There once was a time when newspaper book editors could relax on a tower of bestsellers, comforted by the knowledge that their section received full blessing from the bean counters. As today’s ad notes, the revamped Telegram books page featured editor George Anthony’s column on general notes from the publishing world, a selection of current [...]

When Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti (Ward 7, York West) mused in Monday’s Sun about the possibility of opium dens lurking within some Toronto massage parlours, we couldn’t help but conjure up pulpy images of seedy locales dripping with racist Yellow Peril stereotypes. Which got us thinking: did Toronto have a problem with opium dens back when [...]

2:50 a.m., November 11, 1918, the office of the Telegram newspaper on Melinda Street. An early morning full of anticipation as workers there and at Toronto’s five other daily newspapers waited for word sometime during the day that an armistice ending the First World War would be signed. The news during the night had indicated [...]

As the world witnessed via video yesterday, the life of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi came to a brutal, bloody end. The graphic manner in which his 42-year regime met its demise was a 180-degree turn from its beginning via the bloodless overthrow of an elderly monarch. But don’t go looking for immediate coverage of Gadhafi [...]

“For more than 40 years,” Toronto Sun columnist McKenzie Porter informed his readers on November 12, 1976, “I have wanted to write the column that follows. But I have refrained on the grounds of an old fashioned delicacy. Now that general attitudes toward bodily functions are more candid and wholesome I think I may deplore, [...]

Oh, Sun Media, you want to be so edgy. From self-mythologizing as “the little paper that grew” in Toronto to launching your own bargain-basement version of Fox News, you’ve always prided yourself on being the rebel in the media room. Last week’s decision to pull 27 papers out of the Ontario Press Council (OPC), including charter members of the organization like the London Free Press, because the self-regulating watchdog has “a politically correct mentality” at odds with the trashy nature of your urban tabloids is a fine example of Sun Media’s cranky-teenager streak. We wonder if the move was motivated less by true dissent with the OPC and more by winning brownie points with the right or saving a few bucks on membership dues.

Tony Fernandez had good reason to jump for the Star’s camera in 1989: when today’s ad was first seen by the original owner of this scorebook, the Jays were transforming what appeared to be a long, losing season into an American League East title.

Cover of The Complete Peanuts 1953-1954 (Seattle: Fantagraphics, 2004), which includes the first strips seen in Toronto newspapers. Cover design by Seth. Image courtesy of Brian McLachlan. “DYNAMITE NEW SPAN 6-LANES NEVER USED,” screamed the headline atop the November 15, 1954 edition of the Telegram. While extensive water damage from Hurricane Hazel to an unopened [...]

Newsstand at the northeast corner of King and Bay, November 9, 1931. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 200, Series 372, Subseries 58, Item 1289. How will you discover the latest election results on Monday night? Watch them on television? Head to the neighbourhood bar? Follow Torontoist’s coverage? Take the matter into your own hands and [...]

Front page of the first edition of the Toronto Standard, December 6, 1848. When the Toronto Standard launched its website earlier this month, the newest addition to the city’s media landscape linked itself with a newspaper that ceased publication 162 years ago. The earlier, original Standard certainly had a snazzy logo, but what else did [...]

Illustration by Kyra Kendall/Torontoist. When Eye Weekly debuted in the fall of 1991, one of the introductory articles noted that a pile of defunct alt-weeklies from the previous decade proved that “if we don’t give you something you want to read, we’ll all be looking for another line of work very soon. Eye Weekly intends [...]

Every Saturday at noon, Historicist looks back at the events, places, and characters—good and bad—that have shaped Toronto into the city we know today. The Empire Building, Adelaide Street West. Toronto Called Back From 1892 to 1847 by Conyngham Crawford Taylor (Toronto: William Briggs, 1892). Nineteenth-century Toronto journalism was often a war field of conflicting [...]