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How Toronto’s Papers Covered Trump vs Syria and Sports, Sports, Sports
No shortage of excitement for two Toronto teams in the playoffs.
Illustration by Brett Lamb
In Front Page Challenge, Torontoist analyzes the best and worst of Toronto’s major dailies.
Competition is fierce amongst Toronto’s newspapers this morning to win this week’s Front Page Challenge; with the recent American missile strike on Syria, opening day for the Blue Jays, and two other sports playoff series about to begin, there’s plenty of material and variety to work with this morning. But as far as winning goes, as Christopher Lambert in Highlander memorably observed, “There can be only one.”
The Globe and Mail
The Globe‘s main image this morning is a striking one, an aerial view of the bleached coral of Australia’s disintegrating Great Barrier Reef, with the only healthy areas of it left recently devastated by a cyclone. Also on Page One, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne is about to introduce measure meant to cool the hot Toronto real estate market in a record age of housing construction, there’s news on today’s expected start of British Columbia’s provincial election campaign, plus a story about the “struggle” in the U.S. to define a policy against Syria—the same Congress that blocked Obama’s plan to take reprisals against Syrian President Bashir al-Assad’s last chemical weapons attack on civilians (with a much higher death toll) seems to be okay with Trump rashly ordering a major missile strike without congressional approval.
National Post
The Post has some weird touches this morning on their front page. The paper, which has always criticized NAFTA and editorially leans with an American President who wants to build a wall and impose tariffs against Mexico, is suddenly referring to our three countries as “amigos,” who yesterday launched an ambitious bid to co-host the 2026 FIFA World Cup. The Post‘s main story this morning is about an incident of violence last month in Washington against a Palestinian-American teacher; some of the men arrested were members of the new Canadian chapter of the Jewish Defense League. Tristan Hopper also contributes a tee-hee piece reviewing the Government of Canada’s erotica collection: after all, like Playboy, most people read the National Post for the articles.
Toronto Star
The Star leads with Prime Minister Trudeau en famille in France observing the 100th anniversary of Vimy Ridge; he promises time is running out for Assad’s reign of terror in Syria. A scathing report out of York Region calls for an immediate travel ban out of concern that public funds have been misued by the board. The Star is the only one of our papers that features a front-page story about the unwelcome return of Jian Ghomeshi to the public eye with the sudden arrival of his new podcast The Gaslight Project—Ghomeshi says it’s about “asking questions and starting conversations,” but of course an actual conversation (that he can’t control) is probably the last thing he really wants to have.
Metro Toronto
Metro has loaded their front page this morning with content: they are the only Toronto paper to make their main story the shocking treatment of a United Airlines passenger who was selected for “re-accomodation” on an overbooked flight and had Chicago’s airport security forcibly remove him when he refused to obey, a violent incident captured on video. Columnist Matt Elliott takes a break from daring Mayor Tory to arrest him for crossing the street while the “Don’t Walk” sign is flashing to celebrate a rare occurrence in Toronto: two sports teams in the playoffs at the same time, as the Raptors and the Maple Leafs head into the post-season and the city’s championship drought (if you don’t count the Argonauts) may soon be coming to an end. And several Metro “Cities” features are previewed, including one about a longstanding Toronto tradition: waiting 20 minutes for a bus and then watching five buses show up at once. Apparently there’s a word for that, and that word can be found inside the paper.
Toronto Sun
Today is the home opener for the Blue Jays, and it’s “Happ-y days” for our starter, coincidentally named J.A. Happ, who takes the mound. The Sun‘s Night Scrawler, Joe Warmington, who distinguished himself last year for leading the manhunt for the beer tosser at the Jays’ playoff game who turned out to be a former Toronto Sun employee, is very excited about all the sports going on in Toronto these days, with the keen observation that “you can feel the buzz of the spring time that only playoff fever offers,” adding:
The Rock and Toronto FC are packing them in and a big year is expected for the Argos. The Toronto sports scene is on fire.
“We’re going to win so much, you’re going to be so sick and tired of winning,” President Donald Trump said during the 2016 U.S. election campaign.
Not here.
This week’s winner: Metro has the most commanding front page layout and most enticing stories of any of Toronto’s front pages this morning, and pulls off another victory despite many of the other papers upping their game today.
Illustration by Brett Lamb
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