This week in Canadian media history: William Lyon Mackenzie launches Colonial Advocate in 1824
William Lyon Mackenzie published the first edition of the Colonial Advocate on May 18, 1824, in Queenston, Ont. It was the first of seven newspapers that Mackenzie would publish.
First issue of the Colonial Advocate
By Eric Mark Do, Reporter
William Lyon Mackenzie published the first edition of the Colonial Advocate on May 18, 1824, in Queenston, Ont. It was the first of seven newspapers that Mackenzie would publish. Two years later—as described on a plaque commemorating the newspaper by his home and printing office— a political group raided the Colonial Advocate's offices after Mackenzie's political attacks on the Family Compact. The courts awarded him money for damages to the press, and he resumed publishing soon after. Mackenzie became the first mayor of Toronto in 1834 and the last issue of the renamed Advocate was published in November of that year.
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Tamara Baluja is an award-winning journalist with CBC Vancouver and the 2018 Michener-Deacon fellow for journalism education. She was the associate editor for J-Source from 2013-2014.