The Canadian Journalism Foundation, an organization that aims to promote excellence in journalism, has a slogan—“as journalism goes, so goes democracy.” It is a lofty ideal and, if it is true, the Canadian Press has surely done its bit for democracy in this country.
CP has been around for almost a century. While its website says “Many Canadians are familiar with THE CANADIAN PRESS credit on countless newspaper stories,” my guess is that most Canadians have never heard of CP. It has been described as one of the most overlooked institutions in Canadian life.
Modelled after Associated Press, the U.S. news wire service, CP was founded as a national not-for-profit cooperative in 1917 by a group of competing newspaper owners who wanted to reduce costs by exchanging news stories rather than hiring reporters all over the country.
When it was founded, Canadian Press had 117 member newspapers (the number of daily newspapers in Canada had peaked in 1913 at...
Beth Haddon, a former broadcast executive with CBC and TVOntario, is a contributing editor to the magazine. She was a Canadian University Service Overseas volunteer in Zambia.
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