Cage match: Toronto Star vs The Globe and Mail

Back in the early eighties I lived on Mctague Street in Guelph, and The Globe and Mail arrived at my door every morning for twenty-five cents a day. My newsprint addiction was affordable and the supply was reliable.

Now I have to drive into town to pick it up. It costs $3.70 and there’s no guarantee there’s going to be one waiting for me. Anything from weather to car trouble on the part of the guy who delivers the paper up here to the backwoods could mean a wasted trip.

The trip costs something too. If I add in a reasonable per/km stipend, that Globe costs me ten bucks a day easy, and it gets a little thinner with every “redesign.”

So I’m trying to cut down. I skip the odd day, or I’ll try to substitute a Toronto Star instead. Today I picked up both papers in order to facilitate a head-to-head comparison. Here’s how that looks.

Globe has 34 pages in two sections. Star offers 50 pages in five sections for $2.65. On a pages per dollar basis, it’s a no-brainer that the Star offers better value. If you have a brain, however, there are reasons why you might prefer the Globe.

Both papers lead with the same story. The Globe’s headline reads “Ex-aides’ convictions bring Russia probe closer to Trump.” The Star offers a lame pun in their headline, “Fall the president’s men.” Get it?

To my ear that’s an intern showing off their erudition.

The Toronto Star is, not surprisingly, far more Toronto-centric than the Globe. The Star’s serious-news section devotes a couple of pages to city council’s challenge to Ford’s plan to cut the number of councillors. The Globe has the equivalent amount of space for the Pope’s coming visit to Ireland. The Star also makes room for speculative stories that I imagine fall into the human interest category, like almost a full page devoted to speculation about careless smokers causing an epidemic of condo fires.

After the top news stories, the business news is what I’m looking for next. Both papers’ business sections lead with the Aeroplan sale. After that the Star mostly recycles Wall Street Journal copy. That’s fine, but if I want to read the WSJ I do so on line.

The Globe and Mail clearly has more original business copy. There are two essays on the “Opinion & Analysis” page that are both original to today’s Globe (unless Rosenberg’s story was reprinted from his newsletter). Both are about Turkey’s supposed financial crisis. Neither of them mention US sanctions.

That’s the kind of blogpost fodder I can sink my teeth into! Venezuela’s crisis is due to a failed experiment in socialism, not US sanctions. Russia’s economic woes are due to Putin’s kleptocratic misrule, not US sanctions. Iran’s economic troubles are due to the ayatollahs draining the treasury to support terrorists, not US sanctions… see the pattern? Perpetually-meddling Uncle Sam is never responsible for anything!

Both papers do a reasonable job with their sports coverage, which is a low priority for me. The Star has way more “infotainment” fluff, if you’re into that. Aside from the cigarette-addled condo arsonists, today we get the low-down on Chinese noodle-houses and an update on how Tiffany Trump is doing at Georgetown, where she’s going into her second year of law. (Don’t laugh; her Auntie Maryanne, Donald’s sister, is a retired federal court judge. As for Tiffany, she seems to be holding her own under the pressure, and even has time to party with Lindsay Lohan!)

The conclusion? The Star is better value if you’re buying the paper to wrap fish. It also burns more readily if you’re using it to start a campfire. If, on the other hand, you want to read a serious newspaper put out by people who still believe they’re writing one, The Globe and Mail is the way to go.

That said, when a man’s newspaper budget begins to impinge on his beer budget, it’s time for a serious review of one’s priorities.