Montreal Gazette - McGill Daily celebrating 100th anniversary

When Anne Beatts credits the McGill Daily with giving her a career, keep in mind that this is the woman who was recently given a shout-out by Tina Fey for being the original successful female sketch writer at Saturday Night Live. Not bad company to keep for a woman who had thought the pinnacle of her career was achieved when she was named entertainment editor of the Daily.

“I considered the Daily my real education at McGill and I became addicted to it,” Beatts recalled in a recent telephone interview from California, where she is developing a new show about the Blues Brothers with Dan Aykroyd.

Such is the mystique of the McGill Daily that it has always superseded its designated role as a (mere) university newspaper and served as a training ground for the best and the brightest in many walks of life. And now, as it celebrates its 100th anniversary, the Daily is asking its alumni to gather in Montreal for a reunion – and for the chance to reminisce about the deadlines and headlines that have rocked its offices for a century.

The reunion is to be held Oct. 14-15, and a slew of renowned former Dailyites may be attending: CBC producer Mark Starowicz, Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer, political activist and feminist Judy Rebick, NDP leadership candidate Brian Topp, Supreme Court Justice Morris Fish, Liberal MP Irwin Cotler, Gazette sports columnist Mike Boone and Gazette fashion editor Eva Friede (not to mention countless other Gazette staff).