The Murray scheme: advertising and editorial independence in Canada,1920

Abstract

Canada’s capitalist economy faced several challenges in 1919. These threatened the ruling Conservative Party and its ideological ally, the Canadian Manufacturers’ Association. At stake was control over national tariff policies designed to protect Canadian industry. Gilbert Murray, late of the CMA, believed the press ‘poisoned the hearts and minds’ of Canadians against capital. He organized an advertisers’ boycott of all newspapers opposing the tariff and simultaneously acquired editorial control over several hundred weekly newspapers. He meant to silence ‘anti-business’ papers and thereby blanket Canada with Conservative news outlets in time for a general election due in 1921. Liberal and Conservative editors decried the scheme and its implications for a free press. More interesting, however, was the opposition of the business press, which argued that the scheme would undermine the emerging credibility of advertising itself. The scheme represents that moment in time when the media, advertisers and politicians recognized the social power of modern advertising.