Macleans feature looks into changes at the Globe

Maclean’s reporter Anne Kingston’s business piece examining recent changes at The Globe and Mail is now up online.

According to former Globe A-section page editor and London Free Press editor Larry Cornies, Kingston’s article is a “timely and detailed look at the recent changes at the newspaper’s helm, in which former editor-in-chief Ed Greenspon was ushered out the door whilst former Report on Business editor John Stackhouse was anointed his successor.”

In a recent post on his Doon Valley Journal blog, Cornies remembers Stackhouse’s ability to “focus, with single-minded and laser like attention on the task at hand and then execute with a calm and unmistakable authority” while Greenspon’s style, he writes, is “more abstract, probing and sensing.”

From Kingston’s article:

“Generally newspaper editors’ departures are not noteworthy outside of the newsroom: their lifespans tend to be slightly longer than hockey coaches. And the 52-year-old Greenspon, an owlish, earnest man who’d been with the Globe 23 years had a seven-year run: he’d worked as the London-based business correspondent, Ottawa bureau chief, Report on Business chief and founding editor of globeandmail.com before being named editor-in-chief. During his tenure he presided over ‘reimagination,’ a much-ballyhooed rethink of the paper that yielded changes that didn’t threaten to revolutionize the medium: a business website and a ‘life’ section providing parenting and relationship columns and workplace dress advice.

“His ouster became a chattering-class talking point because of its sudden, abrupt aspect, decoded within the Globe’s Kremlinology as a signal of how tough Crawley can be—coincident with the outset of union negotiations.

“Only the week previously Greenspon had proudly rolled out a redesigned globeandmail.com, and starred in an online video introducing the Web team. At the National Newspaper Awards in Montreal the previous Friday, attended by Crawley and Greenspon, the mood was buoyant as the paper won six awards. The following Monday morning, Crawley met with Greenspon in the editor’s office; within the hour, Greenspon was walking out the front door, carrying his briefcase and another bag bulging with paper, visibly upset…

“Within the Globe, there’s some skepticism real change is under way. ‘If you want fundamental change you don’t get people who have been working at the paper for decades,’ says one staffer. Stackhouse is not known as a Web evangelist, though his supervision of the revamp of Globeinvestor.com, a 10-year-old site that provides investment news and portfolio tracking tools, clearly impressed Crawley. The 18-month project proved him skilled at working across departments, or, as Crawley puts it, ‘cross-functional business initiatives,’ another future model. The site met its April launch deadline, though there was internal griping that it was rushed out before kinks had been worked out. Crawley points to Globeinvestor.com, along with the job site Workopolis.com and used-car site AutoHound.com, in which the Globe is partnered, as potential revenue generators.”