John Semley Named A.V. Club Toronto City Editor

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - Sept. 16, 2011) - The A.V. Club Toronto has appointed John Semley, a Toronto-based editor and writer, as its city editor.

In his new position, Semley will oversee the editorial operations of the A.V. Club Toronto, which will feature local entertainment and arts news and commentary.

The A.V. Club Toronto will be distributed free each week in Toronto starting Thursday, Sept. 29, along with The Onion as part of a new arrangement announced in July between the Toronto Star, Canada's largest newspaper, and the American-based owner of the weekly news parody The Onion and its pop-culture sister publication, The A.V. Club.

Semley has been a staff writer and contributing editor since 2009 with Torontoist, a widely-read local website. He has also written for Toronto Life, The Grid, The Walrus, Exclaim and Maisonneuve. Semley has a Bachelor of Arts from McGill University and a Masters of Arts in cinema studies from the University of Toronto.

The official launch event for The Onion and The A.V. Club Toronto will be held Wednesday, Sept. 28, at The Drake Hotel. The event is open to the public starting at 8:00 p.m. There will be a $5 entry fee, which will be donated to the United Way of Greater Toronto. The event will include special DJ sets by Jay Ferguson (Sloan) and Justin Peroff (Broken Social Scene). It is sponsored by The Drake, Second City, Bacardi Canada and Steam Whistle Brewery.

About The Onion

The Onion started in 1988 as a weekly newspaper at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Today, The Onion and The A.V. Club reach approximately 2 million readers in print weekly and 10 million monthly online. The Onion has produced several bestselling books as well as an award-winning web-video series called Onion News Network. The online series led to a television show which airs in Canada on SuperChannel.

About the Toronto Star and thestar.com

The Toronto Star, founded in 1892, is read in print and online (thestar.com) by 3.0 million readers. The Toronto Star is a division of Star Media Group, which includes Toronto.com, Torstar Syndication Services, The Grid, Sway and The Canadian Immigrant. Star Media Group also includes the jointly owned Metro free daily newspapers in Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax, Winnipeg and London, Ont., and the Chinese language newspaper Sing Tao. Star Media Group is a division of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation.