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Front Page Challenge: November 17, 2015
In Front Page Challenge, Torontoist analyzes the best and worst of Toronto’s major dailies.
Photo by Christopher Hylarides from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.
In the wake of the Paris attacks, a particularly grim and solemn set of front pages are up for consideration in this week’s Front Page Challenge.
The Globe And Mail
French President Francois Hollande observes a moment of silence in the courtyard of the Sorbonne in Paris in the wake of Friday’s devastating ISIS attacks. But two of the three front page columns concern Canada’s role in the crisis, as pressure continues to mount on Prime Minister Trudeau to take a more active role in the coalition against the jihadists—including concerns expressed by the Premier of Saskatchewan that the plan to take in 25,000 Syrian refugees by the end of the year will leave the country open to attack. Today’s paper seemingly includes two opinion columns by French intellectual Henri Bernard-Levy and…Vladimir Putin?
National Post
Today’s Post bears an eerie similarity to the Globe‘s front page layout, with Hollande’s Braveheart-esque call-to-arms “You will never take our liberty” flanked by three columns positioned below. The Post cuts Trudeau a break this morning by placing the focus on France’s direct role in fighting ISIS as opposed to Canada’s contributions, including the insights of former Post owner (and former Canadian) Conrad Black. At the bottom of the page, Peter MacKay, who chose not to stand up and fight for re-election, exhorts Canadians to stand up and fight the jihadist threat.
Toronto Star
The Star provides the most inspirational messaging of the major papers, with “Fraternité” atop the front page and Hollande’s promise to fight terror. But such a solemn day doesn’t mean the Star can’t flex their punny muscles, with an article on a new tattoo process that extracts ink from human hair accompanied by a reference to Cole Porter!
Metro Toronto
Today’s Metro launches a new series, “Everyday Toronto Citizens” with the wonderful Luke Anderson, who was paralysed in a mountain biking accident and took this circumstance as an opportunity to make the city more wheelchair accessible through the StopGap Foundation. The organization has supplied over 500 small businesses with temporary ramps that not only provide access but also help raise awareness of accessibility issues. In the centre right of the front page, a harbinger of what will surely be a top story in the next few days, the revelations that Charlie “Tiger Blood” Sheen is HIV positive and may have transmitted the disease to many women over the last few years.
Toronto Sun
Leave it to the Sun to conflate the issue of Syrian refugees with the terror attacks in France. Their front page “One Bad Apple Spoils The Bunch?” features the curious image of a fake passport being transmitted into the brain of an Arab man. The question mark in the headline is quite possibly rhetorical. “Provinces second-guessing Trudeau” plays up the idea that the Prime Minister is an unwitting dupe of ISIS masterminds bent on bringing jihadist terror to Canada. For veteran readers of The Little Paper That Grew, the one good thing about the results of the recent federal election is that the Sun gets to write alarmist headlines with the word “Trudeau” in them again.
This week’s winner: if there has to be a winner today, it is Francois Hollande (featured on three of five front pages today). Sorry, Charlie…