Major staff reorganization continues at The Walrus

Following on the recent departure of both senior editors at The Walrus (see earlier post), Managing Editor Jeremy Keehn is relinquishing his role to become a full-time senior editor. He is being replaced by Jared Bland, at one time an intern and now an occasional blogger and reviewer. (This, from an internal memorandum by editor Ken Alexander, forwarded anonymously.)

The other senior editor's position is to be filled by Sylvia Barrett, who was senior editor at Canadian Geographic in Ottawa. It is understood she is to commute to Toronto during the week to do the job.

Prior to CanGeo, Barrett was Science Editor and later Managing Editor of the late Equinox magazine. She won two gold medals in the National Magazine Awards for science writing, a Michener Award for excellence in public-service journalism, and honorable mention in the competition for The Washington Journalism Center's Thomas L. Stokes Award. Her book The Arsenic Milkshake and other mysteries solved by forensic science (Doubleday 1994) was short listed for both the Science in Society Book Award and the Arthur Ellis Award for non-fiction crime writing. She is also vice-president of the National Press Club of Canada.

Dampness at WOTS, BCAMP, Walrus

Word On the Street in Vancouver was heavily rained on for the first time in its history yesterday, and it was cold and windy and you had to keep jumping up and down to stay warm. The crowd was thin and hardy; indeed, heartiness was evident everywhere. CUPE picketers sang and led revolutionary chants. It was impossible to stand still long enough to grill members of BCAMP in a search for answers to the Nine Questions posted here last week, although I did learn that another BCAMP director has resigned from the board.

And the rumour making its way into through the moisture-laden venue next to the Vancouver Public Library was that The Walrus is having big trouble flogging seats, at $125 per, for “Go North Young Man,” an event described as a reception with post-reception, in Vancouver, on 9 October. There were no troubling rumours concerning a Walrus Calgary event labelled “Guess Who’s In Charge Now?” set for 22 October at the same price, or an Ottawa event, “Globalization or Bust,”scheduled for 3 October at a mere $110 a ticket.

An attack of Laphamism

One person's backscratching is another person's homage, I suppose. Whatever, the editor of The Walrus, Ken Alexander, writes in the magazine's October 2007 issue a column about the forthcoming publication of Lapham's Quarterly. This is the retirement project of longtime Harper's magazine editor Lewis Lapham.

In praising its prospectus Alexander, consciously or unconsciously, takes on Lapham's occasionally mannered and complicated writing style, resulting in extraordinarily convoluted paragraphs such as:

To an arch-patriot like Lapham, for the experiment of democracy to be something other than a hollow casket brimming with falsehoods and missed opportunities, polities must discover in stone tablets, illustrated manuscripts, poems, novels, and plays; in angry letters from wounded soldiers and song sheets from the Mississippi Delta; and in rising oratories declaiming the brutality of man, the wisdom that history may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme. And then the newly informed must move on, must see to it that such a deterministic and unfortunate fate does not befall one’s own particular state, whether emergent or struggling with itself. However sublimated by the mannered brushstrokes of a northeastern sensibility, there is both Marx and Nietzsche in Lewis Lapham.

Perhaps it is my own failing, but when I got to the end, including the 67-word opening sentence, I had to start over, having taken in almost none of what he was driving at.

Walrus pitch: We don't have many ads, so advertise with us

The saying goes "If you got a lemon, make lemonade". The Walrus Magazine, under the leadership of Publisher Shelley Ambrose, seems to be doing just that.

TURNING A NEGATIVE INTO A POSITIVE
“It’s time to advertise in The Walrus!” says the freestanding insert which dropped out of Marketing magazine this week. The insert promotes The Walrus's many awards, particularly the National Magazine Awards and Magazine of the Year. It claims 60,376 circulation and other stuff, including its sales breakdown ( 64% subscribers, 36% newsstand) and its audience composition (male:female 25-54 at 63:37), 84% university graduates, 43% with postgrad or professional degrees degrees and 29% with household incomes $100,000+. All of which is in support of their central -- and unusual -- pitch to advertising agencies:

“Our charitable status requires each issue of The Walrus be 70% editorial. That means just 30% of our pages are reserved for advertisers – a clutter-free environment ensuring your message gets through to our loyal readers.”

TAKING IT ON THE ROAD
We also note that The Walrus is combatting its Toronto-centricity in a big way with a series of big ticket panels and entertainments across the country in October, hosted by Editor Ken Alexander:

• OTTAWA, Wednesday October 3, 12 p.m., National Arts Centre, Panorama Room
• Globalization or Bust, with Roger Martin, dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto; Michael Byers, author of Intent for a Nation; and Jodi White of the Public Policy Forum. Plus jazz by Molly Johnson. (In partnership with the Public Policy Forum) Tickets for lunch & debate: $110 per person. Tables of 10 are $1,000.
  

• VANCOUVER, Tuesday, October 9, 7p.m., Segal Graduate School of Business, SFU Vancouver campus
• Go North Young Man, with Shelagh Rogers of CBC Radio; Fanny Kiefer of Studio 4; poets Patrick Lane and Lorna Crozier; and author Michael Byers. Plus jazz by Molly Johnson. Honorary Patron: B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell. Tickets for reception & event: $125 for subscribers, $150 for non-subscribers.

• CALGARY, Monday, October 22, 7 p.m., Theatre Calgary, Epcor Centre for the Performing Arts
• Guess Who's In Charge Now? with Roger Gibbins, CEO of the Canada West Foundation; Mike Robinson, president of the Glenbow Museum; pollster Allan Gregg; and authors Aritha van Herk and Will Ferguson. Plus jazz by Molly Johnson. (In partnership with the Canada West Foundation). Tickets for reception & event: $125 for subscribers, $150 for non-subscribers.

Walrus magazine internships unpaid while Walrus Foundation seeks new sponsorship

Several people have asked whether it was true that internships at The Walrus magazine are no longer paid. The answer is yes, they are no longer paid...at least for now.

(At one time, the 10, six-month internships (8 editorial, 2 art) were among the most generous in the Canadian industry, paying about $2,000 a month, unlike many magazines which pay a pittance or nothing at all). The entire internship program was financed by a $300,000 annual grant from the Metcalfe Foundation, which has now ended.

Here is what The Walrus's publisher, Shelley Ambrose said, in part, in response to a question Canadian Magazines asked about the situation:

Revenue from The Walrus magazine has never paid for the internship program. As you know, The Walrus is published by the charitable, non-profit Walrus Foundation. Our charitable status means we are only allowed to sell 30% of our pages to advertising. The Walrus Foundation staff (me) and the Board of Directors fundraise - through events, corporations, foundations, individuals -- to support the magazine and the foundation's other programs....including the internship program. Without sponsorship and donors, these programs have no funding.

For two years, the internship program was supported by The Metcalfe Foundation. Although the internship program did not actually fit into the mandate of The Metcalfe Foundation, it was a discretionary grant to get the program going and had a two year shelf life, which is now over. Despite yeoman efforts, The Walrus Foundation (me) and Board of Directors have not YET found a replacement sponsor for the internship program and, so, the next round of interns will be unpaid. This is no way reflects our attachment to the program, its phenomenal success, or the quality of the interns and their stellar work - it is simply a financial reality.

Am glad to see readers of your blog are interested. The more we can get the word out that The Walrus is an unusual animal in Canadian publishing and is not a purely commercial magazine, the better. After just four years and many accolades, The Walrus Foundation still has to change public perception about our mandate, what our charitable status requires and means, and the sheer cost of creating long form literary non-fiction and investigative reporting (there's a reason few magazines do it).

Andrew Mitrovica honoured for investigative journalism in The Walrus

Andrew Mitrovica was the winner in the magazine category of the Canadian Association of Journalists' annual awards for investigative journalism. It was for his article "Hear No Evil, Write No Lies", in The Walrus, published in the December/January 2007 issue. It explored the media's role in the Maher Arar case and particularly its complicity in allowing anonymous sources to smear Arar.

The award was made Saturday night as part of the annual CAJ/Global Investigative Journalism conference, along with awards for investigative work in newspapers and television. The prize brings with it recognition and $1,000.

Among the finalists in the magazine category were Jeremy Klaszus ("Big Oil on Trial" in Alberta Views), Matt McClearn and Doug Watt ("When the Whistle Stops" in Canadian Business), Jared Ferrie ("Some Say Terror Label Prolongs Sri Lanka War" in The Georgia Straight) and Susan McClelland ("The Unusual Suspects" in Chatelaine).

The digital Walrus

Interesting story on Media in Canada about the various digital initiatives being taken at The Walrus magazine. The new management at the magazine seems to be getting some traction in pursuing new, revenue-producing initiatives.

The magazine's website boasts a new "Media Centre," where digital content seekers can find everything from audio versions of content streamed by broadcast reading service VoicePrint Canada to The Walrus' May radio spot, marked for rotation on Classical 96.3 FM in Toronto. Two video podcasts, provided by Livebait.tv (a side project of Walrus associate publisher Rose Giles, which she says is drawing 10,000 unique visitors monthly), feature public debate about journalists and the importance of protecting sources. There's also a digitized version of the print mag itself.

Packaging the magazine's digital content with sponsors involved may be as simple as pre-roll podcast messages or "printer-friendly" pages backed by Xerox or Canon. Current print advertisers include automakers like Porsche and Volvo, premium liquors and beermakers such as Pilsner, and tourism campaigns for Nunavut and Nova Scotia. The Walrus is also running a full-page ad for Alliance Atlantis' controversial CSI: New York airing on the History Channel as part of a media swap between the specialty broadcaster and the quality mag. Online, there are expandable banners for Saturn via Olive Network.