A primer on Canadian newspapers (how true is this?)

You have to take drug tests to run the country?

They are ALL run by people who know their advertisers and subscribers.

The Quebec Nordiques now play in the Pepsi Forum in Denver, Colorado and wear Avalanche sweaters. The Winnepeg Jets play in Phoenix and wear Coyote sweaters.

Dead on on the Winnipeg Free Press

Actually, The Montreal Gazette is read by people, being bilingual, who could run the country if they could just leave the city; and

Le Journal de Montreal is read by people who don't care who is running the country, just the province, but are scared of those who might.

Probably not very true, seeing how there is no "St. John's Telegraph"

Not sure why the Free Press would get the bad rap. It can't be any worse, and is probably quite a bit better than many other major urban dailies. I actually buy it once in a while, which is more than I ever did with the Vancouver Sun.

The daily tabloid here is the fish-wrapper. 

The windsor star is read by people who need to wash their windows later.

I don't know, the Free Press isn't that good by any objective standards.  Of course, they tend to look good because their main competitor is the Winnipeg Sun, which I generally refer to as "the fascist papers"

But with the Free Press, as a broadsheet you probably get more actual paper and bigger pieces so it would probably be better for wrapping fish than the Sun, especially if you have a lot of fish to wrap.  Besides, the thought of Tom Brodbeck's inane rants rubbing off on my food makes me a little queasy...

Although, I have to say that my campus paper makes a good fishwrap (and on more than one occaision I've used a bunch of them to keep from getting stuff dirty while painting).  It's free, but it's a right-wing rag that I don't even like to read.

The Winnipeg Free Press is catching up fast with the Sun on the race to the bottom.  I read the coffee news as it is more enlightening.

As for the UofM paper (equivalent to Der Stürmer) I would like to know how many young conservatives are pulling off what happened to the University of Waterloo's the Chevron when the CPC-ML took it over.

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why is it that polling booths look like cattle chutes?

Well, there's at least a couple in there.  A couple editors seem to be very conservative, and the President of the Campus Conservatives (who, thankfully, seem to never be seen around campus) has a weekly column.  But it just seems like everyone there has a hate-on for affordable education and any form of student activism, especially if it has anything to do with student unions.

And yet, this is actually an improvement from what it was like in my first two years (aside from their casual use of offensive words, then getting on a free-speech high-horse when they are called on it).  The editor during that period went on to write for the education section in Macleans.

I believe it has a good rep among journalists. If something has changed recently, I'm not aware of it.

 Here is an article (June 21, 2002) that describes the situation when a left group controls a newspaper. 

I do not know the particulars, and I would find it interesting who controlled the student union at the time.  I don't see the UMSU shutting down the Manitoban just because the right controls the paper and uses it as a vehicle to attack the union (I can only dream of the paper being shut down, however undemocratic).

Veterans of the 1976-77 "Chevron affair" will hold a 25-year reunion at the Student Life Centre tomorrow, remembering their side of a battle over control, freedom and responsibility for what was then UW's student newspaper.

A news release from organizers of the Free Chevron reunion talks about "a nine-month freedom of the press battle" and the "victory" they won:

  With the assistance of hundreds of students on the University of Waterloo campus and student journalists from dozens of papers on campuses across the country, the staff of The Chevron occupied their own office and continued to fund and publish The Free Chevron. At the same time they put forward a simple democratic demand: Reinstate the paper and investigate how and why it was closed by the Federation of Students.

In the ensuing nine months the issue became a political, legal and sometimes physical battle that polarized the University of Waterloo campus and spilled over into provincial and national student organizations. The University of Waterloo student federation president was recalled by a mass petition of 2,300 students. Free Chevron staff members defied an eviction order and were summoned before the Ontario Supreme Court, where they won their case against eviction. Free Chevron staff members maintaining a constant occupation of the office were assaulted and dragged from the office. An executive member of the Federation of Students threw a boulder through The Free Chevron's window and was caught by a campus security guard.

On June 26, 1977, The Free Chevron staff won their fight and the paper was reinstated.

Former Free Chevron staffer Chris Bannon recalls: "I did just about everything except go to class. I learned more that year than any other year I can remember."

Tomorrow's reunion is scheduled for 2 to 5 p.m. at the SLC, and includes a visit to the offices that were occupied through 1976-77 -- now the home of Imprint, which succeeded the Chevron as UW's official student newspaper in the aftermath of the great controversy.

Of the 110 recorded staff members of The Free Chevron in 1976-77, organizers say they've been able to contact about 45 people, and about 25 are expected at the reunion, coming from as far away as the United States and British Columbia.

here is another "source [14]" 

During the 1970s, the party made a practice of sending members into student newspapers on Canadian university campuses. Members would attempt to capture these papers and use them to promote CPC-ML ideas and policies -- including its support for Hoxha's Albania -- under the slogans "Defend the Basic Interest of the Students!" and "Make the Rich Pay!". The party succeeded in capturing only one student newspaper, The Chevron, at the University of Waterloo, in Waterloo, Ontario. The take-over was led by Neil Docherty and Larry Hannant. After several years of intense disruption at the paper and on campus, students at Waterloo voted to disenfranchise The Chevron, which was then expelled from Canadian University Press, the student press cooperative in Canada, in December 1979. The Chevron ceased to be the student newspaper at the University of Waterloo and was replaced by The Imprint. CPC-ML attempted but failed to capture other student newspapers, including The Varsity at the University of Toronto.

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Campus media sure is always in some battle, if it's not radio station boards it's newsapapers and incorporating away from union control.  This must be is some media extension of the dedfederation campaigns: make campus media "independent" (read: conservative) and use it to attack anything union-CFS.  There is no way a truly independent paper is going to be fiercely anti-CFS.

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why is it that polling booths look like cattle chutes?

From Wilf's list:

7. The Toronto Sun is read by people who aren't too sure who's running the country and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the GO train and the Leafs win."

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Perhaps we can add the adjective "fey" Wilf, as seen in someone (or thing in the Sun's case..."fated to die soon"?

In fact, could we not tack it on the Post's outline in recognition of Clement's political cartoon that so offended Rick Salutin (March 6 column)

The St. John's Telegram is read by people who sold their country to another country, aren't liking how they are being treated, and might just take their own country back!