The Rise of the Canadian Newspaper

Richard Wilbur is Supervisor of the Legislative Research Service at the
New Brunswick Legislature and author of The Rise of French New
Brunswick.

This account is part of Oxford’s Perspectives on Canadian Culture
series. Most readers will find poet and visual artist Doug
Fetherling’s treatment of this subject both refreshing and
tantalizing. Perhaps it takes a poet’s eye to spot this offbeat
information: the Civil War in the United States so reduced the flow of
rags needed in the manufacture of newsprint that Canadian publishers
(and presumably American ones, too) resorted to a unique source for this
item: shiploads of Egyptian mummies! Then there’s the author’s
memorable description of Harry C. Hindmarsh, son-in-law of Joseph
Atkinson, owner of the Toronto Star: “a bald, thick-set man with wire
spectacles, silver dental work, and no discernible neck (when he smiled,
which was seldom, he looked like a pipe wrench).”

To deal with such a broad theme in just 117 pages is to underscore the
publisher’s back-page blurb that this volume is part of an “Oxford
series of informed surveys.” Survey is the operative word: readers
looking for more-detailed treatment should examine the author’s short
annotated bibliography. Those interested in more-recent (i.e.,
post–1945) events especially those that took place outside Central
Canada, might be disappointed. In his chapter “The Life and Death of
the Party Press,” Fetherling skillfully sketches the colorful
journalistic career of Henri Bourassa. John W. Dafoe’s role in making
the Winnipeg Free Press a powerful Liberal voice receives due mention
but many other references are tantalizingly brief. Perhaps that is
inevitable in a survey, but this reviewer would have appreciated more
than two brief references to Calgary’s Bob Edward and his Eye-Opener
and some mention of such editorial “characters” as the Fredericton
Daily Gleaner’s Michael Wardell. And while this account is
comparatively rich on the era of George Brown and Joseph Howe, it would
have achieved better balance if the author could have expanded the last
chapter to include a description of how K.C. Irving gained total control
of New Brunswick’s English-language dailies and the possible effects
of the Thomson communication empire on public opinion.

Throughout Fetherling provides a fascinating description of the many
technological changes that have transformed the newspaper physically,
economically, and editorially. He also deftly sketches the corporate
changes that supplanted the era of individual proprietors, but
(considering the continuing Liberal role of the Toronto Star) some might
question his conclusion that corporatism has completely ended “the
party press.” Perhaps surveys such as this should raise questions; if
so, Fetherling has done his job. His writing skills certainly shine.