The G&M's Stackhouse plus their most-read stories of the past year

He made two main points. First, he argued that newspapers in Canada, while subject to many of the same challenges as their American counterparts, won't suffer quite the same fate (in short, our companies are less leveraged, our politics less polarized and our city cores more densely populated). Second, he described how the Globe was working to compete and evolve to being a "paper of insight" (to be overly simplistic, it's a combination of commitments to quality journalism, smart design and intelligent insight in both its print and online products).

He also shared the Globe's most-read articles and coverage over the past year.

The top-read article was the report on Harvard economist Niall Ferguson's speech in Ottawa, where he remarked that "there will be blood" as countries coped with the economic crisis. For obvious reasons, this provocative statement was picked up in the American blogsphere and traffic rose accordingly. The second was their exclusive on actress Natasha Richardson's death following a ski accident in Tremblant, aided by its pick-up in People.com. Third was a piece on the Canadian banks, entitled "Canada envy," picked up by an NPR blog.

Their best single day was December 2, 2008 during Canada's constitutional crisis. Their best run was the end of September 2008 when the financial crisis was at its height.

Together, it looks like the magic formula at least will mix a little of the old (good explanatory content in the public interest) with a little of the new (aggressive linking to other media sites).