Chris Buck to speak at MagNet conference

The photographer has no obligation to the subject, except not to lie. That's Chris Buck speaking, the bi-coastal (New York, Los Angeles) photographer who is to be this year's international speaker at MagNet, the magazine conference to be held June 13 to 15 in Toronto.Buck, a Canadian expatriate who made good shooting celebrities, grew up in Etobicoke and took photography at Ryerson

Ad-edit guidelines now have magazine industry seal of approval

The Canadian Society of Magazine Editors (CSME) a number of years ago drew up a set of guidelines for the relationship between advertising and editorial pages in Canadian magazines. It was a wonderful initiative by a relatively small organization.In an effort to have an even broader industry consensus, a panel of people from the editorial, advertising and publishing sides have spent the past year

Prose, and everything else, is purple as Open magazine debuts

It gives a whole new meaning to purple prose; the very recent launch of a new magazine called Open which has printed the entire magazine in shades of purple and apparently intends to publish each issue of the quarterly magazine in a theme colour. (Winter's colour is to be white, apparently; would it be quibbling to point out that white is not a colour?)The tagline is [Open] "...to all

Douglas Knight named president of St. Joseph

Douglas Knight, the former publisher of the Financial Post (1992-97) and the Financial Post magazine (1990-92), has been appointed to replace Donna Clark as president of St. Joseph Media. Knight was also publisher and CEO of the Toronto Sun (1997-2000).The announcement comes within days of the departure of Ms Clark, who had been president for just 14 months.A release from St. Joseph says that

Toronto Star media critic Zerbisias has stopped blogging

Antonia Zerbisias, the Toronto Star media critic, set a pace in blogging that apparently couldn't be sustained and has now given it up. Since August Zerbisias (to use her words) "left the building" and hasn't blogged since, except to post one item on the death of her former colleague Sid Adilman. She was among the most prolific and wide-ranging of Star bloggers, often writing more on a subject

Shameless magazine wants to pass the torch

The forthcoming Fall/Winter issue of Shameless, the spunky Toronto-based magazine for teens and young women, will contain a letter from the editors saying that they want to find someone else to take charge of the magazine.Like with many small, specialty magazines in Canada, while publishing it can be a joy, it can also be very hard work, given that so much of your unpaid effort has to go into

Stage left -- Camp BCAMP to take place January 19 to 21

Camp BCAMP, the annual conference for British Columbia Association of Magazine Publishers, will be headlined by Sara Angel, the editor-in-chief of Chatelaine. The keynote address, sponsored by Indas Limited, takes place on Friday January 19, with various panels and sessions taking place on Saturday 20 and Sunday 21st.The whole event takes place at Dunsmuir Lodge in Sidney. For further

Blackflash makes a hard choice, but was it the right choice?

The difficult balance between discretion and censorship, between editorial freedom and board responsibility, between the law and common sense -- these are all apparently in play at Blackflash, the Saskatoon-based photography,electronic and digital art magazine that has published a story with holes in it.The story is about child pornography and according to an excellent summary in the Globe and

Building a buzz in more ways than one, Blackfly takes a bite out of Ontario

Many people talk about starting magazines, but only a few manage it; it's daunting in its details, expensive in its execution and often the talking about it is much more fun than the doing of it. That having been said, it is encouraging to see the emergence of Blackfly magazine, a political quarterly magazine about Ontario.As the centre of the Canadian universe -- at least in terms of population

Little Miss Sunshine Q&A

Senior Editor Jeff Goldsmith interviews screenwriter Michael Arndt about Little Miss Sunshine

Not Currently Available

The Mau Mauing of The Walrus?

If you have seen the current cover of The Walrus, you may noted it was created by uber-designer Bruce Mau, who also wrote a story inside (Imagining the Future: Why the cynics are wrong) and is married to Bisi Williams, one of the new directors of the Walrus Foundation. And if you'd been able to score one of the $125 tickets to the Walrus fundraising party last night in Toronto, you were

Donna Clark has resigned from St. Joseph Media

Donna Clark, the president of St Joseph Media, has resigned effective December 1. She was hired in August last year and started at St Joseph in September. Now, with a week's notice and barely 14 months after she started, she is leaving.[UPDATE: Mastheadonline (sub req'd) has published a brief interview with Clark, who says her departure was her choice, for a number of reasons.“I’m at that life

New Malahat Review prize to honour Victoria poet P. K. Page

A $1,000 annual award for poetry will be made by the Malahat Review in the name of well-known and award-winning poet P. K. Page. Ms. Page celebrates her 90th birthday this month and the award will be made to the author of the best poem or sequence of poems published in the previous year in the magazine, which is published at the University of Victoria.The winner of the first award will be

Stick to your guns, live long and prosper

There are those who will say it is just whistling past the graveyard, but a fairly upbeat and hopeful prognosis for magazines was sounded this week by the Guardian media section. The article by Will Hodgkinson acknowledged that there is a bit of a bloodbath in some categories in Great Britain, notably the men's category , for instance, where monthlies spawned weeklies that simply cannibalized

Parachute, one of Canada's oldest arts journals, suspends publication

Parachute, one of Canada's most long-lived magazines about contemporary art, and one distinguished by being published in both English and French, has suspended publication. Founded in 1974, the magazine made its decision because funding levels no longer allowed it to maintain the quality it wanted with the stability it needed. (At right is the first issue of the magazine.)In a release today, the

Sutherland to step down at Western Living

It takes a great deal of gumption to make a major career shift; Jim Sutherland, the editor of Western Living, should be congratulated and wished well on his decision to step down and go back to writing. The announcement was made last week and was reported in mastheadonline yesterday (sub req'd). Sutherland was previously editor of sister magazine Vancouver before joining Western Living in 1999.

Canadian Winter magazine offers cold comfort

"Mon pays..." oops, I was going to break into song, prompted by the impending launch of a cozy new travel/lifestyle magazine called Canadian Winter.It is owned and produced by Griffintown Media, a Montreal-based communications firm that also publishes Canadascope magazine, Canada’s international magazine for the tourism industry, since 2001. Like Canadascope, Canadian Winter has a strong,

Akeelah and the Bee Q&A

Senior Editor Jeff Goldsmith interviews writer-director Doug Atchison about Akeelah and the Bee

Not Currently Available

Jill Foran new editor of Kayak; Ian McKelvie to market Kayak and The Beaver

Major changes at the children's history magazine Kayak, the digest-sized, colourful little sister of The Beaver. Both are published by Canada's National History Society out of Winnipeg. The original editor, Aron Slipacoff and the Art Director, Glenn Toddum, have left after having launched and got Kayak on an even keel (ed: enough of that).The new editor is Calgary author and freelancer Jill Foran

Reader's Digest sold for $2.4 billion

In what is one of the biggest magazine sales in the past decade, Reader's Digest has agreed to be sold to a private equity firm for $1.6 billion, according to a story from Folio: magazine. The buyer is Ripplewood Holdings Inc., founded in 1995 by Tim Collins, the former managing director of Canadian buyout firm Onex Corporation. Ripplewood currently manages five institutional private equity funds

Brand names aren't worth squat without the right attitude

Guess what? Readers don't give a hoot about magazine brands; they want content relevant to their lives presented in a way that's visually appealing. I'm not reading Rolling Stone again because I have fond memories of checking it out while stoned and listening to "Fables of the Reconstruction" during high school; I'm reading it again because it has abandoned its

How things change

A friend sent us a 2003 clipping from the Thunderbird, the student newspaper of the University of British Columbia.Who said this, an excerpt from a review of the first issue of The Walrus?It's a solid enough magazine, but far from fresh. The one truly cool idea in the entire magazine is the illustrated review, humourously executed by Richard Hahn. If they're pushing the big names, then how about

Seeing Canada the Geist way

Geist magazine, which is known and valued for many things, is perhaps most valued by many people for its thought-provoking, often wacky maps that are quirkily revealing about Canada and 50 of these maps have now been gathered together in an atlas published by Arsenal Pulp Press. Many of the maps were created by Melissa Edwards.In its unique way, Geist is offering a subscription to the magazine

Enroute magazine names top new restaurants

Enroute magazine has named the top new Canadian restaurants, according to Canadian Press. They are: Nu (Vancouver)"Nu's menu is a puzzle that fits no matter how you put it together," said contributing editor Chris Johns. "It has stylistic whims and nods to culinary trendiness. The kitchen, while ambitious, isn't afraid of a bit of fun." Capo (Calgary) - "Elegant, luxurious and sophisticated."

The digital side of magazines gets a tax break

Although it has apparently been available to them for some time, magazine publishers in Ontario were today briefed for the first time on the Ontario Interactive Digital Media Tax Credit (OIDMTC). It is administered by the Ontario Media Development Corporation and, in a session co-sponsored by Magazines Canada, the rules and regs of the program were outlined.It is available to for-profit magazine

Digital permissions and reprint system to be fronted by Winnipeg firm

Tirage Reprints, a company out of Winnipeg, has cut a deal with online content licensing service iCopyright to manage copyright permissions, sell reprints, and offer other content services to magazine readers. iCopyright, a company founded in 1998 and based in Seattle, Washington, markets a system designed to make it easy for readers to comply with copyright requirements and easy for magazines

Quote, unquote

"I believe the boundaries of freedom of expression seem to be closing in a bit on newspapers and magazines in a way which may not be healthy."-- Sir Christopher Meyer, the chairman of Britain's Press Complaints Commission, quoted in The Guardian. (Sir Christopher is best known for telling tales out of school about his time as ambassador to Washington. His warning was in context with some comments

New job source for those gazing south

Competition in the magazine job board category has heated up a bit, as Folio: and CM (Circulation Management) magazines, from Red7Media of Norwalk, Connecticut, have created a new site called magjobsonline.com. It's not clear whether Canadian publishers/employers will find this a good way to troll for people who want to head north.Job seekers can register to receive e-alerts for particular kinds

Getting paid what you're worth (freelance division)

Interesting item on the Professional Writers Association of Canada blog about advise to freelancers being given by the Canadian Media Guild (CMG). The guild's freelance unit automatically represents and negotiates for all freelancers who do work for the CBC and SRC. Among the tips given in the pamphlet Taking the Free out of Freelance, are:As an experienced freelancer, avoid working for the

National Magazine Awards entries due soon

It's not too soon for magazine editors and contributors to be leafing through their past year's issues and deciding what entries they'll be making to the 30th annual National Magazine Awards. Applications are accepted starting December 1 and must be in no later than January 10. Finalists will be posted on the magawards website by May 1, 2007. If you're particularly feckless, it's helpful to have

OMDC grant recipients

[NOTE This post has been corrected.] The Ontario Media Development Corporation's Magazine Fund has given out 27 grants to magazines, according to its newsletter issued Friday. Masthead magazine (which is a sister publication to one of the grant recipients) has also reported this (sub req'd). No amounts are reported, but recipients are allowed to apply for project support up to $25,000.

Shameless weighs in on slurs against Stronach

Although it seems to be somewhat late in the day, the Shameless magazine blog has posted about the sexist crap that was (and probably is) being dished out to Belinda Stronach, MP. Thea Lim, a frequent contributor to the blog, detailed comments from Peter MacKay, Norman Spector and Ralph Klein and explained the context for the non-Canadian readers of Shameless before saying that she posted not

Subscribers win with e-alerts and downloadable content

It is a truism that online tools can enhance the experience of readers who don't want to give up the many benefits and pleasures of a traditional print publication. What the internet and e-notifications do extremely well is provide enhancements of the experience of being a subscriber. Many magazines offer e-letters (on narrow, vertical topics excerpted from or expanding on the main editorial of

Optimistic Ambrose brings her enthusiasm -- and her Rolodex -- to The Walrus

There is no question that a certain amount of PR was called for* at The Walrus and opening up to the Toronto Star is not a bad way to get some. In the Sunday Star, writer Leslie Scrivener examines the implications and impact of the arrival of Shelley Ambrose as publisher of the magazine and executive director of the Walrus Foundation. While acknowledging that she has no direct magazine experience

Thank You For Smoking Q&A

Senior Editor Jeff Goldsmith interviews writer-director Jason Reitman about Thank You For Smoking

Not Currently Available

Rue Morgue Radio spreads its dark tentacles...

Rue Morgue, Canada's magazine of horror in culture and entertainment, has now partnered with Iceberg Radio to distribute a weekly, dowloadable radio program that is just...um, horrible. Which is what they are driving at. It's a specialty music show that started in 2002 on Rue Morgue's own website and is now to be carried on, and dowloaded from www.icebergradio.com. Horror and music fans can tune

Bonnie Fuller gets meaner to push up sales

Funny, how when newsstand and sub sales soar, Bonnie Fuller credits her own genius with having accomplished it; yet when single copy sales slump, as they have with the tabloid Star, she says the redesign she is launching has nothing to do with it. According to a story in Women's Wear Daily (WWWD):The new elements will be rolled out over the next three to four weeks and will help Star stand out in

This guy says advertising is a public good

Maclean's columnist Andrew Potter moonlights with a guest column published in the Ottawa Citizen (and, presumably, other CanWest papers), making the case for advertising.Just as pollution typically involves the dumping of the byproducts of industrial manufacture into our physical environment, many critics talk of advertising as polluting our "mental environment." In both cases, we are

NOW turns 25

Frankly, we were a bit embarrassed to tell some of our friends that we were starting a business. Marrying a loud, opinionated social consciousness with entrepreneurialism was like going to the dark side in those days. It was funny, but it was uncomfortable back then, too. Right from the start, we got a dose of how it felt to be ahead of our time. And it really hasn’t changed that much.-- Michael

Two art directors, two books, one launch

A launch next Tuesday in Montreal will unveil books by two people who art direct Canadian magazines. Both books are from Insomniac Press.This Will All End in Tears is a graphic novel, five, long-form, illustrated short stories that is said to be "part Charles Schulz, part Edward Gorey" and written by the art director of Ascent magazine, Joe Ollmann. Ascent Canada's leading yoga magazine. (Shown

Guardian editor predicts sunset for classified ads

The editor of the Guardian, Alan Rusbridger, predicted to an audience of his peers that classified advertising could disappear from newspapers by 2020.Taking part in a panel at the Society of Editors meeting in Glasgow, he said classified adverts from the Guardian print edition were declining by about 9% a year while internet advertising on Guardian Unlimited was growing by about 50% each year -

This Magazine celebrates 40 years of feisty independence

This Magazine is celebrating 40 years of publication -- no mean feat -- with a splashy event on Wednesday night at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto. (Attention is being paid in places like Torontoist.)Here's what This says about itself:It is one of Canada's longest-publishing alternative journals. Founded by a gang of school activists in 1966, and originally called This Magazine is About Schools,

How rich publishers get richer; Hearst saves $1 million on prepress

Hearst, one of the U.S.'s biggest magazine publishers, saved about $1 million by streamlining its prepress operations, according to a story in Folio: magazine. (Hearst publishes, among other titles, Cosmopolitan, Esquire, Good Housekeeping, Harper's Bazaar, House Beautiful, Marie Claire, O: The Oprah Magazine, Redbook and Seventeen.)It looked at the way things were done down under by Austrialian

Tooting our own small horn

We were having such a busy time posting that we failed to notice as we passed one of those arbitrary mileposts sometime last week with our 1,000th post since the blog began in spring 2005. Currently, each month Canadian Magazines is averaging about 8,500 visitors and about 13,000 page views a month.

Kathy Bergen feted by many friends

An event took place on Sunday that demonstrates the kinds of special bonds that can sometimes be forged in magazines. It was a "tea" held at the Toronto home of Bev Topping for Kathy Bergen the Editorial Director of today'sparent.com, stricken by cancer and honoured by her many friends and associates. Bergen has become well-known for her expertise in online publishing and, before that, as a

Shelley Ambrose named Walrus publisher

The Walrus has a new publisher -- Shelley Ambrose. This, according to a story on Canadian Press and on CBC.ca. Ambrose, who spent the last three years working in public affairs at the Canadian Consulate in New York, was named publisher of the magazine on Monday.[Keep on pitching -- Ambrose is seen at left, pitching for the Canadian team in a baseball league playing in New York's Central Park.]

You guys still don't measure up, say universities

Universities continue to complain about the effrontery of magazines and newspapers passing judgement on their excellence, offerings and courses. Maclean's, of course, is in the bad books of half the universities in the country who are refusing to fill out the detailed questionnaire sent to their administrations. The Globe and Mail is trying to horn in on the territory by developing its own annual

Spacing gets a growing rep for relevance

[Toronto Star photo by Rene Johnston] Left to right, Shawn Micallef, Anna Bowness wih 2-month-old daughter River, writer Dale Duncan, Matt Blackett (in centre holding a button) Holland Gidney, and Dylan Reid.Getting attention paid is a real struggle for small magazines; they cannot afford to advertise and press promotion often seems to elude them. But sometimes, excellence and persistence pays

Little Children Q&A

Senior Editor Jeff Goldsmith Interviews co-writer/director Todd Field about Little Children

Not Currently Available

The return of Tyler Brule. Now, it's serious

Tyler Brule, the Winnipeg-born founder of Wallpaper*, which he launched when he was 27 and soon sold to Time Inc., is to launch a magazine called Monocle in February.Where Wallpaper*'s unique selling proposition for readers was the illusion of hanging out in a lavish pad talking about design and stuff with self-involved international jet-setters, the new magazine is being modelled more after fat

POP! goes the promotion

POP! magazine, which is for kids, is being given away free as a premium to anyone who buys child-related literature from Chapters Indigo during a six-week promotion, according to an item in Media in Canada. POP! is published by Paton Publishing of Missssauga, a division of Torstar. Normally, the colourful title distributes about 250,000 copies three times annually to elementary schools.

Travel issues broaden the mind at Briarpatch

Timed for the start of the winter holiday season, Briarpatch magazine has taken on tourism and there are some thought-provoking, possibly guilt-inducing and consciousness-raising articles in its November issue. Among the contents:They managed to land a high profile lead story by George Monbiot, a very well respected columnist for the Guardian, about the moral implications of travel.There's a

New crop whines from universities that boycotted Maclean's

Now that's rich! The president of Carleton University, one of the original 11 which refused to provide up-to-date data to Maclean's magazines' university issue, now criticizes the magazine for using year-old data. About half of Canada's universities effectively boycotted the rankings and used various strategems to thwart Maclean's's freedom-of-information requests for current data.David Atkinson,

Ad pages in big Canadian consumer magazines jump 6.5% in third quarter

Canada's largest consumer magazines saw the number of ad pages they sold jump 6.5% in the third quarter, compared to the same quarter a year ago, according the Leading National Advertisers data reported by mastheadonline (sub requ'd).

Cosmo India is a heavyweight in more ways than one

The October issue of Cosmopolitan in India weighs almost five pounds and has 1,016 pages. There's grist for your next cocktail party chat. According to a story on the Time.com website, publishing is booming in the country, with 203 million people reading a newspaper every day and new magazines being launched every day. "It's a sunrise moment for Indian publishing," says Mala Sekhri, publishing

Small literary and cultural mags to compete for share of additional funding

Good news for small literary and cultural publications, and possibly to contributors, from the Canada Council for the Arts. Next week (November 9) it will unveil the detailed application process and guidelines to allow it to distributed supplementary payments to arts organizations and individuals. This is made possible by an additional $50 million in increased appropriation announced last spring

Little magazines we like: Penguin Eggs

Even the great and mighty oak was once a nut like me...or lyrics to that effect. I thought I'd bring to the attention of small magazines out there that innovation is a matter as much of will as resources. The example I would give is Penguin Eggs, the quarterly folk and world music magazine published out of Edmonton.There are very few magazines of its size that offer so easy a way for people to

Income trust rule changes will affect magazines

No matter what happens on the financial markets this morning as a result of the government's surprise decision on income trusts (taking away much of their tax advantages) it will impact the magazine industry. As but two examples (some readers may suggest others), consider Rogers Media, which had recently become a partner with Aeroplan, the Air Canada points system, an income trust that was

Universities find subtle and not so subtle ways to thwart Maclean's requests for info

Universities across Canada employed a range of strategems to thwart Maclean's magazine's request for data under freedom of information legislation, according to a story carried by CanWest News Services. This is latest chapter in the struggle between Maclean's and the universities who complain about the methodology in the long-running "universities issue". See previous posts here and here. About