I'm happy to say that I've just canceled my subscription to the Globe and Mail Newspaper. This decision had been a long time coming, and really the last straw was the redesign that the paper introduced a month or so ago.

When I spoke with the call centre this morning to cancel, they of course asked me why I was dumping the paper, and my initial answer was that it was due to the inferior product they had been delivering. When she asked me to elaborate I said I felt the paper was smug, elitist, and had very little news content, using columnists and opinions in place of news reporting. I also despise the new design, and generally feel the direction the paper is heading, is not one I want to be privy to.

For the past few months I've also been subscribing to the Toronto Star, and it has been an interesting experiment to contrast the two papers each morning. While I've always disliked the volume of advertising the Star has embedded in its pages, their overall news coverage and general reporting was far superior to the Globe's approach of having columnists tell you about the news.

The Star has also undertaken a redesign lately, and unlike the Globe I actually find it an improvement. Obviously the Star also has way better reporting on Toronto, and the Star does not take a smug and snobby attitude to everything in the way the Globe consistently does. At least Star columnists for the most part are a little more down to earth and not making every effort to look down upon me and other readers.

Mind you I'm sure that without the Globe to compare it to, I'll probably sour on the Star rather quickly, but at least I won't have to put up with the daily dose of elitist pretentiousness that is the Globe and Mail.