Traditional and incumbent media in Canada have long had a reputation for taking a very closed approach to web publishing. Specifically, they've been reluctant to link to other sites; likely the result of a misguided philosophy that letting their readers know about related content from around the web is bad for business.

But as any web surfer knows, sharing and hyper-linking is what makes the web what it is; and sites that don't get with the program risk losing their audience's respect and ultimately might see their traffic migrate elsewhere.

So after years of watching The Toronto Star and CityNews approach the web with their old school rules, it was refreshing this past week when both of these media heavyweights seemed to change their tune.

In the case of CityNews, we weren't the only ones shocked when they updated their post on the plight of video arcades in Toronto with a link prompting their readers to discuss the article on blogTO. blogTO reader Joe Howell commented:

Is this a regular thing? I find it absolutely amazing that a major outlet would link to a blog for comment. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad thing - just a surprising sign of the times.

The same week, the Toronto Star linked to us not once but twice. First there was the Rats in Dumpling House post (The National Post also linked to us for this but they've been doing this for a bit of time now) and today The Star linked to both blogTO and Torontoist's coverage of the fire on Queen Street.

Could this be a new, more open Toronto Star and CityNews? Only time will tell. In fact, in a surprising turn of events since I started writing this post I've noticed that the links to blogTO in the Toronto Star's "Rats" article have now been removed.