Regina Leader-Post

The Regina Leader-Post is the daily newspaper of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, and now a member of the Postmedia Network.

History
The newspaper was first published as The Leader in 1883, by Nicholas Flood Davin. Published weekly by the mercurial Davin, it almost immediately achieved national prominence during the Northwest Rebellion and the subsequent trial of Louis Riel when Davin's immediate access to the developing story provided scoops which were picked up by the national press. Davin's greatest coup was his jailhouse interview with Riel, which he obtained by masquerading as a francophone priest and interviewing Riel in French under the nose of uncomprehending anglophone watchhouse guards. The Leader merged with another paper, the Regina Evening Post, and continued to publish daily editions of both before consolidating them under the title The Leader-Post. Other newspapers absorbed in due course by the L-P include the Regina Daily Star and The Province.

In 1995, the Leader-Post released an electronic version of the newspaper so that subscribers could view their newspapers on the internet. Electronic and daily print subscribers also enjoy access to extra content not available to all readers.

Later that year, the paper and its sister, the Saskatoon StarPhoenix, were acquired from their owner, the Markham, Ont.-based Armadale group, by Hollinger Inc. group, a company then headed by then-Canadian media baron Conrad Black. Within three months, the staffs at each newspaper had been cut by one-quarter, these cuts becoming a cause celebre in Canadian journalism.

Black's company subsequently divested itself of the Leader-Post together with most other Canadian news media it had owned, in conjunction with Black's renunciation of his Canadian citizenship in order to obtain an English peerage.