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National Post editor quits over election endorsement dispute

Toronto Sun and National Post newspapers are posed in front of a news stand in Toronto, October 6, 2014. REUTERS/Mark Blinch
Toronto Sun and National Post newspapers are posed in front of a news stand in Toronto, October 6, 2014. REUTERS/Mark Blinch

High-profile columnist Andrew Coyne has resigned as editorial editor for the National Post, following a dispute with his employer over election commentary.

Coyne’s regular column was noticeably absent from the weekend edition of the newspaper, whose editorial board endorsed the Conservative government for re-election.

The Canadian political Twitterverse lit up on the weekend with speculation about a rift over the Post shelving Coyne’s personal column because it disagreed with the endorsement.

On Monday, he confirmed rumours by announcing his departure as editor of editorials and comment.

“So anyway… I have resigned as editor of Editorials and Comment for the National Post, effective immediately. I will remain a columnist,” Coyne tweeted.

In a series of posts, Coyne said he and Postmedia executives had a “professional disagreement.”

“Their view was that the publication of a column by the editorial page editor dissenting from the Post’s endorsement of the Conservatives would have confused readers and embarrassed the paper,” he wrote.

“My view was that that was what I was paid to do as a columnist: give my honest opinion on issues of public interest.

“I don’t see public disagreement as confusing. I see it as honest. Readers, in my view, are adults & understand that adults can disagree.”

A spokesperson for the National Post was not immediately available to comment.

All of Postmedia’s newspapers across the country endorsed the Tories late last week. All — which now include the Sun chain — also carried a full front-page Conservative ad on the weekend.

Coyne said the owners and managers of a newspaper have the right to set the paper’s editorial line as they wish and to decide what they wish to publish in their pages.

“Nobody has a God-given right to be published and the country will get along very well without me telling them how to vote,” he wrote.

But he said he was concerned that there should be no suggestion that he was personally endorsing or voting for the Conservatives.

He also expressed concern about any obligation to stay silent when his views conflicted with management.

“While Postmedia’s intervention was unprecedented in my experience, I could not allow the precedent to stand,” Coyne wrote.

“So to protect my reputation and to preserve my editorial freedom as a columnist, I felt it necessary to resign the editorial position.”

Coyne — a National Newspaper Award-winning journalist and former national editor of Maclean’s magazine who has contributed to the Globe and Mail, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and Time magazine — ended by announcing he will be casting his ballot in favour of the NDP candidate in his riding.

The National Post was not the only newspaper whose editorial board endorsement drew attention.

The Globe and Mail’s decision to back the Conservatives, but not Conservative Leader Stephen Harper, saw the paper lambasted in social media on Friday.