News Brief

Andrew Coyne v The National Post

CANADALAND has learned that though Coyne the editor has signed off on an official National Post Harper endorsement, Coyne the columnist planned to endorse a different candidate under his own byline. But the National Post won't run it.

Postmedia newspapers have been running variations of the same Harper endorsement all day. But as the Edmonton Journal‘s Paula Simons publicly confirmed, pumping the Conservatives was management’s call. Regardless of what Postmedia’s reporters, columnists, editors (or readers) think, endorsements are a publisher’s decision, and Posties know Paul Godfrey was always going to force a Harper endorsement from on high down to all papers, including the National Post.

But Postmedia’s flagship paper has yet to pick their winner. The decision of its editorial board is expected imminently. The head of that board is Andrew Coyne.

As a masthead editor of a conservative newspaper, Coyne knows he must toe the company line. But Coyne is also his own brand with his own voice — an influential pundit and opinionator who endorsed the Liberals in 2011 (in Maclean’s) and who then wrote a series of scathing anti-Harper columns.

CANADALAND has learned that though Coyne the editor has signed off on an official National Post Harper endorsement, Coyne the columnist planned to endorse a different candidate under his own byline in the paper tomorrow.

But the National Post won’t run it.

Numerous sources at the Post confirm Coyne’s column was removed from the internal schedule this afternoon at 1:02pm EST. We received this forwarded email from a Postmedia employee who has asked not to be identified:

screenshot-at-oct-12-14-26-56

Will Andrew Coyne stay on at the Post if he’s muzzled from telling us all what he thinks?

When asked by CANADALAND if Coyne has in fact resigned, either as an editor or as a columnist, a senior Postmedia employee answered with a question:

“What time is it?”

Neither Andrew Coyne, National Post Editor in Chief Anne Marie Owens or Publisher Paul Godfrey immediately responded to our requests for comment. We’ll update this post if answers arrive.

UPDATE: Coyne has resigned from his post as editor. 

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jesse@canadalandshow.com

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