Did not, did too

This may reignite the conversation earlier this year about fact-checking. It may also ignite a conversation about how magazines deal with letters of complaint and/or clarification from readers.It is an extraordinary exchange of e-mail messages between an aggrieved author and source and the New Yorker about an article it published on the life of the author of Mary Poppins. It was published

Single sales to be pushed by PWC

The Periodical Wholesalers of Canada are to launch a government-supported pilot scheme to enhance the marketing of Canadian newsstand titles, according to an item in mastheadonline. The "Best of Canada" project will be in B.C., including Vancouver, Western Living, BC Business, Gardens West, Business in Vancouver, Okanagan Life, Porch, Geist and Pacific Golf.

Editor of This quits

Emily Schultz, appointed Editor of This Magazine only about 6 months ago, has resigned. No public announcement has been made, but the news was apparently swirling around a Magazines Canada party last night. Ms Schultz has one book out and another due out in the spring and it may be that the considerable demands of editing Canada's pre-eminent left-wing magazine couldn't be squared with her

Health Council trumps consumer drug ads

Canadian magazines that have been lobbying to be able to sell direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising of prescription drugs will be dismayed by the uncompromising paper released yesterday by the Health Council of Canada. It says that, for patient safety and public health reasons, the government should reinforce, not relax, its prohibitions on DTC advertising.This essentially restates and reinforces

Truck publisher snaps up truck shows

The publisher of Today's Trucking has purchased two of the largest trucking trade shows in Quebec. ExpoCam and CamExpo. Newcom Business Media, produces Today's Trucking, highwaySTAR, Transport Routier, Truck & Trailer, and Truck & Trailer West, as well as Canada's online trucking resource, TodaysTrucking.com.

Beer crust was the secret

A dessert pizza with the beer crust, caramelized honey apples and whipped cream was part of the winning meal in a contest sponsored by Canadian Pizza Magazine. which is produced by Annex Publishing, based in Simcoe, Ontario.The title Pizza Chef of the Year was won by Diana Coutu, who, with her husband Pierre, owns Diana's Gourmet Pizza in Winnipeg. Her entry included a honey whole-wheat beer

Six packs and sacrifice

Now this is editorial commitment: An editor of Men's Health in Britain struck a blow against hypocrisy by undergoing a six-week transformation based on the kind of advice such magazines routinely give to readers. He came out the other end with a sculpted body and a cover story for which he was the subject. The story, carried in the UK Press Gazette, was as follows:From fat hack to six-pack Men's

Is tea party a euphemism?

Utter garbage written by bitter former employee and published by fired former editor who has taken his high priced tea party to another employer who will eventually also get tired of the act and the losses. -- David Asper, referring to a column about the National Post in this week's Maclean's, written by Business Editor Steve Maich. The column was headed "Bleeding newspapers dry".(All credit to

Grow your own

The next session of the two-day seminar So You Want to Start a Magazine is to be held at Ryerson University on Friday, February 11 and Saturday, February 12. To find out more click on So You Want to Start a Magazine at the right, or go here. Pass this on to anyone you know who would benefit from this program, taught by magazine consultant D. B. Scott.

Just asking

Is it true that Maclean's is averaging about 4,900 sold copies a week on the newsstand, even with the provocative new covers it has been running? This is by no means the worst that the magazine has done, but it's a long way from the best, too.

Hitchcock quits Chatelaine

Is it true that Acting Editor Beth Hitchcock has quit Chatelaine, leaving the magazine now without an editor or an art director? Hitchcock pinch-hit after Editor Kim Pittaway quit over fundamental disagreements with Publisher Kerry Mitchell.UPDATE: It is true. Mastheadonline got her on the phone and she said: “The last few months have been really hard,” Hitchcock says, “We’ve been understaffed,

Of course, we read it for the articles

Penthouse, the bad boy of skin books, recently relaunched, now offers a digital edition through Zinio.

Shocked and appalled

The February issue of University Affairs keeps alive the controversy over an ad in the Maclean's University Issue. The article, by Daniel Drolet, reports Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Ken Whyte not backing down an inch. Well, maybe an inch. He says that if he had to do it over again, he'd run the ad (for AXE body spray, which takes the form of a mock survey about sexual and partying behaviour)

All business, all the time

If you haven't been to the Canadian Business website recently, you're in for a surprise. Major renovations have been made in an effort to make CB the go-to portal for business readers. Not only are three Rogers titles interlinked (MoneySense and Profit with CB) but the opening page is something like an all-news channel, with a stock ticker, news, features from the magazines, various archival

I wish he'd say what he means

"...this decaying corpse of a magazine."-- Larry Dobrow, columnist of Media Post, writing about the revamped U.S. edition of TV Guide.

Star to launch fashion extension

Whenever a newspaper wants to pump up business, it seems to play the magazine card. The Toronto Star will publish a skinny, new glossy, 6-times-a-year fashion section called Fashion Plus in March designed to cream off the lucrative cosmetics budgets of the fashion and women's service magazines. This was reported today in Media in Canada. According to group advertising director Cathy

Get a second opinion

Perhaps this explains why other countries don't understand Canadians very well -- it's the source of their information. Mark Steyn, late of the National Post, now inexplicably writing his rants thinly disguised as reviews on the books page of Maclean's, syndicates his views far and wide. Here's what he was telling the readers of The Australian about the Harper election. Good grief.

Women's titles hot in MPA tally

Media Daily News today reported a Magazine Publishers of America tally that there were 257 new magazines launched in the U.S. last year. No surprise, the largest number were women's service titles.

Big shakeup at Transcon: Prefontaine out

It was announced, suddenly, today that André Préfontaine is out as President of Transcontinental Media. Also leaving is Daniel Denault, the Chief Financial officer. Prefontaine had been with the company 10 years; Denault 8.The partial text of the company release is as follows:Change in Transcontinental management MONTREAL, Jan. 23 /CNW Telbec/ - Transcontinental Inc. today announced the

We believe you, many wouldn't

This is not a cost-cutting exercise. It's a way of redistributing our resources so that we can reinvest in the title.This, from a story in the Guardian concerning the decision by Radio Times to cut half its listings staff and outsource its core television listings work to the Press Association (the British equivalent of Canadian Press). Owners of TV listing books are scrambling everywhere to

No fair? Or was it a package deal?

A curious story in Saturday's Globe and Mail, Report on Business (sub requ'd), suggested that several of Canada's largest publishers were upset that an auction wasn't held so that they could have bid on the sale of Hollinger International's remaining Canadian newspapers and magazines.The Globe being what it is, its story concentrated on the newspapers, although a fairly large component of the

A rare type of designer

Step magazine carries an interesting feature about type designer Rod McDonald, who is revered in the design world, but not as well known in the wider magazine community. Among other things, McDonald designed a new typeface for Maclean's, called Laurentian, which is now being used by the redesigned Quill & Quire, with very readable results.(Thanks to Media Bistro for leading me to this article.)

CanWest Global buys into The New Republic

In what, on first glance, looks like an odd segue, CanWest Global Communications has bought a piece of the venerable (92 years old) U.S. liberal magazine The New Republic. Could this be a beachhead for an assault on the American market? If so, it's an unlikely one. TNR (as it likes to call itself) has been flagging lately in circulation**. However it does have a large archive and a fairly robust

Hip moms and what drives Dad nuts

Today's Parent, the powerful franchise owned by Rogers, had better watch its back. St. Joseph Media has put serious resources behind the relaunch of Canadian Family -- a new staff, a new look and new, more aggressive, marketing. For instance, it has partnered with Sears Canada, offering a free, one-year sub to members of the Sears Family First affinity card program and will be putting on a big

Rogers gets cozier with Canada Post

A lot of people felt uncomfortable about the request for proposal last fall from Canada Post, which wanted to use its database to publish a magazine for people who move (i.e. relocate). In other words, to compete with the very people who pay them to deliver their own magazines. But apparently Rogers Publishing didn't have a problem with it. It has won the contract to produceSmart Moves/Demenageur

Black and Newman settle

"Mr. Newman acknowledges that Lord Black is entitled to the presumption that he is innocent of any wrongdoing and apologizes for and retracts any contrary impression his words may have conveyed." With that apology, former Maclean's editor and the author of Here Be Dragons (2004) has settled with Conrad Black, who in turn is dropping his suit for more than $2 million in damages and an injunction

Up and down

Although a crude measure, tracking the listing of the types and number of magazine titles in North America is an interesting indicator of trends in periodical publishing. The Standard Periodical Directory, published by Oxbridge Communications, contains more than 15,000 magazine listings in Canada and the United States. And the company from time to time notes what types of magazines are increasing

Armchair adventurer

I'm not a travel/adventure guy, as it's hard to summit Everest wearing slippers and sweatpants, but Adventure tantalizes with the promise of personal glories that don't involve a remote control. As such, it's one of the few titles that can chuck around the word "aspirational" and have it actually mean something.Larry Dobrow of Media Post writes regular critiques about magazines (all U.S. titles,

Ah, those were the days...

If you don't read The Shoestring, the occasional small magazine newsletter from Magazines Canada, you miss out on Coordinator Claire Pfeiffer's nice, snappy style (and her penchant for doggerel verse). The most recent issue has a very interesting item that is a recollection by illustrator Bernie Lyon of one of Canada's better-known titles, Vancouver magazine, when it was struggling. Such

Awk-ward

Our spell-check is smokin' and we still make lotsa mistakes. But some clangers are, to use Jon Stewart's catchphrase "Awk-ward". One was the all-staff email from the human relations department accompanying a notice about changes at Quill and Quire that welcomed Attila Berki as Associate Publisher. The accompanying e-mail referred to him as "her". Another was a recent issue of Canada's SOHO

Major changes at Transcon West

Like that theory about a Peruvian tidal wave being provoked by a butterfly flapping its wings in Borneo, every once in a while, someone seems to blow a whistle in this business and figuratively shouts "all change". This is apparently true with how management changes at St. Joseph Media led to the departure of Kim Peacock to the Publisher job at Transcontinental in Vancouver. This in turn has led

Syriana Q&A

Senior Editor Jeff Goldsmith interviews writer/director Stephen Gaghan about Syriana

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Bigger is apparently better

In its first 11 issues as a full-size magazine, the U.S. edition of TV Guide has seen a 38% bump in its circulation. You can read more here. There is no breakout on Canadian circulation, but talk around the industry about the "grown up" magazine being more appealing to a younger demographic.

The BIG shoe finally drops

The trade magazines of the Business Information Group and the online publishing business EcoLog, both owned by Hollinger International Inc., have been sold to Glacier Ventures International Corporation of Vancouver in a deal (including a slew of community newspapers in B.C.) worth about $135 million. Of that, the value of the 37 trade and online magazines and Ecolog probably account for about $40

New rules for digital editions

For magazines that are launching digital editions, or people contemplating brand new digital magazines, the audit firm BPA has issued extensive new rules concerning what's acceptable. The detailed rules are discussed at BPA's website. They relate to how subscribers names are sourced, for instance and how much a digital edition must reflect the print publication.

Let the backlash begin

Simon Dumenco, who writes the entertaining Media Guy column for Ad Age, has gone off on a toot about the various madnesses of converging and "innovative" media choice. It's worth a read. Go here.

Generally good year for U.S. magazines

Leading U.S. magazines enjoyed a good 2005, with both ad pages and ad revenue up, according to the Publishers Information Bureau. You can read about the details at the website of the Magazine Publishers of America. (It should be noted that PIB does not track all U.S. titles, and its dollar data is based on the rate card price for pages, not allowing for discounts.) The closest equivalent such

Publisher of Quill & Quire catalogue let go

Times are tough at Quill and Quire, the book industry and library trade publication. So St. Joseph Media has fired Barbara Scott, the Publisher of Books for Everybody, the Q & Q division's consistently profitable catalogue operation. Go figure.

Changes at Heritage

Responsibility for magazine policy at Canadian Heritage now lies with William Fizet, who has a reputation for "understanding the file", which is considered high praise among those in the know in Canadian magazine funding and policy circles. Gordon Platt, who was Acting Director General, has now shifted over to be responsible for the book side of publishing policy.

Caught in a tangle of thorny issues

The American Society of Business Magazine Editors, has come out with a study that says their members are bedevilled by ethical issues and their publishers don't always back them up. (ASBPE is a trade association for editors and writers who work on business, trade, association, and professional print magazines and newsletters and their associated Internet publications. It has more than 700 members

Dealer's choice

Reptile over at Rep Life talks today about the anguish and the imperatives of sometimes going off the card. Whether he will hate himself in the morning? Dunno.

Take One R.I.P.

The national film magazine Take One has ceased publication, blaming a wholesale switchover by people in its industry to getting information off the internet, according to a report in today's Globe and Mail.

A magazine connection

The billowing storm over the activities of U.S. lobbyist Jack Abramoff has swept up the U.S. magazine industry's own lobby group, the Magazine Publishers of America (MPA).An article in the New York Times by Katherine Q. Seelye says Mr. Abramoff revealed as part of his guilty plea to mail fraud and conspiracy to bribe public officials, that he and an unidentified Congressional aide worked to stave

Smart publishing down east

One of the reasons why Saltscapes magazine in Halifax is so successful is that it leaves no source unexplored in building its audience. We've meant for some time to highlight the magazine's Community Spirit Partnerships.Organizations can raise money for worthwhile, community-based causes by keeping $10 of every new Saltscapes subscription they sell. The organization has to be not-for-profit, in

300 posts

As hard as it is to believe this is the 301st post in Canadian Magazines. This blog began whimsically and without a plan (except to write about Canadian magazines) and that's pretty much how we intend to continue.

Hostel Q&A

Senior Editor Jeff Goldsmith interviews writer/director Eli Roth for Hostel.

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Copy these

Below decks at most magazines are the vital but often unacknowledged heroes and heroines of journalism, the copy editors. For those of you who are, or might wish to be, or wish to understand these specialists, there are a couple of American sites worth visiting (we'd be glad of indications of any similar Canadian sites). One is called The Slot, run by Bill Walsh, the chief of the copy desk of the

Flare Volunteer Award celebrates a decade

The 10th anniversary of its Volunteer Awards has been announced by Flare magazine, and its corporate sponsor CIBC. The awards, to be made this spring, will honour six Canadian women aged 18 and up who have made significant contributions to their communities.The deadline for nominations is Friday, February 3, 2006.

Maclean's's new Postings

Lest I be accused of being one of the "usual suspects", I will let Paul Wells' latest blog entry enumerate the many and various hires just announced at Maclean's. If any spin is detected by linking to Wells' blog, take it up with him. Here is where to go.If you'd like a less reverential take, you can always go to this item on The Dirt.

TV Guide-less

"No wonder listings magazines are going the way of the horse and buggy. Technology has made it far easier for viewers to set their own TV schedules. Today, viewers can pretty much watch what they want when they want (as well as where they want -- in their cars, on their computer screens, even on their phones). Digital set-top boxes allow viewers to store programs and watch them at their leisure.

Degen resigns from This

John Degen, the executive director of the Professional Writers Association of Canada (PWAC -- formerly the Periodical Writers etc.) has resigned from the board of This Magazine and its companion Red Maple Foundation Inc. Degen says his reason is simply too much to do, not least of which is his focus these days on trying to elect a New Democrat in Etobicoke-Lakeshore, the riding into which the

Peering into the year ahead (U.S. division)

“We’re in an environment of just-in-time buying, planning and decision making." -- Jack Griffin, Meredith Corp. publishing group president. If you'd like to see what some of the other big brains in the business think about what's going to happen in magazines in 2006 (at least in the U.S.), as reported in Mediaweek, you may do so here.

Tarnished Star

[Update: The item mentioned was in the Life section of the Star, not on the editorial page. Thanks to Antonia Zerbisias.]If there were ever a strong argument for fact-checking, this is it. The Toronto Star has apparently been caught red-handed (and, we hope, red-faced) lifting an item, failing to attribute it, on the editorial page no less, only to find out after the fact that, far from being

What? No singalong?

Magazines on the left coast are getting together for Camp BCAMP, under the auspices of the British Columbia Magazine Publishers Association. It's a weekend-long event January 27 to 29, at Dunsmuir Lodge in Sidney, B.C. There's a keynote speech by Deb Rosser, the President of Magazines Canada on Friday night and seminars both Saturday and Sunday. Most of the presenters are BC-based and the themes

Quote, unquote

"I do find it rather ironical that I came to India to explore spirituality and yoga and ended up working on a tits-and-ass magazine."-- Iona Ferguson, only woman on staff of the just-launched Indian edition of Maxim magazine

Johnston quits Maclean's

The departure of Ann Dowsett Johnston as editor-at-large of Maclean's is not a surprise. She is one of the last of the holdovers from the old regime (Executive Editor Peeter Kopvillem, mind your back).We assume that reasons for her departure after 28 years were complex. However, Martin Knelman in the Toronto Star says that one of those reasons was a provocative advertising decision in her beloved