In autobiography Above the Fold, John Honderich makes one last splash

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Former Toronto Star publisher John Honderich loved to make a splash.

My enduring memory of Honderich, who passed away in February at the age of 75, is the media executive holding court over lunch at his regular corner table at Biff’s Bistro in downtown Toronto. Instantly recognizable in his trademark bowtie, he would be laughing with a CEO, berating a cabinet minister or gossiping with the waiter.

Honderich always wanted to be in the centre of the action. More importantly, he wanted his newspaper to be in the mix, a loud and proud progressive voice.

His autobiography, Above the Fold, makes one last splash.

The book is often searing. It is engaging, as one would expect from an award-winning journalist. And if the author was still alive and lunching, his pointed jabs at notable figures – Conrad Black, former executives at parent company Torstar, too many politicians and journalists to count – would mean either Honderich or a long list of luminaries would never be stopping by Biff’s again.

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At its heart, Above the Fold is the story of an accomplished yet unappreciated child trying to find some version of peace with a distant, demanding father, who was also his boss. Honderich doesn’t fully succeed in his personal quest; the journey is riveting.

His corporate and family drama plays out over an era when the Star, and daily newspapers everywhere, were major media players, looming large in the lives of readers, spinning out cash and making multimillionaires of their owners. It’s also the story of a corporation that lost its way on Honderich’s watch, focused on print as its audience went online, a mistake that laid waste to family fortunes.

For those unfamiliar with the Star’s history, a little background is required. Joseph Atkinson, a crusading publisher known as “Holy Joe,” bought the paper in 1899. Over five decades at the helm, he instituted a set of values – the Atkinson principles – focused on social justice, individual liberties and rights for workers. These principles set the tone for the newsroom and, in Honderich’s view, its parent company.

Beland Honderich, John’s father, was a high-school dropout who joined the Star in 1943 and rose quickly through the ranks. Bee, as he was known, became editor-in-chief in 1955. Over the next few years, corporate maneuvers saw him become part owner and president of Torstar, as one of several families that controlled the business through a trust. Beland Honderich died a wealthy man in 2005; his dying words to his son were “don’t let them ruin the paper.”

Honderich took that wish to heart. As editor and then publisher of the Star, and later as president and board chair at Torstar, he turned to the Atkinson principles as a touchstone on business decisions. The cause-driven approach put Honderich at odds with a series of chief executives at Torstar, including David Galloway, who became chair of Bank of Montreal after exiting, and Robert Prichard, now chair of law firm Torys.

The cut-and-thrust of power struggles in the Star newsroom and Torstar boardroom hold the intensity of a first-class thriller. Honderich settles old scores in virtually every chapter. It is great fun, if occasionally petty, yet also unsettling, as, unlike good journalism, the other side never gets to tell its story. Telling these tales prompts moments of self-reflection: Honderich writes of his issues with anger management.

Early in his career, Honderich set out to avoid the shadow of his famous father by becoming a lawyer. However, the lure of journalism, and parental approval, proved too strong to resist. In 1973, Honderich joined the Ottawa Citizen, owned by media rival Southam. Three years later, he jumped to the Star and began a rise through the ranks that mirrored his father’s. His newsroom tales, covering familiar crime and political stories across decades, capture the thrill of daily papers at a time when a story on the front page, above the fold, was a very big deal.

At its peak, Torstar was a multibillion-dollar company, owner of newspapers and money-spinning romance book publisher Harlequin. On several occasions, Honderich reveals, its executives narrowly missed out on the next big thing, losing out to Ted Rogers when cable networks were up for grabs, being outbid by Pierre Karl Péladeau when there was a chance to consolidate the newspaper industry by acquiring the Sun chain.

The final decade of Honderich’s career saw Torstar in a prolonged decline, as advertisers shifted to digital platforms. To raise cash, the company sold Harlequin to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. in 2014 for $455-million. Yet within six years, Honderich wrote, the company was at risk of hitting the wall, financially.

In 2020, the families that controlled Torstar threw in the towel, selling the media company for $60-million to entrepreneurs Jordan Bitove and Paul Rivett. (The pair are now in court, attempting to split up the company’s assets.) In his book, Honderich reveals Torstar turned down a bid from Matthew Proud, CEO of legal software company Dye & Durham, and his brother Tyler after the pair “admitted they never had a newspaper subscription” and one said he relied on Apple News.

Like many retirees, Honderich decided to trace his family’s history, travelling to Kitchener, Ont., his Mennonite-raised father’s hometown. In high-school records, he found report cards that showed Beland Honderich failed four classes one year, including algebra and art. That discovery sparked an interest in chronicling his father’s career, and his own, which become Above the Fold.

In eulogizing John Honderich, his son Robin joked that the Star was his father’s second wife. In the forward to his father’s book, he wrote, “it wasn’t really a joke, as that’s what it felt like for his immediate family, as he put most of his time, energy and love into the paper. There were and are costs to those choices.” However, Robin, a third generation Star executive, invites readers to celebrate the careers of both his father and grandfather by reading the book. And it is quite the bash.

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