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Blog of Adam Daifallah -- author, journalist, law student. Lover of politics, writing, golf, curling, fitness, fashion, bacon and maple products -- not necessarily (but probably) in that order. Partisan of the Anglosphere. Contact me via email at adam@daifallah.com.
Friday, August 08, 2008
1450 Don Mills Rd.
Speculation has been mounting in recent days that the National Post will be sold. The buzz began after the Globe and Mail published this article Saturday, detailing the financial woes of CanWest Global and throwing out the name of Jerry Grafstein, a Liberal senator and co-founder of CityTV, as a potential buyer of the Post.
Today, our old friend Lawrence "Larry" Martin is out with a speculative piece, predicting -- to our complete amazement -- that a sale to a Liberal could possibly be seen as bad news for people who are Conservative. Great work, Larry.
Where to start? Well, my thoughts on this don't differ much from Paul Wells'.
First, there would be a serious number of logistical problems if the paper were taken out of the CanWest tent, not the least of which is the provision of actual content: with the paper's bare bones budget, they don't even have their own Ottawa bureau. All their Ottawa stories come from CanWest.
Second, and we can thank Larry for this insight, the political direction of the paper would become uncertain. The Aspers have made the paper less conservative than it was before, but it is still reliably conservative and the editorial page is still very good, despite budget constraints.
Third, the paper doesn't need more uncertainty. It and the staff have had enough of that over the past few years.
Of course, this rumour may not be true; the Globe has spilled a lot of ink over the years creating doubt about the Post's future. Every few months they would run a story about rumours of the Post's imminent closure. This has served its own interests (read: advertising dollars) well. But nearly 10 years after its launch by Lord Black, the paper is still chugging along.
When the Post was sold to the Aspers in 2001, I didn't think I would like them. But they have proven that they care about the paper and were willing to see it through tough times, all the while keeping its founding political orientation reasonably intact. For these reasons and more, I hope they keep it.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 12:06 AM
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