GODFREY INDUCTED
Honour surprises Postmedia CEO
Paul Godfrey, chief executive officer of Postmedia Network Inc. and the National Post, joined CBC anchor Peter Mansbridge on Tuesday as the two latest inductees to the Canadian News Hall of Fame.
“I was quite surprised when told I was going to be inducted. I’m not a journalist, I don’t pretend to be a journalist,” said Godfrey who, particularly after Postmedia’s recent takeover of Sun Media’s Englishlanguage properties, is now the boss of more journalists than almost anyone in Canadian history.
Founded in 1965, the Hall of Fame is maintained by the Toronto Press and Media Club. Once a bustling hub for the city’s ink-stained wretches, in recent years the club has suffered the same fate of Canada’s legion halls in seeing its membership dwindle.
“Younger journalists in particular didn’t join the press club because they didn’t want to be associated with drinking, shall we say,” said club president Ed Patrick.
Now, much like the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, the club’s primary raison d’être is its annual awards ceremony.
The pair joined 121 others in the Hall of Fame, including Peter C. Newman, Peter Gzowski, Pierre Berton, Lise Bissonnette and a handful of long-dead historical figures such as Father of Confederation George Brown and inaugural Toronto mayor William Lyon Mackenzie.
As Patrick noted, it is somewhat unusual for management to be feted by large gatherings of greyhaired journalists.
“Publishers are not the most popular people in newspapers,” he said, noting that the Hall of Fame’s 1999 selection of National Post founder Conrad Black resulted in protest resignations.
Godfrey would agree, noting that he has spent ample time as a “black sheep” in the public eye.
“When you’re the CEO of a company you always have to do certain things which, on the surface, look very unpopular in the eyes of a lot of people but are necessary to keep the business going in the right direction.”
A former North York alderman, Godfrey first entered the news business in 1984 when Toronto Sun founding publisher Douglas Creighton invited him to run the daily.
Godfrey said he first entered a news business in a financial state that was the “exact opposite” of today.
“National advertising was at an all-time high; retail advertising had broken every record; classified advertising, you couldn’t put the receiver down because the phones were ringing so briskly; subscription revenues were up; circulation was up,” he said.
At the time, said Godfrey, the record-breaking numbers prompted Toronto Sun director Herb Solway to quip to a board meeting, “You see guys, I told you this company is so good even this guy can’t screw it up.”
Thirty years later, Godfrey says, he suspects he got the Hall of Fame’s attention for the somewhat different role of “trying to find a path to future viability for an industry that’s in trouble.”
Godfrey was pegged for the Hall of Fame by a group of eight “selectors.” Largely composed of prior inductees, the ideal selector must be retired or close to retirement, thus reducing the risk that they will have an “axe to grind,” said Patrick.
This year’s selectors included CTV anchor Lloyd Robertson, former CBC executive Trina McQueen, and former Toronto Star publisher John Honderich and CTV News’ chief political commentator, Craig Oliver.
While the Hall of Fame once hung at the press club’s former downtown headquarters, there is currently no physical hall, and the plaque bearing Godfrey and Mansbridge’s names will be placed into climate-controlled storage until a suitable home can be found.
“We’re still looking for a white knight to come along and offer us space downtown where we can mount all these plaques again,” said Patrick.
I was quite surprised when told I was going to be inducted. I’m not a journalist.