[UPDATED] Rinehart no longer EIC at Metro Canada

[Note: This post has been updated] Dianne Rinehart has stepped down as editor-in-chief of Metro Canada’s six English newspapers.  

Rinehart, who was running the newspapers in Toronto, Halifax, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver for the last 18 months, stepped down Oct. 28.

She says she was “fortunate enough to be tapped for the job at a time when we were making the transition to a new brand of newspaper that combines the best of credible — and accessible — local, Canada and world news coverage as well as magazine-like sections at the back of the newspaper.” Rinehart told J-Source in an email: “It was a job that played perfectly to my experience in both magazines and newspapers.”

Rinehart has served as editor-in-chief of Homemakers also worked as a senior reporter in Ottawa for The Canadian Press, in Vancouver with the Vancouver Sun, and freelanced in Moscow for USA Today and U.S. News & World Report.

Metro English Canada is part of a global empire of 100 dailies around the world.

According to Rinehart, during her tenure newspaper readership in Canada grew to 1.18 million daily readers, in addition to a surging number of new online and mobile readers.

At the same time, she says, she oversaw the move to creating a “virtual” national newsroom with reporters and editors from its six English language markets.

They joined forces to create special national reports on topics such as Eradicating Poverty, a Focus on First Nations, Riding the Recession and The SunnySide — journalism that Rinehart says took a look at what is good about communities at a time when the economy was taking a nosedive.  

“Metro is poised to attract more readers and advertisers than ever on all its three platforms, with a top team of editors and reporters that reflect not only the best of Canada, but the diversity of Canada,” Rinehart says. “I couldn’t feel better about where the paper is at, and the role of our editorial team in taking it there during recessionary times.”

Rinehart’s career also includes senior masthead jobs at Flare and Ski Canada, teaching at Ryerson’s journalism school and writing for the Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, Montreal Gazette, Hamilton Spectator, Winnipeg Free Press and Calgary Herald.

UPDATE:

J-Source contacted Metro English Canada group publisher Bill McDonald for comment. Multiple calls to his office were not returned.