Canadian national newspaper The Globe and Mail increased the size of its newsroom by more than 10% in 2025 as it invested in coverage of business and issues that reflect people’s lives.
Editor-in-chief David Walmsley told Press Gazette the total newsroom is made up of 260 people and that 30 of those roles were added last year.
“It was one of the largest hiring years we’ve ever had, and that was to concentrate on two things,” he said, first listing business and financial services coverage.
The other, he continued, was coverage that “ensures that we’re reporting news and digging deeper on issues that are actually the discussion at the breakfast table or in the coffee shop, as opposed to the almost artificial lexicon of newsrooms, which is strange language like ‘the official opposition leader said today’.
“That’s the way journalists want to pitch their stories in meetings, but it’s not how people speak, and so I really am trying to ensure that we’re doing the coverage that’s relevant to the issues and the concerns that folk have every day.”
Walmsley, who has edited The Globe and Mail since 2014, cited as examples ageing parents and absenteeism in schools.
“We need to be, I think, both sensitive and careful about what we see as news, because if you don’t see yourself reflected in the news it’s another reason not to look at news and as a subscription business, what we’re looking for is people to find enough value in the work… that people will hand over money and feel that it’s a service worth paying for.”
The Globe and Mail does not share subscriber numbers, but in November 2023 it had 246,000 digital-only (excluding Apple News+ readers) subscriptions, which are said to typically grow by 10-15% per year.
Speaking to Press Gazette on a trip to London for the Truth Tellers Summit last week, Walmsley said he could not speak about the commercial side of the business but that it is “very strong” and subscriptions, which make up about two-thirds of revenue, are “doing very, very well”.
The newspaper is owned by Woodbridge, the investment arm of the Thomson family, which is also the main shareholder in Thomson Reuters.
Walmsley said The Globe and Mail has also “doubled down” on visual journalism because “when one has visuals, you know that there’s greater engagement”.
Reporting the things people can’t see
He pointed to a recent photo and video-led feature about a three-week journey with Canadian Rangers on a military exercise to cross the dangerous High Arctic terrain on snowmobiles in -40C temperatures. Walmsley described this as “what I think, outside of war, has been the bravest, hardest, most austere reportage in the Globe’s history”.
He said the journalist had three cameras, all of which broke in the freezing cold – the last on the penultimate day of the assignment, meaning there was still enough material.
Walmsley added that the Arctic is “not a populated area, but it’s still the country and the Globe has a responsibility to bring that story back to the southerners, where the vast majority of Canadians live… I think that the Globe’s responsibility is to alert the populace to things they can’t see.”
He said this notion of representing people wherever they are in Canada is “one of the most important guiding lights for me”.
“That means putting people in places where they will find stories… News is where the people are, not where the microphones are.”
He said covering financial bodies, parliament, provincial legislatures and other institutions remains central but “because of news avoidance and news fatigue, there’s a real need for us to also reflect on people’s lives, which is often far away from the decisionmaker’s voice”.
Business news sells subscriptions, but other topics make them stay
Walmsley said business coverage is the “number one converting topic to get someone to buy a subscription” but that the key topics for keeping people subscribed include sport, real estate, arts and regional news.
He believes that, in part because of changes to how people are getting their news including the introduction of Google’s AI Overviews, the “funnel that we’ve used for, say, a decade, is turning into something like a flywheel, and it’s spinning… what we need to do is strengthen and thicken and have higher engagement in the middle part, which is the retention area”.
He continued: “Retention requires a much stronger look at everyday life.”
Walmsley added that the competition for attention online means that “the higher value you offer, the more people will stick around.
“So it requires us in the newsrooms to support that commercial challenge, to double down on our work, to be exemplary, to offer up very deep, engaged work around the Arctic, which you cannot get anywhere else. And it also conveys… a sense of, boy, I couldn’t get that anywhere else, therefore, I’ll hand over some money, I’ll subscribe and I’ll belong to that Globe and Mail family.”
Big tech disruption of news business is a ‘red herring’
Walmsley, who is British but has lived in Canada since 1998 when he moved to work on Conrad Black’s launch of The National Post, said working in Canada brings a number of advantages.
“One is very few people outside of Canada pay attention to it,” he said. “That allows me to not live in a siege mentality where everything I do is scrutinised, and so as a result, I’m allowed to experiment, and I demand of myself best practices so I can create as close to, in what is an entirely imperfect environment, perfection as possible. Because there’s no reason not to.”
Canada also has strong anti-SLAPP legislation to stop frivolous lawsuits being brought against the media to chill their reporting, which Walmsley said has “proven very beneficial”. News organisations also have strong source-protection capabilities as long as they satisfy public interest requirements.
Meta blocked access to news on Facebook and Instagram in Canada after legislation was introduced forcing tech giants to pay for it appearing on their platforms. Walmsley said this has “probably significantly affected awareness for the general electorate”.
But he added that although big tech has disrupted the commercial news business by siphoning off advertising spend, and made discoverability of content “a big challenge”, “journalists who say they’ve been disrupted have a complete red herring.
“We have not been asked to do anything differently than we have been doing since we were created, but we use the commercial disruption and those challenges as an excuse to not hold to our standard. Of course, if you’re commercially disrupted, there’s less budget and then there’s job losses. I get all of that. That’s a tough, tough cycle…
“What’s very important is that the journalists… understand that their role has a single purpose, which is the strongest, bravest, most independent journalism that can be done. And if you do that, I do believe commercial will follow. There can be no excuses. It’s down to the journalists to focus and give commercial the support to do what they need to do in what is a very, very tough environment.”
Walmsley added that the transition from majority advertising revenue to subscriptions has been “a revolution and a tremendous commercial success” at The Globe and Mail. Print advertising now makes up less than 15% of revenue.
Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog
