Barbara Kay has resigned from her National Post column, citing “severe pressures” editors face on sensitive issues and the “public shaming of Rex Murphy.”
It’s been two decades since my first byline appeared in the Post. For a woman who already was well into middle age when her career began, the experience has been a thrill and a privilege. Perhaps more importantly, it’s been lively, energizing and fun. The National Post was conceived in 1998 as a safe haven from the stale pieties that dominated (and still dominate) the legacy Canadian media. Unfortunately, the spirit now has gone out of the place. And I’ve decided to step away from my regular column, at least for now. I’ve been noticing for a while that much of the best writing about Canada is increasingly taking place on platforms that didn’t exist until recently (and in some cases aren’t even Canadian). Numerous international writers whom I admire have decided to find new ways to reach their audience. I will now join their ranks.
Related: WSJ Responds To Staffers Outraged About The Opinion Section
A newspaper with a survival instinct would fire them all.
Winnipeg Free Press recently acknowledged they are guilty of systemic racism and to make reparations they are hiring four journalists of color. I’m not sure how they arrived at four. Maybe it should have been eight or six or two but there you are. Four people who will be hired not because they are qualified, not because they have something to say, but because they have the correct skin color, all to make amends for systemic racism. The world has gone insane.
Sidetrip about the WFP.
-Signed up with credit card.
-In 3 weeks received 1 paper about 10 days late.
-Phoned to cancel, no credit card refund, they send a cheque in a few weeks.
-Received a cheque, minus the price of the one paper that I received……..
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/07/wall-street-journal-editors-resist-the-cancel-culture.php
They don’t need to profit by journalisming. You can make more money harvesting tax dollars by virtue signaling. Just ask Rosie Barton et al.
Being a loser can pay dividends in Canada…as long as you’re a woke loser. Just ask our PM.
The demise of the National Post began with the Asper’s buyout. I have had declining respect for it ever since. It was great for a while.
The humorous thing about this column is that is a sly, indirect and yet devious way of telling the editorial staff that they’re a bunch of spineless, finger in the air pussies. I haven’t really followed this columnist, but I might now.
She is worth following. She has been consistently non-woke.
“a letter that 280 WSJ colleagues signed criticizing the news outlet’s opinion section….The letter from WSJ staff called for better distinction between the news and opinion section and was worried about the Opinion section’s accuracy and transparency”
Seems like the proper solution is to fire about 280 WSJ colleagues.
National Post was great for a while — a pleasure to read. Barbara Kay has been one of my favourites. Not much left worth reading. The Globe is even worse. As my husband said re the Globe, it seems to have more in it (than the Post), but less that you would actually want to read. Regarding the online offerings, I am finding Quilette somewhat interesting.
She is certainly talented at making a point without actually making it.
and jon kay, her son, is at the helm of the canadian division of quillette. he’s been all over the map with various outlets – but he has maintained his greatest asset of curiosity.
To be blunt John Kay couldn’t suck JTs dick hard enough.
Canada needed Trudeau according to him.
To Replace Harper.
J Kay is a joke.
We have no free press here in Blackie’s dictatorship. All the media grovels at Great Leader’s feet to get a piece from that pile of taxpayer money. Post Media which owns the National Post is also starting to force its Toronto Sun to be more like the Toronto Star.
Darn. I like Barbara Kay.
She makes a good point tho. The NP has somewhat resisted the crowd culture but I’ll bet editors are facing withering pressure.
I’m a subscriber and have been since day one. Guess I’ll have to decide if I wish to continue.
The end is in sight for the broadsheets. Caving to this nonsense will only hasten their demise. The good writers will find an outlet free of government and censors.
Me too. Time to pull the pin.
What was this “public shaming of Rex Murphy”?
He called a spade a spade a couple of weeks ago. Caused an uproar by the woke mob. Inside and outside the NP. Rex casually told them, in his eloquent manner, to get lost.
Good for Rex, I almost always approve of what he writes. I am surprised that the woke crowd were even bright enough to realize that he was telling them to get lost. He is a true word-smith.
Rex said Canada wasn’t a systemic racist country. He received blow back from his colleagues at the NP who wanted the editors to censor him. To their credit they did not.
Kay’s best line in the piece says”
“Rather, legacy outlets are collapsing from within because they’ve outsourced editorial direction to a vocal internal minority that systematically weaponizes social media to destroy internal workplace hierarchies, and which presents its demands in Manichean terms.”
Bari Weiss, in her letter about being hounded from NYT made much the same point. She commented that editors, even those so powerful as at NY Times, had outsourced their opinions to young commentators sharing their views on social media. Why they do not fight for standards and integrity, remains a mystery but they have abandoned that fight without a struggle.
She is just as timid and shallow as the rest of NP columnists. All of them are petrified by the risk to actually call a spade a spade. It is nice if one can just quit and go make $$ elsewhere. Few have this luxury, and every time it happens to a media celebrity, I suspect that they are not what they pretend they are. How does one just quit during a pandemic and recession and keep making a living? I call BS.
The irony is is that the National Post is hurting financially, and they let the young, woke workers harass conservatives so slowly becoming like the left-wing Globe and Jail will hurt the NP even more..
One or two days ago Global news said they were laying off a dozen or do staffers, also for financial reasons. By coincidence my wife and I decided to watch the Global national news on Sunday evening. It was as banal and insipid as anything on CBC or CTV news, just like Ms. Kay describes in her parting essay. I like the point she makes, that some of the best journalism is now fone outside the establishment media. So true.
Writing for the enemy doesn’t make you my friend. At least she came to her senses. Maybe she could write some pieces for Kate and do some good.
L-I have a prediction. Within a decade, perhaps more, radio/talk radio, both a.m. and net based, will be broadcast from a series of stations south of the 49th parallel.
“Good Morning, it’s Radio Free Canada, Standing on guard for thee ! From the Home of the Brave and the land of the Free. Brought to you by the refugee diaspora, and news and opinion smuggled out by patriots risking their life, liberty and social credit score to do so !”
Or we could have a new country, free and democratic, pried,by citizens, a la Magna Carta, from the claws of the rabid Panda and the little potatoes, sometimes called the Laurentian elite.
You choose:
I’m with you. The WSJ should have fired them all. But, it’s a good letter.
Journalism is tough in Canada. Small market and cheap consumers. The majority of Canadians wouldn’t pay ten cents to watch Moses part the Red Sea.
Kay is in her seventies. She doesn’t need to work but will probably show up in Quillette. I’ve read her in the Dorchester Review. She is an excellent writer. She wont have to look for work.
Standing up for principle isn’t easy, especially if you have a family mortgage etc . It will be interesting to see if any others at the NP jump ship.
Try the Epoch Times.
It’s an actual newspaper and it may be my imagination but some of the the columns I’ve read there by guys like John Robson seem to have a much more robust tone than their columns in the Canadian MSM.
I’m assuming that that tone would have meant that the column would have been whacked by editors at the Canadian MSM.
And there is a paper edition so you can leave it in the break room at work or in the coffee shops or restaurants .
We have not lost Barbra Kay, she will reinvent her self and write for the rising new news organisations. All she has lost is the restrictions imposed on her. The loser here is the NP who have lost another bite of credibility, which when you get down to it, is all they have to offer. No amount of bailout can save them once they have lost that. I look forward to reading her in her next reincarnation. Maybe one of these days she can write the NP’s obituary.
If and when Rex Murphy pulls the plug on the NP that will be the end of the National Post.
Barbara Kay could have written this column a decade or more ago.
Sorry. No applause from me. Too little too late
Postmedia is all but insolvent. Thought they would have declared already. Give them another year.
Operation Mockingbird, yea it is real. 90 percent of media is owned by six companies. Thats a big group of low lifes on government support worldwide. These toronto media presstitute morons are all the same, so stupid that they feel buyers remorse for voting for a moron but will vote for said moron again just so they have something to write about in their sorry ass columns before they puff up and quit writing their crap because they have some toronto epiphany. For us in the west we have seen through you transparent Toronto morons forever. Separation from the toronto losers is the only way out of this Turds malaise