Donovan Vincent is Toronto Star's new Public Editor
September 12, 2022
In Grade 11 at Thornhill Secondary School, Donovan Vincent English teacher recognized his writing skills and suggested he consider a journalism career.
“I had been doing some essays and she just pulled me aside one day and said your writing is really strong, you like to ask questions and you have a great personality,” he recounted. “From that time, it was planted in my head that that was the career path I would pursue.”
Last month, Vincent was promoted to Public Editor of the ‘Toronto Star’.
Created five decades ago, the holder of the role looks into error claims in its content on all platforms on which it publishes.
“My job is multifaceted,” Vincent said. “I am doing reader complaints and concerns which have to do with things like headlines, factual and grammatical errors, misspellings, wrong street addresses and dates.”
In addition to the new role, he has the latitude to write a regular column.
“There is no pressure on how frequently I should write,” said Vincent. “I am going based on what my predecessors did. I will be writing on anything pertaining to issues in the media. I am trying to keep it to stories our paper has covered. What I try to do with my column is bring out new information that people can’t find anywhere.”
He quickly learnt that fact checking is an important part of journalism shortly after joining the paper in 1989.
A local police agency had alerted the media to a story of a person with terminal illness who had been robbed. The story, which made international headlines, turned out to be untrue.
“The problem is that it was based on a story that this lady told police,” he said. “After they found out it was false, they tried to cover it up rather than say they got duped. The disappointing thing about that is there were some media that still wanted to believe the woman’s story was true and the police didn’t make a mistake. That, to me, gets at the central element of what I am doing and that is trying to cut through all the fog, people’s emotions and how they feel about things and just get at the facts of a story. My feeling is that we often do get it right, but sometimes we don’t and we will get a call from a reader saying, ‘This element of the story was unfair or inaccurate’. That is when I kick into high gear. I will reach out to the reporter, do some of my own digging and try to find out whether or not we got the story wrong.”
Recommended by his peers, Vincent said the promotion was unexpected.
“The publisher (Jordan Bitove) was the one that was really happy to have me step into this role after all these years,” he said. “I was heavily involved with the union here. That plus my journalistic experience helped me deal with my colleagues really well along with problem-solving different issues happening in the newspaper. I think all of that experience together made me the person for this job.”
Vincent has extensive experience covering municipal politics, having worked for several years out of the newspaper’s city hall bureau during then Mayor David Miller’s tenure.
He also covered crime, justice, health and education issues and has written several long form features on various topics.
In 1996, Vincent along with Jamaican-born Philip Mascoll and Dale Brazao (they are both retired) won the National Newspaper Breaking News (formerly Spot News Reporting) Award.
Two years later, he was part of a team that captured the 1998 Michener Award for a seven-part feature series, ‘Madness’, that focused on Canada’s mental health system shortcomings.
A summer intern with ‘Toronto Star’, Vincent was hired after a year with ‘Share’ that is Canada’s largest ethnic newspaper.
How did his time with a community newspaper prepare him for a long and distinguished career in mainstream media?
“The community paper brings you closer to the community,” Vincent pointed out. “Instead of covering institutions from a distance, you are actually out getting input from people in the community. I remember covering Jamaica’s Hurricane Gilbert story in 1988 and just walking out the front door of ‘Share’ that was located on Eglinton Ave. W. at the time and finding lots of Jamaicans in the nearby barbershops and restaurants who were willing to contribute to the story. The Wade Lawson shooting took place when I was at ‘Share’ and I remember going to the street protests, talking to people and really getting the community pulse.
“I covered other things like a beauty pageant and a Congress of Black Women event that former Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion spoke at. I didn’t drive a car then, so I had to hop on buses and streetcars. I really cherish my time at ‘Share’. It was an action-packed year in which I did many different types of stories. I still read that newspaper as there is so much great stuff they are plugged into. It was just a great place to start my career in my first full-time job.”
While at ‘Share’, Vincent turned down a request to join the defunct ‘Contrast’ newspaper.
“The late Horace Gooden tried to get me to come over with him,” he pointed out. “I was honoured, but I loved being where I was which is an amazing and respected newspaper. I was happy where I was. Because I was so busy taking pictures and conducting great interviews, when I went to ‘Toronto Star’ with this amazing portfolio, they literally said, ‘When could you start’?
Transitioning from a weekly to a daily, he pointed out, took a little while to get used to.
“The grind is a little bit different as you are churning out stuff faster and there are more deadlines,” Vincent said. “I had to get used to that.”
Born in England to Jamaican immigrants who arrived there in the 1950s as part of the Windrush Generation before relocating to Canada in 1966 on a Cunard Line steamship that moored in Halifax, he completed an undergraduate degree in English and Political Science at York University and Toronto Metropolitan University’s two-year graduate journalism program.
Of the 400 applicants the year he entered in 1986, only 32 were selected.
The apple doesn’t fall from the tree when it comes to Vincent emulating his parents.
Married for nearly six decades, Herbert and Avil were excellent role models for their children. Wendy Vincent was born in Canada seven years after her brother.
The family patriarch passed away in October 2021 at age 87.
“My father always insisted I had to work hard and choose a career path I am passionate about,” he said. “He also told me to never think that I am less than anybody else. Mom is a calming influence and someone who is really big on spelling and grammar.”
Vincent and his wife, Heather Ann McConnell is a labour lawyer and daughter of late Toronto City Councillor Pam McConnell, have four children.
