Himelfarb is new opinion editor
The Toronto Star has appointed Jordan Himelfarb to a new role of opinion editor, and he will oversee the Star’s editorial board.
Himelfarb will also be in charge of “op-eds” — opinion pieces so-named because they appear opposite the editorial page in print — and begins with a mandate to “expand and refine our commentary coverage, elevate the discourse and bring in interesting new voices — all with a focus on growing” the digital audience, Toronto Star publisher Jordan Bitove said Friday in a note to staff.
Himelfarb will also continue to be “the major point person for all commentary at the Star,” Bitove said.
“I’m honoured to be given the opportunity to carry on the Star’s long tradition of opinion journalism that seeks to challenge, illuminate and delight,” Himelfarb said in an email. “In these complex and divisive times, my goal is to foster a conversation that transcends partisanship and embraces nuance, that is at once compelling and compassionate.”
The announcement comes as current editorial page editor Bruce Campion-Smith is set to leave the Star next month after a long and illustrious career at the paper, which began 36 years ago as a general assignment reporter — back when a sizable budget meant you could see the country and the world on the Star’s dime.
And Campion-Smith did. He has also pretty much done all there is to do in the Star’s newsroom. He served as public editor before Donovan Vincent assumed the role. He was an assistant city editor, ran the Ottawa bureau and covered six federal elections, reported on Canadian troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, covered national defence issues, filled the transportation beat and filed dispatches from the White House. He also knew his way around a camera.
“I’ve been so lucky to have spent all this time at the Star,” Campion-Smith, who has a commercial pilot licence and has written four aviation books, said Friday. It’s been a “great adventure” and a “privilege” to work for the paper, but the best part of the job was being around “great smart journalists, and that’s what I’ll miss the most,” he said.
Along the way, CampionSmith was honoured with five individual and joint National Newspaper Award (NNA) nominations and won a Canadian Association of Journalists award for investigations.
Himelfarb began at the Star as a member of the editorial board and spent six years there, working as an editor and deputy editorial page editor, in a stint that earned him three NNA nominations. He then served as politics editor and moved up to a managing editor position three years ago.