 1971, the Supreme Court of Canada case Regina v. K.C. Irving Ltd., Moncton Publishing Co., New Brunswick Publishing Co. and University Press of New Brunswick Ltd., K. C. Irving Limited was charged for running a "running a de facto monopoly" under the Combines Investigation Act.


 * 1969 In March 1969, Senator Charles McElman informed the Canadian Senate that K. C. Irving had purchased the fifth New Brunswick newspaper. In response, then Prime Minister Trudeau appointed Senator Keith Davey to head a commission with a mandate to investigate "problems surrounding media concentration, particularly in print media ownership." The report produced by the Special Senate Committee on the Mass Media, known as the Davey Commission report on the media "sparked debate on media ownership vs. freedom of the press". Irving appeared at the Committee's hearings.


 * May 1968 When the New Brunswick industrialist K. C. Irving, purchased the Fredericton, New Brunswick newspaper,  Daily Gleaner, quietly became the owner of all five daily newspapers published in New Brunswick—Telegraph-Journal , the Evening Times-Globe, the Moncton Times andTranscript.


 * 1956 The five trustees of the Atkinson Foundation purchased the Star for over $CDN25 million in order to comply with the province of Ontario's 1949 Charitable Gifts Act that had limited charities to limit their business interests to 10% or less, and which gave charities until 1956 to divest of their existing business investments. The five trustees were J.S. Atkinson, Ruth Atkinson Hindmarsh, W.J. Campbell, Dr. B.M. Thall and Beland Honderich.


 * May 8, 1948 The owner of the precurser of the Toronto Star, the The Star Weekly—Joseph E. Atkinson—left the newspaper to the Atkinson Charitable Foundation in his will.


 * 1899 Thirty-four year old journalist, Joseph E. Atkinson, was appointed editor of the Evening Star, a paper purchased by then Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier's admirers as a vehicle for supporting his premiership. Although, Atkinson said the paper, under its new name—the Toronto Daily Star —"would be independent of any political party", under his direction the paper focused on the "interest and cares" of "ordinary working people". This included championing the mothers' allowances, unemployment insurance, old-age pensions, minimum wage, labour unions, and the "first phases" of Canada's national health plan. In effect, through the Star, Atkinson contributed to the development of "Canada's modern welfare system".


 * late 1800s According to the 1998 non-fiction book entitled Sustaining Democracy? Journalism and the Politics of Objectivity, the first version of media objectivity was in the form of popular commercial daily papers.