Three mastheads, one very old rivalry
Toronto's Newspapers
Canada's national newspaper industry is disproportionately headquartered in Toronto — including one paper whose roots trace back to 1844, and a lost-jobs labour dispute that accidentally created another.
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Canada's newspaper industry is unusually concentrated in Toronto, and the three biggest national and metro papers all have genuinely distinct, occasionally accidental, origin stories.
The Globe and Mail (roots to 1844)
The Globe and Mail's lineage traces back to The Globe, founded in 1844 by Scottish immigrant George Brown, who later became a Father of Confederation. A rival, The Empire, was founded in 1887 by then–prime minister John A. Macdonald and later merged into The Mail and Empire. In 1936, The Globe and The Mail and Empire merged into the paper that exists today, now generally regarded as Canada's paper of record.
Toronto Star (founded 1892, by accident)
The Toronto Star started life as the Evening Star in 1892, founded by 25 printers who had just lost their jobs in a labour dispute — not exactly a boardroom business plan. It changed hands repeatedly until 1899, when publisher Joseph E. Atkinson took over, renamed it the Toronto Daily Star, and grew its circulation from 7,000 to 40,000 within five years.
National Post (1998)
The newest of the three, founded in 1998 by media magnate Conrad Black as a deliberate national competitor to The Globe and Mail, built out of what had been a Toronto business paper. Black sold it to CanWest Global in 2000–2001, and it has changed hands several more times since.
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