No more EIC; Jessica Johnson named as executive editor and creative director of The Walrus

Jessica Johnson

The Walrus Foundation has done away with the title and position of editor-in-chief and has instead named Jessica Johnson to the new combined role of executive editor and creative director of The Walrus magazine.

Formerly senior editor and creative director, Johnson will oversee art and editorial content on all print and other platforms and will join the senior management team.

“We’ve retired the role of editor-in-chief and have created a new role—executive editor and creative director—to reflect what the organization needs now,” said Shelley Ambrose, executive director of the Walrus Foundation and publisher of The Walrus. “As we approach the 15th anniversary of The Walrus in 2018, we are so lucky to have Jessica—a seasoned editor with eighteen years of broad experience in managing resources and people—already in our midst. Jessica has been and will continue to be a passionate steward for The Walrus brand as a whole while continuing to push this unusual animal in Canadian publishing to try new things, do more, do it better, to spark conversation, to provoke thought, to embrace what is complicated, and to ensure The Walrus remains best in class on all platforms.”

In May, Jonathan Kay resigned as editor-in-chief, a position he had held since October 2014, when he was appointed to succeed John Macfarlane.

Jonathan Kay has resigned as EIC of The Walrus

Late Saturday, Jonathan Kay resigned as editor-in-chief of The Walrus magazine, according to a post from Canadaland. 

His departure is attributed to the recent storm in the Twitterverse over "cultural appropriation". Kay was one of a dozen senior people from the media establishment who were -- in jest or in mischief -- attaching their name to the creation of an "appropriation prize". (It was the result of a furor over a column written by Hal Niedzviecki in the magazine of the Writers Union of Canada magazine; he resigned his position as editor. [See earlier post.])

In a pair of clipped tweets Sunday morning Kay said:

"I've done something that's going to make the twitterverse *very* pleased...." and "And if anyone needs me today, I will be in the cheap seats, watching the Jays. Phone blissfully off."

The Walrus Foundation announces cross-country conversations about Canada's next 50 years

The Walrus Foundation, publishers of The Walrus magazine, have announced a national tour next spring that will mark the 150th anniversary of Canada.  [click image above to enlarge.] The non-profit foundation, in partnership with the Order of Canada and Canada 150, will present an expanded edition of The Walrus Talks: Conversations about Canada: We Desire a Better Country. The free events over 13 weeks from March 1—June 1, 2017 will focus on Canada's future, featuring  fifty members of the Order of Canada and fifty youth leaders at events in 13 provinces and territories . The sesquicentennial coincides with the 50th anniversary of the Order.
Among the participants so far announced, performers and otherwise, will be Margaret Atwood, Tom Jackson, Molly Johnson, Clara Hughes, Roberta Jamieson, Susan Aglukark, Shelagh Rogers, Murray McLauchlan, John Kim Bell, Samantha Nutt, Charles Pachter, Ben Heppner, Jane Hilderman and Caro Lufti.

“Conversations about Canada will build a deeper understanding of Canada,” says Shelley Ambrose, executive director of the Walrus Foundation and publisher of The Walrus. “It will provide Canadians with opportunities to participate and celebrate together; shape a more inclusive vision of Canadian society, its people, and what it means to be Canadian; and recognize the exceptional Canadian people, places, achievements, and events that will shape our country for the next fifty years.”

The Walrus magazine wants freelancers to share legal costs

[This post has been corrected] The Walrus magazine is asking freelance writers to agree to new contract terms that makes them liable for 50% of any damages or costs arising from lawsuits. What's more, according to a post on the Canadian Media Guild website Story Board, it makes them agree to pay 50% of the publisher's costs in defending* a libel suit if not covered by insurance. This is despite the fact that a freelancer has no way of knowing what, if any, libel insurance the magazine carries. Elsewhere in the contract, the publisher reserves the final right to make "material changes to the work".

“The head scratching thing about this contract is that The Walrus wants to have its cake and eat it too. They want to have total control over the final content, but if there’s a legal problem, they want the writer to pay half,” said [literary agent Derek] Finkle. 

Asking a writer to put their assets at risk in a scenario where a publisher can make changes without the writer’s consent, he said, is unacceptable. “I don’t think they meant it this way, but it’s pretty insulting, really,” said Finkle.

[*The post referred to the Canadian Writers Group, a literary agency, rather than the Canadian Media Guild, a union which sponsors the Story Board website.] 

Jonathan Kay of The National Post is named as editor of The Walrus, succeeding John Macfarlane

Jonathan Kay, the National Post's managing editor for content, has been named the new editor in chief of The Walrus magazine, succeeding John Macfarlane. 

Kay has been with the National Post for 16 years and has been responsible for the past decade for the NP's editorial, letter and ideas pages; he has also been a regular media panelist on CBC Television's The National and CBC Radio's Q. 

Kay will join the Walrus Foundation on December 1 and there will be a transition period while he takes the reins of the renamed position -- editor-in-chief content platforms.

“John Macfarlane has done a fabulous job of bringing The Walrus magazine to where it is today. John and I are both thrilled that Jonathan Kay will come on board as the perfect person to take The Walrus—on all content platforms—to the next level,” said Shelley Ambrose, executive director of the foundation and co-publisher of the magazine, in a release.

“I am honoured to have this opportunity to work with The Walrus,” said Jonathan Kay. “In the coming months, I look forward to collaborating with the magazine’s staff to help make the publication’s renowned content widely read on a wider range of platforms, and to infuse into the Walrus Foundation some of the energy that has characterized the National Post during the sixteen wonderful years that I worked there.”

Related stories:

• John Macfarlane tells The Globe he found The Walrus teetering, but not it is on solid ground
• John Macfarlane stepping down as editor of The Walrus
• John Macfarlane to be interim editor of The Walrus; AD De Luca is leaving

Some Walrus interns are back working in a pilot project funded by Chawkers Foundation

Given that this blog reported fairly extensively on the fallout from the Ontario Ministry of Labour crackdown on unpaid internships, it seems only reasonable to report that some interns are back, and paid, at The Walrus. The story, reported by the Toronto Star, is that the Chawkers Foundation, a private family foundation that was primarily responsible for the launch of The Walrus in the first place, will pay three of its interns for six month "editorial fellowships".

“The new Chawkers Fellows will be solely funded by The Chawkers Foundation who will provide a stipend to the three of them (in an amount acceptable to the Ministry of Labour) for the six month period, which begins now and ends at the end of September,” wrote co-publisher Shelley Ambrose in an email to the Star.
“We, of course, offered the opportunity to those who were affected by the Ministry of Labour’s shut down,” she wrote.

Ambrose maintains the magazine is not "hiring" the fellows.

“The Walrus Foundation does not pay them. This is a project by The Chawkers Foundation that we are creating for Chawkers,” Ambrose wrote. “We did not ‘rehire.’ The three individuals who are here now were interns before. We offered the former interns who were affected by the Ministry’s order FIRST chance at becoming Fellows (which we were thrilled to be able to do) and taking part in this pilot project and they agreed.”

Of the seven interns found on the premises by the ministry of labour, two were kept on because they were paying tuition at vocational schools and three are now working again courtesy of Chawkers. Which, we suppose, means that two interns are essentially out of luck. 

Now, a bit of background. The Chawkers Foundation paid $5 million to help get The Walrus off the ground a decade ago -- pledging $1 million a year for five years. The scion of the family, Ken Alexander, became the editor and quit in 2008 after a tumultuous reign. For a time, early on in the magazine's life, the Metcalfe Foundation had funded Walrus internships -- one of the most lucrative programs in Canada -- but several years ago pulled its support. Thereafter, interns were unpaid. It's not known what the three interns are now to be paid, but if it is at the Ontario minimum wage, the nut for the Chawkers is probably in the range of $65,000. 

E-book beer history being given away by The Walrus magazine

A free e-book about the history of the Canadian love affair with beer is being offered to iPad users by The Walrus magazine in collaboration with Coach House Books Inc.. Under the Influence: How Labatt and its allies brewed up a nation of beer drinkers is a reprint of an essay by Matthew Bellamy, originally published in the June issue of the magazine. The work was supported in part by financial support from the Writers' Trust of Canada. The e-book version was published in time for Canada Day and is available on iTunes. The cover image of the "stubby" bottle of memory is by Ross MacDonald.