Postmedia newspapers have been running variations of the same Harper endorsement all day. But as the Edmonton Journal‘s Paula Simons publicly confirmed, pumping the Conservatives was management’s call. Regardless of what Postmedia’s reporters, columnists, editors (or readers) think, endorsements are a publisher’s decision, and Posties know Paul Godfrey was always going to force a Harper endorsement from on high down to all papers, including the National Post.
And yes. Before you ask, this was a decision made by the owners of the paper. As is their traditional prerogative.
— Paula Simons (@Paulatics) October 16, 2015
But Postmedia’s flagship paper has yet to pick their winner. The decision of its editorial board is expected imminently. The head of that board is Andrew Coyne.
As a masthead editor of a conservative newspaper, Coyne knows he must toe the company line. But Coyne is also his own brand with his own voice — an influential pundit and opinionator who endorsed the Liberals in 2011 (in Maclean’s) and who then wrote a series of scathing anti-Harper columns.
CANADALAND has learned that though Coyne the editor has signed off on an official National Post Harper endorsement, Coyne the columnist planned to endorse a different candidate under his own byline in the paper tomorrow.
But the National Post won’t run it.
Numerous sources at the Post confirm Coyne’s column was removed from the internal schedule this afternoon at 1:02pm EST. We received this forwarded email from a Postmedia employee who has asked not to be identified:
Will Andrew Coyne stay on at the Post if he’s muzzled from telling us all what he thinks?
When asked by CANADALAND if Coyne has in fact resigned, either as an editor or as a columnist, a senior Postmedia employee answered with a question:
“What time is it?”
Neither Andrew Coyne, National Post Editor in Chief Anne Marie Owens or Publisher Paul Godfrey immediately responded to our requests for comment. We’ll update this post if answers arrive.
UPDATE: Coyne has resigned from his post as editor.
So anyway… I have resigned as editor of Editorials and Comment for the National Post, effective immediately. I will remain a columnist.
— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) October 19, 2015
2. Postmedia executives and I had a professional disagreement. Their view was that the publication of a column by the editorial page editor…
— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) October 19, 2015
3. … dissenting from the Post’s endorsement of the Conservatives would have confused readers and embarrassed the paper.
— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) October 19, 2015
4. My view was that that was what I was paid to do as a columnist: give my honest opinion on issues of public interest.
— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) October 19, 2015
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