Maclean's Anne Kingston tried to play Globeandmail-ologist and discern the real reasons for the termination of Globe and Mail editor Edward Greenspon, dispatched by publisher Philip Crawley.

For background, here's my original post from the time of the firing on May 25.

From Macleans.ca: (posted July 9; seen via Twitter)

A memo sent out to staff spoke vaguely of the need for “new skills and different styles of leadership.” (Publisher Philip) Crawley refuses to discuss specifics, only to say the management shift was “to signal change; it wasn’t personal.” He appears vexed that there’s interest in the human dimension of the story, even though it provides a lens into the Globe’s politics and power structure. “It’s the besetting sin of the media that you personalize this and turn it into ‘It’s all about John Stackhouse and Eddie Greenspon,’ ” says Crawley. “But the nature of the announcement is to say this world is changing fast; every department is being restructured.”

Generally newspaper editors’ departures are not noteworthy outside of the newsroom: their lifespans tend to be slightly longer than hockey coaches. And the 52-year-old Greenspon, an owlish, earnest man who’d been with the Globe 23 years had a seven-year run: he’d worked as the London-based business correspondent, Ottawa bureau chief, Report on Business chief and founding editor of globeandmail.com before being named editor-in-chief. During his tenure he presided over “reimagination,” a much-ballyhooed rethink of the paper that yielded changes that didn’t threaten to revolutionize the medium: a business website and a “life” section providing parenting and relationship columns and workplace dress advice.

His ouster became a chattering-class talking point because of its sudden, abrupt aspect, decoded within the Globe’s Kremlinology as a signal of how tough Crawley can be—coincident with the outset of union negotiations.

Only the week previously Greenspon had proudly rolled out a redesigned globeandmail.com, and starred in an online video introducing the Web team. At the National Newspaper Awards in Montreal the previous Friday, attended by Crawley and Greenspon, the mood was buoyant as the paper won six awards. The following Monday morning, Crawley met with Greenspon in the editor’s office; within the hour, Greenspon was walking out the front door, carrying his briefcase and another bag bulging with paper, visibly upset. Absent was the soft landing provided Thorsell, who remained at the paper running the editorial page until he was appointed CEO of the Royal Ontario Museum.

Praise for Greenspon’s contributions was scant in the memo Crawley sent out to staff. He’s equally circumspect in conversation: “Eddie had been a very good editor for seven years and he and I had many conversations over the years and he knew that editors come and go. It was time for a change.”

Tensions had been building, says a Greenspon friend. (Greenspon did not respond to Maclean’s requests for an interview.) “Phillip was becoming more intrusive in the newsroom. Ed was finding himself a little more cramped. They clashed more.” There were public fissures—the overwrought hubbub over Greenspon’s cancellation of the paper’s Queen’s Park column written by Murray Campbell being one. Campbell, a 31-year-old Globe veteran, was told that the seven-year-old column, a dutiful must-read among Ontario government bureaucrats, was being cut due to reduced space, and he was being reassigned to feature writing; a Queen’s Park reporter remained. Premier Dalton McGuinty, upset over dwindling media coverage, privately appealed to management to reconsider. John Tory, the former provincial Progressive Conservative leader and son of John Tory Sr., a long-time Thomson family lawyer and confidant, used his farewell news conference to upbraid the Globe for the decision. Displeased, Campbell quit, taking a position with the Ontario Power Authority. At his Queen’s Park farewell in early April, senior Globe editors were absent, observes a political insider. The fact Crawley showed up with his wife and stayed from the beginning to the end was viewed as signalling his disapproval with the decision. Crawley says a new Queen’s Park columnist will be named soon: “It has always been the plan to replace Murray Campbell after he resigned.”

Insiders say Crawley was also displeased with Greenspon for sending an open letter to Oliphant commission counsel Richard Wolson that refuted former Prime Minister Mulroney’s claim that the Globe had spiked a 2003 story that would have put his dealings with Schreiber in a more positive light. “That’s something a publisher should have done,” says someone close to the situation.

Greenspon’s apparent ambition to succeed him as publisher is also believed to have irked Crawley. “Phillip has a very strong sense of his own dignity,” says a former colleague. “He would think it was unseemly and degrading to him to have someone jockeying for the position while he’s in the seat.” Asked when his contract ends, Crawley bristles: “You don’t tell people what the exit date is,” he says.

Crawley’s strategic cunning is so legendary, it’s been suggested that’s what is at play here. “Sometimes when you want to show your bosses you’re still up to the task you replace the people underneath you,” says a former colleague. “If you’re Phillip and you want to protect yourself, getting a new editor, particularly one who’s not that well known, who will need Phillip’s guidance—it’s not a stupid thing to do.”