It is the only English-language daily newspaper currently published in its eponymous city. Three other daily English-language newspapers shuttered at various times during the second half of the 20th century. It is one of the French-speaking province's last two English-language dailies; the other is the Sherbrooke Record, which serves the anglophone community in Sherbrooke and the Eastern Townships southeast of Montreal.
Founded in 1778 by Fleury Mesplet, The Gazette is Quebec's oldest daily newspaper and the oldest continuously published newspaper in Canada.[3][circular reference] The oldest newspaper overall is the English-language Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph, which was established in 1764 and is published weekly.
Fleury Mesplet founded a French-language weekly newspaper called La Gazette du commerce et littéraire, pour la ville et district de Montréal on June 3, 1778.[4] It was the first entirely French-language newspaper in Canada.[4] The paper did not accept advertising aside for the various books that Mesplet also published. The articles were meant to promote discussion, and it focused on literature and philosophy, as well as various anecdotal articles, poems and letters.[4]Benjamin Franklin encouraged Mesplet to found the newspaper to persuade Canadians to join the American Revolution.[5] A secret resolution of Congress dispatched Mesplat and his printing equipment to Canada in February 1776 "to establish a free press...for the frequent publication of such pieces as may be of service to the cause of the United Colonies."[6] Mesplet, an immigrant from France, had previously lived in Philadelphia and supported the Americans when they occupied Montreal during the war. The newspaper was shut down in 1779 when Mesplet and the editor, Valentin Jautard, were arrested for sedition and imprisoned for three years.
Mesplet began a second weekly, The Montreal Gazette / La Gazette de Montréal, on August 25, 1785, which had a dual French-English bilingual format similar to that used by the Quebec Gazette.[4] Its offices were located in the house of Joseph Lemoyne de Longueuil on rue de la Capitale.[7] French columns were in the left-hand column and English columns in the right-hand column. The columns were originally written in French and translated to English by Valentin Jautard, who served as editor until his death in 1787.[4] The columns were mostly on education, religion, and literature, and after 1788 on politics.[4] Foreign and local news made up the rest of the paper. The paper took a Voltairian and anticlerical stance, wanted Quebec to have its own legislative assembly and sought to import the principles of the French Revolution to Quebec.[4] The newspaper also introduced advertising and announcements, taking up half of four pages. It is the direct ancestor of the current newspaper. The newspaper did well, and Mesplet's operation moved to Notre-Dame Street in 1787. Mesplet continued to operate the newspaper until his death in 1794.[4]
Following Mesplet's death, his widow published the newspaper for several issues, but the paper ceased publication soon after. Two rivals, Louis Roy and Edward Edwards fought over the right to publish the newspaper over the course of two years.[7] Edwards eventually won the printing press and newspaper and continued operations until his assets were seized in 1808.[7] The newspaper was then the property of James Brown for fourteen years. In 1822, it was sold to businessman Thomas Andrew Turner who converted into an English-only paper in 1822.[3][7] Under Turner, The Gazette identified with the interests of anglophone business leaders in their fight with the Patriote movement.[7]
On April 25, 1849, The Gazette published a special edition in which its editor-in-chief, James Moir Ferres, called the "Anglo-Saxon" residents to arms after Royal Assent of a compensation law for Lower Canada.[8] This was among the main events leading to the burning of the Parliament Buildings. Ferres was subsequently arrested, though soon released on bail and set free without trial.[9]
In 1939, The Gazette hired its first editorial cartoonist – John Collins, who worked a term of 43 years.[10]
In 1968, The Gazette was acquired by the Southam newspaper chain, which owned major dailies across Canada.[3]
For many years, The Gazette was caught in a three-way fight for the English newspaper audience in Montreal with the tabloid Montreal Herald and the broadsheet Montreal Star.[11]The Gazette was second in circulation to the Montreal Star, which sold more newspapers in the city and had a significant national reputation in the first half of the 20th century. The Montreal Herald closed in 1957, after publishing for 146 years. The Montreal Star, part of the FP Publications chain (which owned the Winnipeg Free Press and, at the time, The Globe and Mail), endured a long strike and ceased publication in 1979, less than a year after the strike was settled.
In 1988, a competing English-language daily, the Montreal Daily News, was launched. The Montreal Daily News adopted a tabloid format and introduced a Sunday edition, forcing The Gazette to respond. After the Montreal Daily News closed in 1989, after less than two years in operation, The Gazette kept its Sunday edition going until August 2010.
In 1996, the Southam papers were bought by Conrad Black's Hollinger Inc. Then in August 2000, Hollinger sold the Southam newspapers, including The Gazette, to Canwest Global Communications Corp., controlled by the Winnipeg-based Asper family. In 2010, a new media group, Postmedia, bought The Gazette and other papers from the financially troubled Canwest.[11]
To celebrate its 150th anniversary, The Gazette published a facsimile of one of its earliest issues. Much effort was made to use a type of paper that imitated 18th century paper, with fake chainlines and laidlines to make the paper look old.[12]
Today
Today, The Gazette's audience is primarily Quebec's English-speaking community. The Gazette is one of the three dailies published in Montreal, the other two being French-language newspapers: Le Journal de Montréal and Le Devoir. (La Presse is only published digitally since 2018.)
In recent years, The Gazette has stepped up efforts to reach bilingual francophone professionals and adjusted its coverage accordingly. The current editor-in-chief is Lucinda Chodan. The deputy editor is Basem Boshra and the associate managing editor is Jeff Blond.[1]
Logo used from 2014 to 2023
On April 30, 2013, Postmedia Network announced that it would be eliminating the role of publisher at each of its newspapers, including The Gazette. Instead, the company's 10 newspapers were overseen by regional publishers, one each for the Pacific, the Prairies and eastern Canada. Alan Allnutt, who was the publisher of The Gazette at the time, became the regional publisher of Postmedia's Alberta and Saskatchewan papers. Gerry Nott, publisher of the Ottawa Citizen, now also oversees The Gazette, the Windsor Star and Postmedia's flagship title, the National Post.[13] On May 5, 2014, it was announced that printing of The Gazette would be contracted out to Transcontinental Media in August 2014 and that the existing Notre-Dame-de-Grâce facility would be closed, resulting in a loss of 54 full-time and 61 part-time positions at the paper. The August 16, 2014, issue was the final issue printed by the Postmedia-owned facility.[14][15]
On October 21, 2014, The Gazette was relaunched as part of the Postmedia Reimagined project, adopting a similar look, and a similar suite of digital platforms, to its sister paper, the Ottawa Citizen, which had relaunched earlier in the year. As part of the relaunch, the paper was officially renamed the Montreal Gazette, reflecting its longstanding common name outside its city of publication (as well as its Web domain, montrealgazette.com). The paper had not included Montreal in its masthead in several years.[16]
With its December 1, 2023 issue, The Gazette once again dropped "Montreal" from its masthead and returned to its pre-2014 name and logo.[17]
Sections
Weekdays
Section A— Local, national and international news, opinion columns, editorials, editorial cartoon, letters to the editor, business news, sports news, arts and entertainment news
Section B— Sports (Mondays and Thursdays), Business (Tuesdays), Food (Wednesdays), Movies (Fridays)
Section C— Driving and classifieds (Mondays)
Saturday
Section A— Local, national and international news
Section B— Saturday Extra: Feature stories and opinion columns, editorials, editorial cartoon, letters to the editor
The Vancouver Sun, also known as the Sun, is a daily broadsheet newspaper based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The newspaper is currently published by the Pacific Newspaper Group, a division of Postmedia Network, and is the largest newspaper in western Canada by circulation. Since 2022, it is published five days a week from Tuesday to Saturday.
The National Post is a Canadian English-language broadsheet newspaper available in several cities in central and western Canada. The paper is the flagship publication of Postmedia Network and is published Mondays through Saturdays, with Monday released as a digital e-edition only. The newspaper is distributed in the provinces of Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia. Weekend editions of the newspaper are also distributed in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
Sun Media Corporation was the owner of several tabloid and broadsheet newspapers in Canada and the 49 percent owner of the now defunct Sun News Network. It was a subsidiary of Quebecor Media.
The Windsor Star is a daily newspaper based in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Owned by Postmedia Network, it is published Tuesdays through Saturdays.
La Presse, founded in 1884, is a French-language digital newspaper published daily in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is owned by an independent nonprofit trust.
The Ottawa Citizen is an English-language daily newspaper owned by Postmedia Network in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
The Sudbury Star is a Canadian daily regional newspaper published in Sudbury, Ontario. It is owned by the media company, Postmedia. It is the largest daily paper in Northeastern Ontario by circulation.
The Winnipeg Sun is a daily tabloid newspaper in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
The Calgary Herald is a daily newspaper published in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Publication began in 1883 as The Calgary Herald, Mining and Ranche Advocate, and General Advertiser. It is owned by the Postmedia Network.
24 Hours, is a group of English-language and French-language free daily newspapers published in Canada. It was published in French in Montreal and Gatineau, and in English in Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, Toronto, and Vancouver. The Gatineau edition was discontinued in 2008 and the Calgary, Edmonton, and Ottawa editions ceased publication in 2013. The Toronto and Vancouver editions were sold to Postmedia Network as part of Quebecor's divestment of English-language news, and they were later acquired by Torstar in an asset swap on November 27, 2017 and immediately shut down in favour of the Torstar-owned Metro papers in those cities.
The Times Colonist is an English-language daily newspaper in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. It was formed by the Sept. 2, 1980 merger of the Victoria Daily Times, established in 1884, and the British Colonist, established in 1858 by Amor De Cosmos who was later British Columbia's second Premier. The British Colonist was B.C.'s first paper "of any permanence". De Cosmos was the editor until 1866 when D.W. Higgins took over — he would remain in the role for the next twenty years.
The Edmonton Journal is a daily newspaper published in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It is part of the Postmedia Network.
The StarPhoenix is a daily newspaper that serves Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, and is a part of Postmedia Network. It has been referred to as a "sister newspaper" to the Leader-Post. The StarPhoenix puts out six editions each week and publishes one weekly, Bridges. It is also part of the canada.com web portal.
The North Bay Nugget is a newspaper published in North Bay, Ontario, Canada. The paper is currently owned by Postmedia.
The Montreal Star was an English-language Canadian newspaper published in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It closed in 1979 in the wake of an eight-month pressmen's strike.
The Sault Star is a Canadian broadsheet daily newspaper based in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. It is owned by Postmedia.
A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports, art, and science. They often include materials such as opinion columns, weather forecasts, reviews of local services, obituaries, birth notices, crosswords, editorial cartoons, comic strips, and advice columns.
Postmedia Network Canada Corp. is a foreign owned Canadian based media conglomerate consisting of the publishing properties of the former Canwest, with primary operations in English-language newspaper publishing, news gathering and Internet operations. It is best known for being the owner of the National Post and the Financial Post. The company is headquartered at Postmedia Place on Bloor Street in Toronto.
There were five important periods in the history of Canadian newspapers' responsible for the eventual development of the modern newspaper. These are the "Transplant Period" from 1750 to 1800, when printing and newspapers initially came to Canada as publications of government news and proclamations; followed by the "Partisan Period from 1800–1850," when individual printers and editors played a growing role in politics. The "Nation Building Period from 1850–1900," when Canadian editors began the work of establishing a common nationalistic view of Canadian society. The "Modern period" from 1900 to 1980s saw the professionalization of the industry and the growth of chains. "Current history" since the 1990s saw outside interests take over the chains, as they faced new competition from the Internet.
Super Bowl television ratings have traditionally been high. One of the most watched annual sporting events in the world, the NFL's championship game is broadcast in over 130 countries in more than 30 languages. Viewership is predominantly North American; the Super Bowl is the most watched television broadcast in the United States every year.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
