Lost expectations? Women journalists and the fall-out from the `Toronto newspaper war'

Abstract

Newspapers, like all forms of communication, play an unusually important rôle in Canadian society. Correspondingly, newspaper journalism is a respected occupation. This, taken together with the commitment to equal opportunities embodied in the country's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, might suggest that women face fewer barriers to advancement in Canadian newspapers than elsewhere. Drawing on interviews with women working for newspapers in Greater Toronto and in Montréal, and discussions with academic observers, the article suggests that, until the early 1990s, this optimism about an evolutionary movement into positions of real organizational power was reasonably well-founded. It goes on to argue, however, that the rapid change in the commercial environment brought about by the launch of the National Post in 1998 illustrates how quickly attitudinal and cultural change can be stalled, or even reversed, by changes in management priorities triggered by a threat to profits.