John Cruickshank promises the Toronto Star will renew its historic mission under his watch as publisher.
You can see the Star has restored its traditional blue-ribbon nameplate on this first day of 2009.
We have done it as a sign of the renewal of our historic editorial mission and as a symbol of our continuing commitment to our print and online readers in Greater Toronto, across Canada and around the world. ...
Restoring the blue-ribbon nameplate is a promise that will be fulfilled in the paper through more investigative reporting, more aggressive economic and business coverage, renewed political reporting and commentary, a sharp focus on breaking news both here and abroad as well as a more attentive eye for what touches our emotions.
And we will strive every day to bring you more intelligent analysis and interpretation of events as they unfold, and to provide more context to help you understand our increasingly complex world.
The Star is the biggest newspaper in the country because it has a tradition of service to the largest constituency of Canadians. It has never seen itself as a vehicle for any particular class or clan or sect.
It speaks to the majority about the needs of minorities. It has always stood for an engaged, empowered citizenry in a strong, united Canada.
The changes at the Star in the days and months ahead will follow the pattern set out here. We will build on the foundations that have made the newspaper great and necessary.
As some commenters noted, you can't see the old-new nameplate online (let alone its predecessor so you can compare). It might have been helpful to have an online gallery of how the Star's nameplate has evolved over the years.
The column did touch on the Atkinson principles, although the online version didn't link to those principles. Those two small things show the dangers of shovelware.
OTOH, the Star does have a great tradition of investigative reporting. As a journalist and a citizen of Toronto, it's good to hear that the Star wants to rededicate itself to the serious part of what a newspaper does, as well as acknowledging the need for a well-rounded reflection of the community.
Putting an emphasis on analysis, is, in my world, a good idea. Infomation - Context = Meaningless Noise.
Hopefully the Star will aim to make order of the info-chaos for its readers.
Cruickshank didn't talk much about the role of online in his inaugural message.
If he wants free advice, I would offer the following:
- Online should be your news stream and the newspaper your meaning stream
- Genuine big scoops should go in the newspaper first; jolts still sell papers
- Online can extend the life of major project reporting
- Consider having community-specific coverage online; i.e., why no West Toronto page?
- Beef up your online classifieds; make them better than Craigslist, because right now, they're worse
- Have an advertiser's gallery for print display ads on the web; figure out other ways to make the web help your print advertisers