Western Catholic Reporter

• WCR

• Western Catholic (1922-1964)

The Western Catholic Reporter (WCR) was founded in 1965 by Archbishop Anthony Jordan who wanted to replace the 40+ year old weekly Western Catholic with a newspaper that reflected the teaching and spirit of the Second Vatican Council. Archbishop Jordan named an editor, Douglas Roche, a Canadian journalist who at that time was serving on the staff of Sign magazine in New York and had reported on Vatican II.

Roche recruited other staff and the first issue of the new weekly newspaper was published in September 1965. The archbishop also appointed a board of advisors which later became a board of directors for the newspaper. It was established as a separate corporation from the archdiocese with the archbishop holding the vast majority of the shares.
Roche served until 1972 when he was elected to the House of Commons. In the meantime, he had hired Frank Dolphin, a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation-TV reporter as associated editor, and Stuart Lindop as business manager of the newspaper. With Roche’s departure, Victor Misutka became the editor and Elmar Abele the general manager. Misutka was editor until returning to The Edmonton Journal in 1979.

Abele researched and established a parish assessment program in 1973 which put the newspaper on sounder financial footing and made the WCR accessible to Catholics across the archdiocese. The assessment program continued until 2003 when it was cancelled and the newspaper was again distributed by paid circulation. The paper began publishing biweekly at the beginning of 2014 with a vastly reduced circulation. Abele retired as general manager in 1988 and was replaced by Hugh McCarthy who served until 1990.

John Rasmussen became editor after Misutka left and remained in the post until April 1981. Glen Argan became his successor, serving until 1985. Other editors over the next few years were Shirley Pfister (1985-87); Frank Dolphin (1987-88); Marjorie Bentley (1989). Because of internal strife at the WCR and the rapid turnover of editors, a consultant was hired after Bentley’s departure to examine the paper’s structure. The consultant’s key recommendation was to unite the positions of editor and general manager.

The first editor-general manager was Rod Stafford-Mayer who served only a few months before being replaced by Glen Argan in January 1991. Argan served as editor until the paper’s closure in September 2016, although he lost the position of general manager in 2013 when the corporation which ran the WCR – Great Western Press Inc. – was folded into the archdiocese, and the board of directors dissolved. The WCR then became part of the archdiocesan Department of Communications.

Staff were informed of the closure of the newspaper on September 12, 2016, and a public announcement was made later that day. The six staff at the paper were laid off, while two others remained on maternity leave. The final edition of the Western Catholic Reporter was dated September 26, 2016.

History prepared by Glen Argan