John Cruickshank has left his position as CBC News' publisher to take the helm of the Toronto Star as, er, publisher.
His tenure at the public broadcaster will have lasted a whopping 14 months.
Cruickshank said he would leave the CBC with "some sadness" but that "print is not out of my system."
In his period at the CBC, Cruickshank moved to integrate newsgathering on TV, radio and the internet, and to expand regional programming, among other initiatives.
That direction will be continued at CBC News, according to Richard Stursberg, executive vice-president of English services at the CBC.
"John has made a significant contribution to CBC News as it has continued its process of evolution and renewal into a fully integrated, multiplatform national news organization," Stursberg said after Cruickshank's departure was announced on Wednesday.
"We consider the Toronto Star's win to be our loss, of course, but John leaves a first-class team well-prepared to meet the challenges of the future. We wish him every success in his new role."
Jennifer McGuire, executive director of news programming, will become interim publisher for CBC News and will work with Cruickshank in a transition period.
And here's how the Star treated the story:
The 55-year-old is considered a Canadian journalistic heavyweight who cares about quality reporting and the role of newspapers in serving their communities.
“The Toronto Star has the resources and opportunity to be one of the world’s great metropolitan papers,” he said in an interview today. “I want to make sure it bears out.”
Cruickshank replaces Don Babick, the Star’s interim publisher, who has been a member of Torstar Corp.’s board of directors since 2004. Babick replaced Jagoda Pike last month when the Star’s first female publisher left to head up the Toronto and Golden Horseshoe bid to host the 2015 Pan American Games.
The political science and philosophy junkie, married with two children, was born and raised in Toronto and is a graduate of Richview Collegiate and Trinity College at the University of Toronto.
Senior figures at Torstar, which owns the Star, hailed Cruickshank’s arrival today.
“He is a skilled and proven leader at the peak of his game with a passion for newspapers and a distinguished record as a journalist, editor and publisher,” said Robert Prichard, president and chief executive officer of Torstar.
“He brings to the Toronto Star a commitment to journalism of the highest quality, a determination to deal with difficult times and a confidence that there are winning opportunities ahead.”
Outgoing interim publisher Babick was Cruickshank’s boss at the Vancouver Sun.
“He will bring to the Star an in-depth knowledge of the editorial and business side of the operations,” he said.
John Honderich, former Star publisher and chair of the paper’s voting trust, calls Cruickshank “smart, passionate and committed to great journalism.”
“His continent-wide experience, proven integrity and leadership ability make him ideal to lead the Star in these challenging times.”
Cruickshank's tenures in Vancouver and Chicago involved working for two now-convicted felons -- David Radler and Conrad Black of Hollinger. And how did he find that experience?
Cruickshank once confided in a New York Times interview that Radler "was constantly demanding that we write negative stories about non-advertisers and positive stories about advertisers - which, of course, we didn’t do."
He added that Radler "wasn’t averse to quality journalism, he just thought it should go on someplace else."
It was a case of managing under difficult circumstances, Cruickshank said today.
“These are not people without charm. Both of them have very high intelligence. They just had a sense of the world that most of us don’t share. They thought it served them. Those of us who were at the paper during that time found it almost became a game to find ways to do the right thing despite them. We really, literally thought of ourselves as a little cabal trying to maintain ethics.”
The Globe and Mail, where Cruickshank once toiled as managing editor, also contributed a staff-written story -- one in which neither Cruickshank nor Star executives would comment, although Stursberg did:
But Mr. Stursberg said in an interview yesterday that, contrary to rumours, there had been no ill will between the two senior executives. “He was a great fit here. We got on great. People in news admired him as a great leader. Sometimes these things happen. The truth of the matter is that he's a print guy and here was the chance to run the largest circulation newspaper in the country, the one he actually grew up reading.” ...
His tenure at the CBC saw its share of controversy. In September, he publicly apologized for an opinion piece on CBC Online by columnist Heather Mallick, who had lampooned Sarah Palin's vice-presidential bid. Fox News in the U.S. ran several items about the article, and Mr. Cruickshank instituted a new policy that all CBC online opinion pieces be vetted by a senior editor. At the time, Mr. Cruickshank said that Ms. Mallick's article was “terrific within a certain tradition of political writing.” The problem, he said, was not with the opinion piece itself, published on Sept. 5, but with the CBC's own editing decision to run it.*
* Here's what I blogged on Oct. 1:
I confess to some amusement when Cruickshank writes about how Mallick's column is "terrific within a certain tradition of political writing."
Here's what he wrote in his Sept. 28 letter:
Mallick's column is a classic piece of political invective. It is viciously personal, grossly hyperbolic and intensely partisan.
And that's what makes it terrific! :)
Only 14 months ago, Mr. Cruickshank wrote in a note of introduction that his new role as publisher of CBC Television was “a career capper, the culmination of a varied, frequently unpredictable and always surprising professional journey.