Fiktiv Canada - Postmedia - National Post

The National Post is a Canadian English-language nationally distributed newspaper. The paper is the flagship publication of Postmedia Network, and is published Mondays through Saturdays. It was founded in 1998 by Conrad Black.

Conrad Black built the National Post around the Financial Post, a financial newspaper in Toronto which Hollinger Inc. purchased from Sun Media in 1997.

Outside Toronto, the Post was built on the printing and distribution infrastructure of Hollinger's national newspaper chain, formerly called Southam Newspapers, that included the newspapers Ottawa Citizen, Montreal Gazette, Edmonton Journal, Calgary Herald, and Vancouver Sun. The Post became Black's national flagship title, and Ken Whyte was appointed editor.

Beyond his political vision, Black attempted to compete directly with Kenneth Thomson's media empire led in Canada by The Globe and Mail, which Black and many others perceived as the platform of the Liberal establishment.

When the Post launched, its editorial stance was conservative. It advocated a "unite-the-right" movement to create a viable alternative to the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien, and supported the Canadian Alliance. The Post's op-ed page has included dissenting columns by ideological liberals such as Linda McQuaig, as well as conservatives including Mark Steyn and Diane Francis, and David Frum. Original members of the Post editorial board included Ezra Levant, Neil Seeman, Jonathan Kay, Conservative Member of Parliament John Williamson and the author/historian Alexander Rose.

The Post's magazine-style graphic and layout design has won awards. The original design of the Post was created by Lucie Lacava, a design consultant based in Montreal. The Post now bears the motto "World's Best-Designed Newspaper" on its front page.

The Post was unable to maintain momentum in the market without continuing to operate with annual budgetary deficits. At the same time, Conrad Black was becoming preoccupied by his debt-heavy media empire, Hollinger International. Black divested his Canadian media holdings, and sold the Post to CanWest Global Communications Corp, controlled by Israel "Izzy" Asper, in two stages – 50% in 2000, along with the entire Southam newspaper chain, and the remaining 50% in 2001. CanWest Global also owned the Global Television Network.

Izzy Asper died in October 2003, and his sons Leonard and David Asper assumed control of CanWest, the latter serving as chairman of the Post. Editor-in-chief Matthew Fraser departed in 2005 after the arrival of a new publisher, Les Pyette – the paper's seventh publisher in seven years. Fraser's deputy editor, Doug Kelly succeeded him as editor. Pyette departed seven months after his arrival, replaced by Gordon Fisher.

Politically, the Post has retained a conservative editorial stance although the Asper family has long been a strong supporter of the Liberal Party of Canada. Izzy Asper was once leader of the Liberal Party in his home province of Manitoba. The Aspers had controversially fired the publisher of the Ottawa Citizen, Russell Mills, for calling for the resignation of Liberal prime minister Jean Chrétien.

However, the Post endorsed the Conservative Party of Canada in the 2004 election when Fraser was editor. The Conservatives narrowly lost that election to the Liberals. After the election, the Post surprised many of its conservative readers by shifting its support to the victorious Liberal government of prime minister Paul Martin, and was highly critical of the Conservatives and their leader, Stephen Harper. The paper switched camps again in the runup to the 2006 election (in which the Conservatives won a minority government). During the election campaign, David Asper appeared publicly several times to endorse the Conservatives.

Like its competitor The Globe and Mail, the Post publishes a separate edition in Toronto, Ontario, Canada's largest city and the fourth largest English-language media centre in North America after New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago. The Toronto edition includes additional local content not published in the edition distributed to the rest of Canada, and is printed at the Transcontinental Printing plant in Vaughan.

On September 27, 2007, the Post unveiled a major redesign of its appearance. Guided by Gayle Grin, the Post's managing editor of design and graphics, the redesign features a standardization in the size of typeface and the number of typefaces used, cleaner font for charts and graphs, and the move of the nameplate banner from the top to the left side of Page 1 as well as each section's front page.

On October 29, 2009, Canwest Global announced that due to a lack of funding, the National Post might close down as of October 30, 2009, subject to moving the paper to a new holding company. Late on October 29, 2009, Ontario Superior Court Justice Sarah Pepall ruled in Canwest's favour and allowed the paper to move into a holding company. Investment bankers hired by Canwest received no offers when they tried to sell the National Post earlier that year. Without a buyer closing the paper was studied, but the costs were greater than gains from liquidating assets. The lawyer for Canwest, in arguing to Justice Pepall, said the National Post added value to other papers in the Canwest chain.

On October 28, 2011, the Post announced its first ever yearly profit.

The paper now belongs to Postmedia Network Canada Corp. which is a Canadian media company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, consisting of the publishing properties of the former Canwest, with primary operations in newspaper publishing, news gathering and Internet operations.

The ownership group was assembled by National Post CEO Paul Godfrey in 2010 to bid for the chain of newspapers being sold by the financially troubled Canwest (the company's broadcasting assets were sold separately to Shaw Communications). Godfrey secured financial backing from U.S. private-equity firm Golden Tree Asset Management as well as other investors. The group completed a $1.1 billion transaction to acquire the chain from Canwest on July 13, 2010. The new company has over 5,500 employees. The company's shares were listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange in 2011.

The National Post's main office is at 365 Bloor Street East in Toronto, Ontario. It was formerly located at 1450 Don Mills Road in the Don Mills neighbourhood of Toronto, which was vacated in 2012.

Daily Sections:
Section A
Up front, the Post delivers comprehensive news, political and health reporting from across the country and around the world, all with a distinctly Canadian voice.

Arts and Life
A signature section of National Post which has held reader’s loyalty for many years featuring family, music, theatre, television and more.

Sports
Keeps readers informed with insightful commentary on golf, auto racing, hockey and football featured daily in National Post.

Investing
The backbone of National Post continues to be regarded as Canada’s most trusted, authoritative, comprehensive and insightful business package. Includes stock market listings for the TSX, New York and Nasdaq stock exchanges, as well as comprehensive futures and options and mutual funds coverage.

Weekly sections:
Working (Wednesday)
This stand-alone section provides high-end career advice for managers and professionals. Working is also linked to working.com, the national careers network with a local focus. Working.com offers unparalleled search across Canada with a uniquely tailored approach to target the qualified applicants you are seeking.

Post Homes (Thursday)
Provides readers with all the information they need to find a new home, resale home or a condo within southern Ontario.

Post Movies (Friday)
Offers Toronto’s most exciting movie section complete with reviews, profiles, features and cinema listings, every Friday in National Post.

Driving (Friday)
Driving features Canada’s premier automotive writers, who deliver the latest automotive news including previews, road tests, and essential information on choosing a new vehicle. Driving is also linked to driving.ca, the country’s most comprehensive marketplace for new and used cars.

Investing Weekend (Saturday)
Investing Weekend offers insight into where Canada’s power brokers work and play.

Weekend Post (Saturday)
Engages readers with coverage of the best of fashion, food and drink, lifestyle, books and travel.

Toronto (Saturday)
This Toronto tabloid magazine provides an entertaining round up of events, real estate, home decor and juicy gossip about celebrities and other VIPs in and around Toronto. You’ll also find Post TV – our weekly TV listings for what’s on television.