Family, friends, colleagues to mark the life -- and death at 68 -- of Sean Rossiter

Rossiter self-portrait, 1968

Two years ago, Sean Rossiter won the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Western Magazine Awards. Last week, after a 10-year struggle with Parkinson's disease, he died at the lamentably early age of 68 His friends and colleagues are gathering at 6 p.m. on Thursday the 15th in Vancouver at the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden to mark his passing. His friend, photographer Alex Waterhouse-Hayward, wrote an appreciation of Rossiter on his blog. Charles Campbell did the same at the Georgia Straight, noting -- among many other things -- Rossiter's role in saving Vancouver magazine in 1974. He went on to write many articles for the revived magazine (many of those award-winners) and his long-running Twelfth and Cambie column. He wrote about municipal politics with a passion and provided clarity to sometimes arcane and complex planning issues. He wrote with similar passion about flyers, flying and airplanes. 

I had not seen Rossiter in years, going back to our days in the later '60s on The Gazette at the (then) University of Western Ontario. He was the editor when I first worked for and knew him (this was when he was Tom, not Sean) and I eventually succeeded him. He was also the editorial cartoonist and met the weekly deadline by the skin of his teeth each issue. At one point, I seem to recall, he "tried out" law school. And did some commercial art work. But eventually migrated to the west coast which seemed to have been the perfect place for him and for his journalism. He clearly made good, long-term friendships there and I imagine most of those friends will be sharing their memories on Thursday. 

McGill celebrates alumnus Jonathan Kay's accession to The Walrus editor's chair

McGill University's publication McGill News has profiled alumnus Jonathan Kay (BEng'92, MEng'94) who assumed the editorship of The Walrus in December. He says that he didn't plan to go into journalism when he was at McGill, but his engineering studies proved useful to his later journalism.

“I worked on stories that other journalists wouldn't touch because they were scared off by science,” he says. Kay’s knowledge of metallurgy came in handy when he debunked conspiracy theories about the 9/11 destruction of the Twin Towers in Among the Truthers. The book, which examined the factors that fuel conspiracy theories, drew praise from both the New York Times and The Economist.

Kay says Walrus readers should not expect any drastic changes concerning contributors.

“I would like to retain the magazine’s writers from the Annex [a left-leaning neighbourhood in Toronto],” says Kay, “but I would also like to use writers whom I respected at the National Post. But they wouldn't necessarily write on politics.” He suggests Conrad Black, MA’73, might contribute an essay on prison reform and Father Raymond J. de Souza could write on college sports.

In early 2014, Kay helped Justin Trudeau (another McGill alumnus, BA'94) write his memoir Common Ground. 

“I’d never worked closely with a politician at that level,” he says. He interviewed the Liberal Party of Canada leader for 40 hours about his life and politics, coming away with enormous regard for Trudeau’s honesty and warmth, if not his policies.

Kay says he expects to be at The Walrus at least five years.

 “After 16 years at the National Post opinion pages, I felt like I was getting a little stale,” he says. “I also felt like I had written enough 700-word editorials on, say, the Middle East or Quebec separatism — and that it was time for someone else to take over. The pages will profit from someone else bringing a fresh perspective. 

“Over time, my interests as a journalist had drifted more toward essays and long-form journalism, which is what The Walrus serves up. So it’s a great fit for me.” 

Related posts:

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

Tastemaker Tyler Brûlé and his empire

A profile in last weekend's Guardian about the Canadian-born magazine maven Tyler Brûlé contains a few insights and a useful roundup of what makes the publisher of both Wallpaper* and Monocle both successful and a "punctilious tastemaker" and has seen him branch out into radio and retail. (I have some reservations about any article so precious it uses "aghast" twice, but there you are...)

Brûlé says he's selling more than 70,000 copies of Monocle at £6 each. According to ABC, who audit these things, 11,000 sell at newsstands and 2,000 by subscription in the UK, while the rest go abroad.

Last year he founded a 24-hour digital radio station which seems to want to be a baumkuchened*-up Radio 4 and although it has not yet achieved anything like the depth, you can hear the aspiration. Add a biannual newspaper and a global chain of shops selling the accessories for a Monocle-based life, and you get a picture of the Brûlé empire.

It's all based on a philosophy that runs counter to prevailing thought in the media. "It didn't make sense to us to give away our journalism for free. But we did have to think: 'How do we add value online?' We started with video then it became radio, but it couldn't replicate what we were doing in print."

*A reference to a type of cake that figured in the article. I told you it was a bit precious.

Photo by Suki Dhanda, Observer

Today's Kids in Motion magazine serves kids with special needs

Here's a magazine I'd never been aware of before, though it's attractive and seems to hit its target audience exactly. Today's Kids in Motion publishes 3 times a year to serve kids and their parents who are dealing with special needs or serious medical conditions. It is published by the BCS Communications Limited, based in Toronto. The magazine calls itself "Canada's number 1 paediatric health publication".

The magazine's media kit says it has 10,000 print circulation plus digital edition downloads. Full page, 1x  ad rate is $3,041. The 24-page Winter 2010 digital edition (shown) is available online. Caroline Tapp-McDougall is the publisher.