Pacific Press: The Unauthorized Story of Vancouver's Newspaper Monopoly

Ann Turner is the financial and budget manager of the University of
British Columbia Library.

The story may be unauthorized by its subject but it is certainly not
uninformed. Marc Edge was a reporter for more than 10 years for The
Province, one of Vancouver’s two daily newspapers (the other being The
Vancouver Sun), both of which are owned by Pacific Press. This book
embodies the research he conducted into Pacific Press for his doctoral
dissertation, examining the corporation’s origin in 1957 and the
effects of its government-sanctioned monopoly position over the next 34
years. Although it recounts the history of both newspapers and their
associated personalities in considerable detail, the focus of the book
is the newspaper business rather than journalism per se. Given all the
supposed advantages of a monopoly, why did this particular monopoly
suffer such ongoing financial distress and labor relations difficulties?
As Pierre Berton notes in his foreword, it is a fascinating and valuable
study from both a historical and a business perspective.