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It’s a tweak that adds just two words and a simple maple leaf.
Given the tone and tenor of these Trumpian times, however, my hope is the message we are now sending from our front-page masthead will speak volumes.
Alongside the tagline that the Free Press has been serving Manitoba since 1872, we’ve added a new patriotic note that we are proudly Canadian.
The Free Press’s new masthead makes its debut on Thursday’s print edition.
At one level, we are stating the bloody obvious; our record of service to the province and country over the past 152 years has never been in doubt.
But I don’t think we can take anything for granted, given the rising tide of misinformation, misunderstanding and mischief surrounding the U.S. president’s preoccupation about annexing Canada as the 51st state.
So, to review: Our first edition rolled off a rickety hand-turned press in a rented shack on Main Street less than two years after Manitoba became a province.
Our headquarters have always been in Winnipeg. Our employees are rooted in this community, bundling up against the cold today, just like you.
We pay taxes to the three levels of government represented by the trio of flags snapping in the brisk February breeze outside my office window: Canada, Manitoba and the City of Winnipeg.
And, as always, we are a place you can turn to for information you can trust. That means we will ensure you get the cold, hard facts when it comes to Trump’s distortions about everything from the miniscule amount of fentanyl crossing the border into the U.S., to the inflated size of the U.S. trade deficit with Canada to the latest falsehood that Ukraine started the war with Russia.
Flagging the Free Press as Canadian serves as both a reaffirmation of our responsibility to deliver what U.S.-based tech tycoons won’t — and a reminder that our country’s journalistic assets are worth preserving.
I mention this fact because there’s no shortage of irony in the Manitoba government’s new campaign to protect jobs and the economy by encouraging Manitobans to buy local and to buy Canadian.
That’s all well and good — except for the fact that the campaign is being promoted on Facebook and Instagram, which of course are owned by Mark Zuckerberg, who was part of the front-row applause line at the presidential inauguration that formally ushered in these attacks on Canada.
Irony abounds, too, at the federal level, where earlier this month Ottawa ended its Meta ad ban, which was initially put in place in 2023 when Zuckerberg’s Meta platforms blocked Canadian news.
In other words, our politicians talk about buying local while walking tax dollars south of the border as part of spending on platforms more interested in cozying up to POTUS than fact-checking.
We are approaching the one-month anniversary of this overtly aggressive U.S. administration, which has already generated more headlines and more headaches for our country and economy than we could have ever imagined. I won’t even dare to predict what else might be coming our way.
But what I do know is that your Free Press will always be standing on guard, serving Manitobans and remaining proudly Canadian.
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