The Globe and Mail is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of more than 6 million in 2024, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays,"About Us". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved July 13, 2024. although it falls slightly behind the Toronto Star in overall weekly circulation because the Star publishes a Sunday edition, whereas the Globe does not. The Globe and Mail is regarded by some as Canada's "newspaper of record".
The Globe and Mails predecessors, The Globe and The Daily Mail and Empire were both established in the 19th century. The former was established in 1844, while the latter was established in 1895 through a merger of The Toronto Mail and The Empire. In 1936, The Globe and The Mail and Empire merged to form The Globe and Mail. The newspaper was acquired by FP Publications in 1965, who later sold the paper to the Thomson Corporation in 1980. In 2001, the paper merged with broadcast assets held by BCE Inc. to form the joint venture Bell Globemedia. In 2010, direct control of the newspaper was reacquired by the Thomson family through its holding company, the Woodbridge Company. The Woodbridge Company acquired BCE's remaining stake in the newspaper in 2015.
History Predecessors and establishment
The predecessor to The Globe and Mail was called The Globe; it was founded in 1844 by Scottish immigrant George Brown, who became a Father of Confederation. Brown's liberal politics led him to court the support of the Clear Grits, a precursor to the modern Liberal Party of Canada. The Globe began in Toronto as a weekly party organ for Brown's Reform Party, but seeing the economic gains he could make in the newspaper business, Brown soon targeted a wide audience of liberal-minded freeholders. He selected as the motto for the editorial page a quotation from Junius, "The subject who is truly loyal to the Chief Magistrate will neither advise nor submit to arbitrary measures." The quotation is carried on the editorial page to this day.
By the 1850s, The Globe had become an independent and well-regarded daily newspaper. It began distribution by railway to other cities in Ontario shortly after Confederation. At the dawn of the twentieth century, The Globe added photography, a women's section, and the slogan "Canada's National Newspaper", which remains on its front-page banner. It began opening bureaus and offering subscriptions across Canada.
The Daily Mail and Empire was another newspaper that served as The Globe and Mail'''s predecessor, having been formed through a merger of two conservative newspapers, The Toronto Mail and The Empire in 1895. The Toronto Mail was established in 1872, while The Empire was founded in 1887 by Brown's former rival, Conservative politician and then-Prime Minister John A. Macdonald.
On November 23, 1936, The Globe merged with The Mail and Empire. The merger was arranged by George McCullagh, who fronted for mining magnate William Henry Wright and became the first publisher of The Globe and Mail. Press reports at the time stated that "the minnow swallowed the whale" because The Globes circulation (at 78,000) was smaller than that of The Mail and Empire (118,000).
1930s–1990s From 1937 until 1974, the newspaper was produced at the William H. Wright Building, located at then 140 King Street West on the northeast corner of King Street and York Street, close to the homes of the Toronto Daily Star at Old Toronto Star Building at 80 King West and the Old Toronto Telegram Building at Bay and Melinda. The building at 130 King Street West was demolished in 1974 to make way for First Canadian Place.
McCullagh committed suicide in 1952, and the newspaper was sold to the Webster family of Montreal. As the paper lost ground to The Toronto Star in the local Toronto market, it began to expand its national circulation. The newspaper was unionized in 1955, under the banner of the American Newspaper Guild.
In 1965, the paper was bought by Winnipeg-based FP Publications, controlled by Bryan Maheswary, which owned a chain of local Canadian newspapers. FP put a strong emphasis on the Report on Business section that was launched in 1962, thereby building the paper's reputation as the voice of Toronto's business community.
The newspaper moved locations from the William H. Wright Building to 444 Front Street West in 1974. The new location had been the headquarters of the Toronto Telegram newspaper, built in 1963. The Globe and Mail remained in the building until 2016, when it relocated to the Globe and Mail Centre. The Front Street building along with the Toyota dealership next door were demolished and redeveloped as The Well.
FP Publications and The Globe and Mail were sold in 1980 to The Thomson Corporation, a company run by the family of Kenneth Thomson. After the acquisition, there were few changes made in editorial or news policy. However, there was more attention paid to national and international news on the editorial, op-ed, and front pages in contrast to its previous policy of stressing Toronto and Ontario material.Walter I. Romanow and Walter C. Soderlund, "Thomson Newspapers' Acquisition of 'The Globe and Mail:' A Case Study of Content Change", Gazette: The International Journal for Mass Communication Studies (1988) 41#1 pp 5-17.The Globe and Mail has always been a morning newspaper. Since the 1980s, it has been printed in separate editions in six Canadian cities: Montreal, Toronto (several editions), Winnipeg (Estevan, Saskatchewan), Calgary and Vancouver.
Southern Ontario Newspaper Guild (SONG) employees took their first-ever strike vote at The Globe in 1982, also marking a new era in relations with the company. Those negotiations ended without a strike, and the Globe unit of SONG still has a strike-free record. SONG members voted in 1994 to sever ties with the American-focused Newspaper Guild. Shortly afterwards, SONG affiliated with the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP).
Under the editorship of William Thorsell in the 1980s and 1990s, the paper strongly endorsed the free trade policies of Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. The paper also became an outspoken proponent of the Meech Lake Accord and the Charlottetown Accord, with their editorial the day of the 1995 Quebec Referendum mostly quoting a Mulroney speech in favour of the Accord.Globe and Mail, Oct 30, A12 During this period, the paper continued to favour such socially liberal policies as decriminalizing drugs (including cocaine, whose legalization was advocated most recently in a 1995 editorial) and expanding gay rights.
In 1995, the paper launched its website, globeandmail.com; on June 9, 2000, the site began covering breaking news with its own content and journalists in addition to the content of the print newspaper.
21st century Since the launch of the National Post as another English-language national paper in 1998, some industry analysts had proclaimed a "national newspaper war" between The Globe and Mail and the National Post. Partly as a response to this threat, in 2001 The Globe and Mail was combined with broadcast assets held by BCE Inc. to form the joint venture Bell Globemedia.
In 2004, access to some features of globeandmail.com became restricted to paid subscribers only. The subscription service was reduced a few years later to include an electronic edition of the newspaper, access to its archives, and membership to a premium investment site.
On April 23, 2007, the paper introduced significant changes to its print design and also introduced a new unified navigation system to its websites. The paper added a "lifestyle" section to the Monday-Friday editions, entitled "Globe Life", which has been described as an attempt to attract readers from the rival Toronto Star. Additionally, the paper followed other North American papers by dropping detailed stock listings in print and by shrinking the printed paper to 12-inch width.
At the end of 2010, the Thomson family, through its holding company Woodbridge, re-acquired direct control of The Globe and Mail with an 85-percent stake, through a complicated transaction involving most of the Ontario-based mediasphere.globeandmail.com: "BCE-CTV deal remakes media landscape" , September 10, 2010globeandmail.com: "Bell ushers in new era with CTV deal", September 11, 2010 BCE continued to hold 15 percent, and would eventually own all of television broadcaster CTVglobemedia.
2010 redesign and relaunch On October 1, 2010, The Globe and Mail unveiled redesigns to both its paper and online formats, dubbed "the most significant redesign in The Globes history" by Editor-in-Chief John Stackhouse."A new Globe — in print and online" , Editor's Note from The Globe and Mail, January 10, 2010 The paper version has a bolder, more visual presentation that features 100 per cent full-colour pages, more graphics, slightly glossy paper stock (with the use of state-of-the-art heat-set printing presses), and emphasis on lifestyle and similar sections (an approached dubbed "Globe-lite" by one media critic)."Globe and Mail unveils bold design", from cbcnews.ca, January 10, 2010 The Globe and Mail sees this redesign as a step toward the future (promoted as such by a commercial featuring a young girl on a bicycle),"The Globe commercial and the promise of the future" , from The Globe and Mail, January 10, 2010 and a step towards provoking debate on national issues (the October 1 edition featured a rare front-page editorial above the Globe and Mail banner).Q&A with Editorial Board chair John Geiger from globeandmail.com, January 10, 2010
The paper has made changes to its format and layout, such as the introduction of colour photographs, a separate tabloid book-review section, and the creation of the Review section on arts, entertainment, and culture. Although the paper is sold throughout Canada and has long called itself "Canada's National Newspaper", The Globe and Mail also serves as a Toronto metropolitan paper, publishing several special sections in its Toronto edition that are not included in the national edition. As a result, it is sometimes ridiculed for being too focused on the Greater Toronto Area, part of a wider humorous portrayal of Torontonians being blind to the greater concerns of the nation. Critics sometimes refer to the paper as the "Toronto Globe and Mail" or "Toronto's National Newspaper." In an effort to gain market share in Vancouver, The Globe and Mail began publishing a distinct west-coast edition, edited independently in Vancouver, containing a three-page section of British Columbia news. During the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, The Globe and Mail published a Sunday edition, marking the first time that the paper had ever published on Sunday.
2010–present In October 2012, The Globe and Mail relaunched its digital subscription offering under the marketing brand "Globe Unlimited" to include metered access for some of its online content."Globe Unlimited press release ". The Globe and Mail. October 22, 2012
On September 25, 2012, The Globe and Mail announced it had disciplined high-profile staff columnist Margaret Wente after she admitted to plagiarism. The scandal emerged after University of Ottawa professor and blogger, Carol Wainio, repeatedly raised plagiarism accusations against Wente on her blog.