March 19, 2009
Intern with This: deadline is April 1!
Posted by Graham F. Scott at 06:14 PM ET
| Comments (1)
Just a reminder to everyone out there considering applying for the This Magazine internship: the deadline is now less than two weeks away, so chop-chop. It's fun, educational, in a great location, and we promise you will never, ever have to fetch coffee.
All the details for applying are here. The deadline for the summer program is April 1.
Feel free to call or email if you have questions. Consider tracking down my phone number and email address your first assignment!
More entries on:
THIS matters
March 11, 2009
Thank yous and photos from our redesign launch party
Posted by Graham F. Scott at 12:21 PM ET
| Comments (2)
Last night's redesign launch party in Toronto was a big hit, and we had a great turnout — the biggest since the magazine's 40th anniversary party a few years ago. Thank you to everyone who came out to celebrate with us, we enjoyed meeting so many subscribers and supporters, old and new.
There are some important thanks to be dished out. We thanked these people at the party last night, but here it is again, because we think they really deserve your recognition.
David Donald, our art director, executed the whole design of the magazine, top to bottom, and everyone I've talked to agrees that it's a great new look and a very successful redesign. Also very helpful during the whole process were board member Bill Reynolds and Ryerson journalism instructor Steve Trumper.
The magazine's staffers also need to take credit for the new look: Jordan Himelfarb, Lindsay Kneteman, Stuart Ross, Eva Salinas, and Ivor Tossell. I'm also putting this shout-out to my predecessor in the editor's chair, Jessica Johnston, who left the magazine in tip-top shape when I arrived last August, which allowed us to focus on the design changes.
Last night's volunteers made the whole thing happen: our current interns Anna Bowen and Elaisha Stokes handled everything from booking the venue to wrangling the sponsorships, to selling tickets at the door. They were ably assisted by former This intern Melissa Wilson. DJs Rebekah Miskin and Luke Woodard worked the turntables. David Hayes acted as celebrity cupcake judge.
And finally, the sponsors who provided a raft of keen swag. We're particularly grateful to Urbane Cyclist for providing the beautiful Dahon Speed C7 folding bicycle that we raffled off.
The sponsors who provided door prizes are:
Click through the jump to see some more photos from the event. Thanks for coming!
Left to right: This Magazine publisher Lisa Whittington-Hill, former This editor Julie Crysler, and writer Jeremy Nelson.
Left to right: Shameless editor Megan Griffith-Greene, with Ryerson Review of Journalism staffers Carolyn Morris, Morgan Passi, and Andrew Wallace.
The view from the DJ booth, where Rebeakh Miskin and Luke Woodard worked the tables.
Some of the competing cupcakes in the 2009 This Magazine Cupcake Smackdown. Morgan Passi's "Pacmantastic" cupcake, visible in the lower left corner, took first place.
Meg Campbell, with her new Dahon Speed C7 folding bicycle, courtesy of Urbane Cyclist, won as part of the raffle at the party.
More entries on:
THIS matters
March 06, 2009
Party update: Cross-Canada Cupcake Craze
Posted by Graham F. Scott at 11:25 AM ET
| Comments (3)
You may have heard that we're having a party next week to celebrate our redesign. If you haven't, the details are all here, and we'd love to see you at 8 PM on March 10 at Supermarket (268 Augusta Ave). To celebrate going full-colour, we decided to host a little cupcake-decorating contest at the party, and several other small magazines, blogs, and assorted other publications are going to participate. The good people at Geist couldn't make it in from the west coast for the party, so they emailed us these photos of the cupcakes they made for us (and ate on our behalf):
![Cupcakes reading Geist [hearts] This](http://i44.tinypic.com/9fqi5c.jpg "The feeling's mutual")
We ♥ them right back.
Details for the party are shaping up: we've got a desk-full of door prizes here at the office that will be given away the night of the party, provided by a long list of generous sponsors (see below). Urbane Cyclist in Toronto has kindly donated a Dahon Speed D7 folding bicycle to the cause, which we'll be raffling off. Hope to see you there.
Sponsorship provided by: Urbane Cyclist, Toronto Cyclists' Union, Snare Books, Goose Lane Books, Coach House Books, HotDocs, Mountain Equipment Co-op, Freshwood Grill, Alternative Grounds, the Textile Museum of Canada, Art of Time Ensemble, Theatre Passe Muraille, Dufflet, Fresh Restaurants, the Toronto International Film Festival, and Penguin Books Canada.
More entries on:
THIS matters
February 27, 2009
Redesign Diary #5: Spread 'em
Posted by Graham F. Scott at 12:28 PM ET
| Comments (3)
The March-April 2009 issue arrived at the office yesterday and will be in stores next week; subscribers will also receive it very soon. This will be my last entry on the redesign for now, although we'll continue tweaking details and refining the look as we go. There will also be some exciting news about our website in the next little while — but our pending online redesign is a story for another day.
After the jump are a couple of spreads as they appear in the March-April issue. The really exciting thing about this redesign, which wasn't true of the facelifts we've done before, is that there is now colour on every page, instead of just a few. (For most magazines, full-colour publishing is old news, but we wanted to make sure it wasn't a fad. That's our story, anyway).
The temptation early on was to saturate every page with colour, as if we were making up for decades of plain black and white in one fell swoop. Needless to say, these great splotchy pages were pretty ugly to look at, and hard to read too. Much of the redesign has been a process of paring the design elements back to their bare essentials, simplifying the colour scheme, and eliminating as much clutter as possible.
The colour palette is a simple one, with yellow and blue dominating.
Yellow is used to mark headlines and other display type.
Cyan is used to mark sections and other navigation elements.
Red is used as an accent colour.
And that's it, really. Three simple colours to tie the whole magazine together, so that the words and pictures can do the heavy lifting.
OK, enough talk: here are the spreads. They're not big enough to read the articles, so you'll have to buy the magazine (subscribing is a great way to do that, by the way). Thanks for reading these little updates. Please let us know what you think of the new look and the new features by emailing me any time at editor at this magazine dot ca.
This is a spread from the columns section of This & That, featuring Bruce Hicks on proportional representation and RM Vaughan on the Baby Boomers:
This is a feature spread of Jordan Heath-Rawlings' story on new ideas in car-free urban design:
This is a spread from Carolyn Morris' feature on health care for uninsured refugees and migrant workers in Canada:
This is a new regular feature we're introducing, "In Profile." It's dedicated to profiling individual artists and the political context of their work. Naturally, for our first colour issue, we chose to profile Jillian Tamaki — who does a lot of her art in black and white.
And this is a spread of a new short story by Mike Spry:
More entries on:
THIS matters
February 13, 2009
Redesign Diary #4: Finally, the big reveal
Posted by Graham F. Scott at 05:04 PM ET
| Comments (0)
Earlier this week I wrote about some of the magazines we surveyed when we started talking about our own redesign. Today I'm going to stop acting all coy and actually show you what our redesign looks like. Some of it, anyway. Yesterday, a reader told me that these redesign diary posts were, um, at risk of becoming long-winded, so I'll keep this one brief: It was important that we test the new design under a bunch of different circumstances to make sure it worked, so our Art Director, Dave Donald, combed through our last few issues and reproduced them as they would look with the new scheme.
The important things to note are: "This" is much bigger because that's our name and we think it's important. "Magazine" is much smaller because, c'mon, obviously it's a magazine. Duh.
Click through the jump to see the new look in action. Next week I'll show off some of the inside pages of the upcoming issue and explain some of the new features you'll find in the redesigned This.
OK, so here's the current issue, as it appears on newsstands:
And here's what it would have looked like:
As you can see, some things change, some things stay the same. Here are another few recent issues as they would have looked if we'd been designing them now:
You like? You hate? Tell us what you think, with comments below or by emailing me at editor at this magazine dot ca.
More entries on:
THIS matters
February 11, 2009
Redesign Diary #3: Under the covers
Posted by Graham F. Scott at 05:03 PM ET
| Comments (1)
We're all pretty major magazine nerds around here. This Magazine's office subscribes to a lot of publications from all over the world, and individually, we all have personal subscriptions of our own. I recently totalled up all my own subscriptions and discovered that I'm getting 10 different magazines delivered, and I buy others at the newsstand.
So when the decision was made to overhaul This Magazine's design, everyone had an opinion, based on what we liked and disliked about our own magazine's current look — and what we were finding stuck through our own mail-slots month after month.
I talked about our initial redesign meeting earlier this week, where we talked about the essential essence of the magazine we wanted to preserve throughout the redesign process. But we started from the premise that everything — everything — was on the table, at least in terms of the magazine's appearance. So we all brought in some of our favourite publications to talk about their look, why we liked them, what their visual identity said about their content, and so on.
Here are some of the titles that people talked about:
When you think about serious and august journals of contemporary news and commentary, there are a few that float to the top, and they all made appearances. The Economist is admired, and rightfully so, for its consistency, the no-nonsense clarity of its layout, and its emphasis on function over form. Everything about it says that it is made to be a reader's magazine: it won't knock you out graphically, but its look instantly tells you that it doesn't expect to do that, or even desires to. OK, OK, so The Economist is the bible of capitalism, which doesn't quite sync with our mandate around here, but in this new era of bipartisan understanding, we can at least appreciate their rock-solid three-column layout:
In our own backyard, our friends at The Walrus and Geist have also traditionally embraced a style that emphasizes text, again mostly in three classic columns. There are magazines that you buy to flip through (more on that in a minute), and there are others, like The Walrus, that you buy to read. We've always belonged to the latter category, and that's not likely to change.
A personal favourite of mine is The Believer, a strange and whimsical publication from the U.S. It's the literary-criticism cousin to the influential McSweeney's literary journal, and deals in lengthy, text-heavy articles with consistency, restraint, and a dash of ironical humour.
Of course, the gold standard right now for attractive, accessible design in the progressive media landscape is The Guardian from the U.K. This paper is doing a lot of things right, from its design to its online presence to its robust international reportage, and its influence is much bigger than the size of its readership would lead you to believe.
Other progressive magazines we like the look of lately include the venerable Mother Jones, which has always had such a talent for provocative covers like the one above. MoJo has recently renovated its website, too, (a trend we should be shortly joining them in).
A younger upstart in the progressive media ecosystem is Good. A slick-looking number published out of New York, Good combines social conscience with high-production runway-model looks. Perhaps they could cut back on the info-graphs and charticles a bit, but their bouncing-puppy optimism and "let's put on a show!" attitude is infectious.
Another young entrant to the industry is Monocle, published out of the UK by former Wallpaper* editor Tyler Brule. Aimed at absurdly upper-class jet-setters who think nothing of dropping £600 on an engraved lapis lazuli business-card holder or some junk like that, well, it doesn't apply directly to anyone around here. But Monocle is bucking the trend of miserablism and gloom that pervades the print industry right now, concentrating on putting together an assured and highly focused publication that isn't scared to put ink on paper and sell it to you for $12. And as a magazine, it's a beautiful object to hold in your hands and flip through, and the attention to detail is evident on every page. However, they also have a pretty squishy relationship with their advertisers, mixing up editorial and advertorial and advertisement in a way that I would say is not acceptable. I don't think This Magazine is going to be facing an onslaught of corporations demanding that we endorse their products through ethically ambiguous advertisements in the near future, though, so I think I've dodged a bullet there. Just a hunch.
Other titles that we find eye-catching, even if their content bears almost no resemblance to what we do, included Condé Nast Travel + Leisure, Explore, and Wired. All very pretty, beautifully art-directed, with some of the most stunning photography you'll see in magazines today. On a relatively small budget like ours, we don't get to do as much photography as we'd like, but we still have these magazines lying around the office for daydream purposes.
Finally, the attention-grabbers. What, you think we only read wholesome, diligently researched, socially responsible stuff? Think again. Making a cover that screams "buy me!" on a newsstand is a strange and mysterious art, and titles like US Weekly sell, literally, hundreds of thousands of copies a week by harnessing that dark voodoo. I sincerely doubt This will be reeling in those numbers any time soon, but we still want to jump off the newsstand if possible, so we looked at how these kind of huge-sellers do their covers. Personally, I believe Hello! magazine is among the ugliest publications ever to stalk the land, but it gets read by more people per week than we get read by in a year. I can respect that: even if it doesn't appeal to me, it's doing something right.
What do you think? Does this work?
OK, maybe not.
In the next blog entry I'll show you some actual mock-ups that we made during the process, to demonstrate what our last few covers would have looked like under the new design. As always, leave a comment or email me at editor at this magazine dot ca.
More entries on:
THIS matters
February 04, 2009
Redesign Diary #2: "With a little sex in it."
Posted by Graham F. Scott at 12:01 PM ET
| Comments (1)
The first thing we did when we set out to redesign This Magazine was get together all of our staff to talk about what we wanted at the end of the whole process. The magazine has been around for a while, after all, and you don't survive in the magazine business unless you're doing something right. We wanted to identify that secret sauce that's kept people reading and subscribing, to make sure that the things people love about This didn't get thrown out in the flurry of activity to follow.
We all felt kind of goofy about it, but we sat around and drew up a list of adjectives that we felt applied to the magazine — and another list of terms we'd like to add with the refresh. I won't post the whole list here, but here's a telling selection:
| Keywords that we felt This Magazine already embodied: | Keywords that we want to add with the redesign: |
- serious
- smart
- progressive
- contrarian
- curious
- national
- skeptical
- fearless
- lefty rag
- middle-aged
- alternative
- poor [financially! -- ed.]
| - hip
- visionary
- prescient
- attractive
- investigative
- provocative
- idea-generator
- web-savvy
- rich
- sexy
|
It's an interesting pair of lists. Now, you and I may disagree on which of these adjectives actually apply to the new incarnation of the magazine, and its previous iterations, but you can see a general trend here. I should note that the crowd around the table was a youngish one (just like most people working in the magazine industry) but that we had quite a range of ages, backgrounds, talents, and professions represented. The feeling generally seemed to be that the magazine does a lot of things right: it's a home for serious, long-form reportage; it has a clear and stated progressive perspective without being pigeonholed; it values its independence and aims to speak truth to power; it loves discovering new things, especially new talent.
But oh, we take ourselves awfully seriously sometimes. Often, that's the right attitude: when you're taking on issues of social justice, poverty, racism, governmental negligence, environmental degradation, violence, and the other kinds of issues we care about, a certain seriousness is necessary. But other times, especially in the realm of politics, you'd better laugh — because otherwise you'd cry. Overall, there was a strong appetite for lightening our touch sometimes, to make the magazine a pleasure to read, and not a slog through a 48-page mire of despair. Does that mean we're going to be flippant or frivolous? Not for a minute. But we pledge to cheer up a bit: after all, progressive politics is about changing the world for the better, and that's worth smiling about.
Mostly the feeling around the table at that first meeting was that we wanted the magazine's existing strengths to be amplified by its design, not be swamped by it. We're going full colour, of course, and that's a big step for us after decades of mostly black, white, and grey. But frankly, colour will only serve to get us up to par with nearly every other publication on the newsstand. We believe what the magazine says is still the most important thing, and the design choices we've made are intended to reinforce the contributions from our writers, illustrators, and photographers. It's what's on the inside that counts, but that doesn't mean we don't want a nice outside too.
Early on in the great 1941 Preston Sturges comedy Sullivan's Travels, the earnest director, John Sullivan, explains how he wants his movie to deliver important social messages, while his producer pushes for crass commercial appeal:
Sullivan: I want this picture to be a document. I want to hold a mirror up to life. I want this to be a picture of dignity — a true canvas of the suffering of humanity.
Producer: But with a little sex.
Sullivan: With a little sex in it.
We want to be a serious document of the dignity and suffering and struggle of humanity — but we also want our magazine to be read by lots and lots of people. That calls for a dash more sex appeal, which is what we hope our new design brings.
This will be a delicate balancing act, so as always, tell us what you think by emailing me at editor@thismagazine.ca.
In the next blog post I'll be talking about some of the other magazines we looked at for inspiration as we embarked on the redesign. Look for it here later this week.
More entries on:
THIS matters
January 28, 2009
Introducing This Magazine's new logo
Posted by Graham F. Scott at 04:20 PM ET
| Comments (1)
This Magazine has been around since 1966, and it's worn a lot of different looks since then. Magazines are fashion-conscious things, always changing outfits, checking themselves in the mirror, and trying again. This last refreshed its design in 2004, and so we thought it was time to do it again.
Just to preserve the suspense a moment longer, I've obscured the logo above. But you can click after the jump to see it in glorious, uncensored technicolor.
This new logo will officially debut with our March-April 2009 issue, which will also showcase the rest of our redesign. A complete reset. We scrapped everything and started over. Twice. Among other things, this means that we're going to be going full-colour, which is tremendously exciting (and a triumphant embrace of 1986's hottest publishing trend — we wanted to make sure it wasn't a fad). Over the next few weeks I'll put up a few blog posts to preview the designs we've been working on, and if the art director lets me, some of the junk we threw out.
Anyway, there's plenty of time to talk details leading up to March. For now, take a look at the new face of This:
Thoughts? Complaints? Accolades? As always, email editor at thismagazine dot ca.
More entries on:
THIS matters
December 08, 2008
The New Yorker on Naomi Klein (and This Magazine)
Posted by Graham F. Scott at 03:51 PM ET
| Comments (0)
Have you heard of this little publication, The New Yorker? Well, in the tradition of all Canadians unexpectedly name-checked by larger and — let's face it — more profitable and widely read American peers, we're a little twitterpated that This Magazine gets a mention in a profile of Naomi Klein, former This editor and author of The Shock Doctrine. Not just any mention, either: they call us "the Canadian equivalent of The Nation. Quick, someone get us the smelling salts!
More entries on:
THIS matters
November 19, 2008
Have you taken our reader survey yet? You could win an autographed copy of The Shock Doctrine!
Posted by Graham F. Scott at 05:09 PM ET
| Comments (0)
You'd be surprised how close the resemblance is between This Magazine's offices and the set of "The Price is Right." The shag carpeting, the spinning contraptions, the screaming fans — it's quite the work environment. But of course the thing that unites us most are the FABULOUS PRIZES that are available.
If you come on down and take our 2008 readers' survey, you'll be eligible for a draw to win one of several nifty things, such as a copy of The Shock Doctrine autographed by author (and former This Magazine editor) Naomi Klein. Also available is an HSU VT-12 'Ventriloquist' six-channel compact surround sound system, or one of five Cocoa Camino gift baskets filled to the brim with organic, fair-trade chocolate.
Taking the survey should take just a few minutes, and the information you provide is very helpful to us as we work at improving the magazine and the website. Whether you've had a subscription for 40 years or stumbled across the blog last week, we'd like to hear from you. And remember to spay or neuter your pets.
More entries on:
THIS matters
November 04, 2008
Utne Reader ♥'s This Magazine
Posted by Graham F. Scott at 11:05 AM ET
| Comments (0)
Our friends at the esteemed Utne Reader have excerpted a This Magazine story for their November-December 2008 issue. Peter Tupper's "The Addict's Last Refuge" examined the poorly understood drug ibogaine, which can help suppress addicts' heroin cravings. Despite plenty of anecdotal evidence that ibogaine can achieve results in people who haven't responded to traditional rehab, the drug is in legal limbo in Canada and illegal in the U.S. Remember, you read it here first!
More entries on:
THIS matters
November 03, 2008
Tell us what you really think with our 2008 reader survey!
Posted by Graham F. Scott at 02:28 PM ET
| Comments (2)
This is just a quick blog post to ask all our lovely blog readers, friends, and frenemies to take a moment to fill out our 2008 This Magazine Reader Survey. It should take just a few minutes, and the information you provide is very helpful to us as we work at improving the magazine and the website. Whether you've had a subscription for 40 years or stumbled across the blog last week, we'd like to hear from you.
And there's something in it for you as well, in the form of fabulous prizes: If you choose to provide your name and email at the end of the survey, you'll be entered in a draw for an autographed copy of former editor Naomi Klein's book The Shock Doctrine; an HSU VT-12 'Ventriloquist' six-channel compact surround sound system; or one of five Cocoa Camino gift baskets filled to the brim with organic, fair-trade chocolate.
More entries on:
THIS matters
The New Guy
Posted by Graham F. Scott at 12:50 PM ET
| Comments (0)
Now that the first issue of This Magazine bearing my name is on newsstands, I thought it was time for a proper introduction. And at the end of my first editorial ("The Trickle-Up crisis", November/December 2008) I promised a short explanation about "who exactly I am and what business I have being here." Here it is.
I've been a reader of This for many years, and a fan. I'm a voracious reader of magazines of all kinds, and This always intrigued and inspired with its mix of investigative journalism, passionate social advocacy, and authoritative opinion. And even after almost 43 years in print, it hasn't lost its youthful style and non-conformist streak, something that the Canadian media landscape badly needs.
The reason I wanted to work for This is because if it didn't exist, we'd have to invent it. There are plenty of magazines out there that write about politics, art, and culture, but they specialize very narrowly, or they're captive to political or commercial interests. Most magazines, newspapers, and broadcasters are owned by large multimedia conglomerates who have strong vested interests in pleasing their advertisers, which curtails their freedom to report unpleasant, unpopular, or unprofitable truths. This Magazine is different: as one of the magazine's ad slogans went for many years, "nobody owns us." And that's all too rare in the magazine business today. We're a non-profit charitable foundation that exists to educate readers and the general public, mentor the next generation of Canadian writers, and add to the diversity of voices in Canadian media.
Before arriving in the editor's chair in mid-August, I'd already worked as the magazine's columns editor for a year. Prior to that I'd worked as a freelancer for about two years, writing for magazines and working part-time at two very different publications, as an associate editor at Canadian Business and assistant editor at Precedent, a small independent magazine for young lawyers. Before that, I worked as news editor and then editor in chief of The Varsity, the largest student newspaper in Canada. In other words I know, at the very least, the differences between 'less' and 'fewer,' 'its' and 'it's,' and 'begs the question' and 'poses the question.'
All magazines are collaborative. Our small staff gets to work with the best and brightest writers, illustrators, and photographers in Canada. The magazine relies on a group of dedicated volunteers too, who do everything from stuffing envelopes to judging our annual Great Canadian Literary Hunt (which appears in the November/December 2009 issue). To the thousands of loyal and generous subscribers and donors who keep us financially viable; thank you.
Finally, there wouldn't be a This Magazine without you, the reader. We exist to inform, entertain, and provoke you, and I encourage you to tell us what you like and don't like about the magazine. This is a small shop; I check my own email, and if you call during business hours, chances are good I'll be the one who picks up. So send me a letter, comment on a blog post, pitch us a story — we want to hear from you. This Magazine is your magazine.
Graham F. Scott
editor@thismagazine.ca
More entries on:
THIS matters
September 12, 2008
September-October issue on newsstands now
Posted by Graham F. Scott at 11:49 AM ET
| Comments (0)
Our subscribers received their September-October issue in the mail this week, and the new issue is now on newsstands. As usual it will be available soon on our website, but you might want to run out and get it now. Here are some of the things you'll find inside:
- Doug Saunders, Judy Rebick, and six other Canadians offer their predictions on what a Barack Obama presidency might mean for Canada
- Catherine Rolfsen asks whether our own Truth and Reconciliation Commission on residential schools can truly heal Canada's First Nations
- Margaret Webb explains how inept government policies are stifling small organic farmers when we need them more than ever
- Our new TV columnist, Jason Anderson, speculates on what CBC hit Little Mosque on the Prairie will look like when it makes its U.S. debut on Fox(!)
- Plus: The end of the world, Genocide in the classroom, Cory Doctorow's latest book, new poetry by Matthew Tierney and Suzanne Robertson, your letters, and much more.
You can find the new issue in stores now, but if you really want to be ahead of the curve, why not subscribe?
More entries on:
THIS matters
July 28, 2008
Welcome Graham!
Posted by Lisa at 05:27 PM ET
| Comments (1)
Shia LaBeouf's recent DUI arrest isn't the only hot news item. There's big news here at This Mag headquarters. We've hired Graham F. Scott as our new editor. Congratulations Graham!
Graham has been a freelance writer and editor for the past three years, including a year as our columns editor. He has also worked as an associate editor with Canadian Business, and as assistant editor of Precedent magazine. Like many in the This family, Graham also worked in the student press having been news editor, and then editor in chief, of The Varsity, the University of Toronto's student newspaper.
Please join me in welcoming Graham to the editor's chair. Yay, Graham!
Graham will take over from Jessica in mid August. For those who haven't heard, Jessica is leaving This to work as a freelance writer and editor while purusing a master's degree at Ryerson. Best Wishes Jessica!
More entries on:
THIS matters
January 18, 2008
Introducing The People's Republic of Dave
Posted by mason at 02:08 AM ET
| Comments (0)
Dave Bidini first made his name as a member of the seminal Canadian band Rheostatics, but since then has carved out an impressive career as an author--he bears witness to all things music, hockey and politics, infusing his observations with reflections on how regular Joes and Janes fit in the grand scheme of this crazy world.
Starting this week, Dave will be sharing his thoughts with the readers of This twice a month in his new column, The People's Republic of Dave. The first piece, a musing on how the big box phenomenon can be linked to former prime minister Brian Mulroney, can be found here. Keep watching thismagazine.ca for future installments. Welcome aboard, Dave!
More entries on:
THIS matters
November 09, 2007
November-December issue now online
Posted by mason at 02:15 AM ET
| Comments (0)
Never thought theatre was political? We've got a bundle of features in the new issue of This that says otherwise. Check out political puppets acting up, an award-winning playwright who bolted for TV writing, the inside scoop on a successful prison drama program and much more -- and all of it online as of right now. Just surf over to the home page and dive in.
More entries on:
THIS matters
November 08, 2007
Stephen Lewis, The Hour and This Magazine
Posted by jesse at 07:19 PM ET
| Comments (1)
The September/October issue of This was given some airtime on CBC's The Hour. Stephen Lewis offers his insights, and cradles that magazine like a newborn baby. He can't seem to put it down. Check it out here, at about 4:48 into the segment.
More entries on:
From the intern desk
| Media navel-gazing
| THIS matters
July 26, 2007
Indexing air quality: Project Smog, week 2
Posted by mason at 01:04 PM ET
| Comments (0)
How much can one little letter do to help improve air quality? In week 2 of our six-week Project Smog series, Jesse McLean asks just that. He looks at the AQHI (Air Quality Health Index), a new index that has replaced the AQI (Air Quality Index) in parts of B.C. and Toronto. What's different? From the story:
Where the existing system reflects a region's air quality in relation to provincial standards, AQHI will rate air quality based on its risk to human health--and that might make all the difference.
Click here to read the rest of the article, and remember to check back each Wednesday for the next instalment.
More entries on:
Planet Earth
| Project Smog
| THIS matters
July 19, 2007
Introducing Project Smog
Posted by jessica at 02:22 PM ET
| Comments (4)
Because it's time for some good, scary summer reading, this week This Magazine launches a six-week web feature on air quality. The first part of the in-depth series by This's own Jesse McLean is now online. Part I, "We don't need no regulation," challenges the myth of Canada as an environmental leader by looking at our air quality regulations -- or lack of them.
Future installments will explore -- among other things -- the effects of bad air on childhood asthma rates, transboundary pollution from the United States and the Aamjiwnaang people's deadly exposure to chemical plants.
So throw on that gas mask, and stay tuned.
More entries on:
Planet Earth
| Project Smog
| THIS matters
July 02, 2007
Vote on Canada's most underrated rebellion
Posted by mason at 03:15 PM ET
| Comments (1)
As Canadians, most of us have learned about such nation-defining events as the rebellions in Upper and Lower Canada or the Red River Rebellion, but in the next issue of This, we chronicle four under-appreciated rebellions that explode the myth of Canada as a place with a peaceful (and boring) history.
The July/August issue of the magazine is set to hit stores soon, but right now you can read up on the chosen rebellions and vote for the one you think has had the most lasting impact on Canadian life.
More entries on:
Aboriginal rights
| Feminism
| Labour days
| THIS matters
| War and peace
May 09, 2007
May-June issue now online
Posted by mason at 12:23 PM ET
| Comments (0)
Hot off the digital presses, it’s the May-June issue of This Magazine! Tired of hearing about how hard cities have it in Canada? In this issue, Geoff Heinricks implores us to get with the program and move back to the land, where sustainability really lies. Meanwhile, we profile Blake Hunter, a 25-year-old Saskatchewan farmer who took over his family farm after being inspired by organic practices. We’ve got other rural-themed stories as well, but there’s more to This than that—including a look at Martha Hall Findlay and how last year she became the reluctant face of women in politics.
So dig in now!
More entries on:
THIS matters
April 24, 2007
NMA nomination news
Posted by mason at 01:37 PM ET
| Comments (0)
The 2007 National Magazine Awards nominees were announced today, and This was recognized with two nominations: Zoe Cormier's Playing Dirty in the Science, Technology and the Environment category and Evelyn Lau's poem Quayside in the Poetry category!
As well, Blog This's own John Degen was nominated in the Service: Lifestyle category for his Cottage Life article The Holy Grape.
Congratulations, folks!
More entries on:
THIS matters
March 18, 2007
March-April issue of This now online
Posted by mason at 01:31 PM ET
| Comments (0)
Canada's place on the world stage has never been more scrutinized than right now. A military campaign in Afghanistan and a federal government that is changing our traditional foreign policy positions are just two of the issues at hand.
The March-April issue of THIS examines Canada on the world stage from several angles: What should be our approach to Afghanistan? What is our mining sector's role in developing countries? How is Vancouver preparing to welcome the world in 2010, and who is being affected?
Check out the issue's table of contents and dive in!
More entries on:
THIS matters
March 07, 2007
Submit!
Posted by jessica at 10:48 AM ET
| Comments (33)
This Magazine — Call for Submissions
Calling all writers: critics, commentators, essayists, troublemakers and political pundits — This Magazine wants you! We are looking for smart, quirky or fun pitches on political topics of national relevance. This Magazine articles are well researched, have a strong analysis at their core, and a Canadian angle. We welcome ideas for investigative features, literary non-fiction, politically oriented service journalism, essays, photo essays and arts and cultural analyses. Or, pitch a shorter piece for one of our departments.
Info on upcoming themes, department descriptions and instructions for submitting a query after the jump.
Editorial Calendar 2007 / 2008
July/August 07 — Rebellion
Pitch by: March 15
First draft deadline: April 15
Sept/Oct 07 — Israel
Pitch by: May 1
First-draft deadline: June 15
Nov/Dec (culture issue) — Theatre
Pitch by: July 1
First draft deadline: August 15
Jan/Feb 08 — Travel
Pitch by: Sept. 1
First draft deadline: Oct. 15
March/April 08 — Catastrophe
Pitch by: Oct. 15
First draft deadline: Dec. 1
May/June 08 — Business
Pitch by: Jan. 1
First draft deadline: Feb. 15
NOTE — We also welcome off-theme pitches on a continuous basis.
Submissions by Department
THIS & THAT
Editor: Wendy Glauser, news[at]thismagazine.ca
Profile
Know of a unique person or group who has organized and won a political victory, or is doing innovative social-justice related work? Send us your profile idea.
Word count: 550-600
Fee: $50*
Argument
Outraged by a little-known government policy? Or a particularly notable bit of corporate bad behaviour? We want your thoughtful, well-researched, bite-sized salvo here.
Word count: 300 – 350
Fee: $30
List
From questionable legal loopholes to products you thought were good for you but aren't, use this space for your thematic list of little-known facts.
Word count: 200-250
Fee: $20
Whatever Happened To...?
From acid rain to brain drain, a brief investigation into the current status of a phenomenon we once heard a lot about but no longer do.
Word count: 200-250
Fee: $20
Graphic
Have an idea that lends itself best to a combination of images and text? We want your pretty, political word/picture idea! (Illustration skills not required.)
Word count: 300-350 approx (1 page)
Fee: $35
News
It's possible for a magazine with a three-month lead-time to do "news" when it's underreported or ignored by mainstream press.
Word count: 200-500
Fee: $20-$50
WTF?
A short, current-event related piece to point out something bizarre, scary, laughable or a combination of those things.
Word count: 50-100
Fee: $10
FEATURES
Editor: Jessica Johnston, editor[at]thismagazine.ca
A good This Magazine article offers background and context to ongoing Canadian issues, a challenge to the mainstream media perspective or an important story that hasn't been told elsewhere. Subject matter includes the arts, culture, Canadian party politics/legislation, legal issues, labour, the environment, native affairs, social services, public policy, education, health care, foreign policy, race/racism, media, science, queer issues, feminism, with a focus on high-quality writing and in-depth research.
We strongly encourage new writers to begin with short pieces for our front section or arts section, rather than pitching features.
Word count: 1,500-6,000
Fee: Varies—typically $100-$300**
ARTS & IDEAS
Editor: Ron Nurwisah, arts[at]thismagazine.ca
Profile
Introducing an independent artist from the field of music, theatre, dance, media, activism, visual art, or other fields not typically considered when thinking of "the arts."
Word count: 400-500
Fee: $40
Arts Capsules
Mini profiles or reviews of independent artists or arts-related ventures.
Word count: 100-150
Fee: $20
Then & Now (back page)
A series of photos and captions that trace the history of a person, place or thing — from cell phones to politicians to universities.
Word count: 350
Fee: $35
Submitting Your Query
Please submit your proposal by email, along with a published writing sample or CV. The query should explain what you plan to cover, conveying your approach, tone and style, as well as your qualifications to write on the topic.
Please note: we do not accept unsolicited submissions, work that has been published elsewhere, queries currently under consideration by another publication, or unsolicited works of fiction and poetry.
By email:
This & That — news[at]thismagazine.ca
Features/Then & Now — editor[at]thismagazine.ca
Arts & Ideas — arts[at]thismagazine.ca
*This Magazine is an independent not-for-profit organization, and as we such rely on the generosity of our supporters and writers. A modest honorarium will be offered for all pieces commissioned.
**Additional funds sometimes available for investigative projects.**
More entries on:
THIS matters
December 01, 2006
Anniversary party photos
Posted by mason at 02:02 PM ET
| Comments (0)
If you weren’t able to make it out to our 40th anniversary bash at Toronto’s Gladstone Hotel last month, we have photos of the event online at Flickr, the photo sharing site. Included are snapshots by Chris Blanchenot of speakers such as Rick Salutin and Mel Watkins (right), the half-eaten cake generously purchased by Joyce from way out in Edmonton, as well as the many others who came out to celebrate.
A great time was had by all. I will upload more photos as time allows, so visit the site again. Here’s to 40 more years!
More entries on:
THIS matters
November 06, 2006
THIS is an Invitation
Posted by joyceb at 12:33 PM ET
| Comments (0)
Time to clear your social calendars for this Wednesday, November 8 (that's only two sleeps away). THIS Magazine celebrates its 40th Anniversary at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto.
Appropriately, 40 is the Ruby Anniversary, and admission is by donation to the Red Maple Foundation, the publisher of this enduring magazine.
I'm told there will be very special guests, Tyler Clark Burke has just been added for the musical entertainment, and doors are at 8:00.
More entries on:
THIS matters
October 29, 2006
Crisis? What crisis?
Posted by mason at 11:27 AM ET
| Comments (11)
Yesterday, the Toronto Star published a very nice profile of This to mark the occasion of our 40th birthday. I'm now convinced the term "punching above its weight" will soon become synonymous with the magazine, if it's not already.
More entries on:
THIS matters
October 06, 2006
Reprehensible repression
Posted by mason at 10:23 PM ET
| Comments (1)
Soup is Good Food directed us to a nifty campaign by Amnesty International, a campaign that now has a permanent presence in the right-hand column of Blog This. The idea is to spread the word about sites that are censored in their own countries by publishing their writings. Freedom of speech is a fundamental right that is often being denied people, and part of the power of the internet is to circumvent oppressive authorities who seek to hide injustices.
The green box you see is an attempt at broadening the reach of controversial ideas and proving they are "irrepressible." Each time you load Blog This, a new censored site is excerpted with a links to the site. No shortage of important, censored stories to sift through, from the killing of an opposition politician in Kazakhstan to the kidnapping of reporters in Iraq.
More entries on:
Human rights
| Interweb
| Resistance
| THIS matters
September 13, 2006
Media issue on newsstands now!
Posted by mason at 02:12 PM ET
| Comments (0)
Head on down to your local newsstand and grab a copy of the September-October issue of This, featuring the winners of the 10th annual Great Canadian Literary Hunt! This is also our media issue, and contains features on women in radio and how PR giants have framed the Kyoto debate, plus an interview with Canadian Daily Show correspondent Samantha Bee.
Look for selected articles from the issue here at thismagazine.ca in about a week.
More entries on:
THIS matters
September 11, 2006
Our seal. Approval?
Posted by mason at 01:51 AM ET
| Comments (1)
I think the blog’s been around long enough that we’ve earned our own seal. Don’t you?
(Thanks for the link, Clive.)
More entries on:
Interweb
| THIS matters
September 05, 2006
Canada continues to fail guest worker
Posted by mason at 12:06 AM ET
| Comments (21)
Monday’s Toronto Star carries a Labour Day feature updating the plight of Hermelindo Gutierrez, a Mexican who worked as a seasonal farm worker in Ontario for several years before kidney failure left him dependent on a dialysis machine—an unthinkable expense in Mexico for the working class.
Hermelindo’s story was previously told in the pages of This Magazine thanks to the crafty pen of writer Maria Amuchastegui.
Unfortunately, things haven’t improved much for Hermelindo, save for the fact that his wife is about to give birth to their third child. He has applied for refugee status, but until that is sorted out he remains isolated from his family in Mexico, without much help from either the Mexican or Canadian governments.
If anyone has a kidney to spare, now would be a good time to look into donating it…
More entries on:
Healthcare
| Human rights
| Labour days
| THIS matters
June 27, 2006
Tease This
Posted by john_d at 02:25 PM ET
| Comments (5)
THIS Magazine's super-efficient and ever-delightful new editor, Jessica Johnston dropped off an advance copy of the July/August THIS (her first) at my office this morning -- as she was also dropping off a small pile of poetry submissions to the literary contest (I am a panner for poetic ore). The mag will hit store shelves by the end of this week. In the meantime, sink into your fetid well of envy because I can read it now while you cannot. This is how the left engages in advance marketing.
I took the mag with me to my favorite little hole in the wall lunch joint on Dundas and laughed in my soup over Scott Piatkowski's account of not being invited back onto the Michael Coren television show for the unforgivable transgression of catching the host being wrong. Apparently Coren insisted that the right to marry is not one of those pesky rights covered by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted by the UN way back in 1948).
This came up in the context of a discussion about same sex marriage. I'll let you folks figure out who was advocating which position -- rabble-columnist Scott Piatkowski v. Crossroads Television talk show host Michael Coren.
Annnyway, of course the right to marry is there in the declaration (article 16), which, as I've just proven, any boob with Google can call up on their computer in under ten seconds.
So, having publicly exposed Coren not knowing something he really should have known, our man Piatkowski finds himself frozen out of guest duty on the show. Not surprising really; this is standard fare with the neocon and religious right as they struggle to combat the evil and pervasive leftwing media bias -- see Fox's Bill O'Reilly, whose hypocritical froth is so well documented in Al Franken's Lies, And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, Chapter 13, Bill O'Reilly: Lying, Splotchy Bully.
What I wonder is how any "journalist" can still take himself seriously after such a display of intellectual bullying.
Hey, there's article 19 of the UDHR. What's it say?:
Article 19:
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers unless they publicly embarrass Michael Coren or Bill O'Reilly.
Oh, nevermind.
Go, buy THIS. Excellent Canada Day reading.
More entries on:
Human rights
| Media navel-gazing
| THIS matters
June 19, 2006
Oilers, shmoilers, let's talk Stanley
Posted by mason at 01:52 PM ET
| Comments (1)
If we can take a break from all the Oiler-adulation for a sec, thanks…. I’d like to direct your attention to more worthy Stanley-Cup-related pursuits, such as the first novel by our own John Degen, The Uninvited Guest. Actually, to call this a hockey novel would be a mistake, since it seems (114 pages in) to be more about human contact and companionship. Regardless, it’s a beautifully written and imagined work thus far.
Want to sample it for yourself? Chapter excerpts are available here. But really, you don’t want to be left without a copy of your own, do you?
More entries on:
Lit
| Sport
| THIS matters
March 05, 2000
Blog This Contributors
Posted by joyceb at 09:24 AM ET
| Comments (0)
Meet your Blog This contributors...
Annette
Bourdeau is a Toronto-based writer who can often be found loitering at the This Magazine World Headquarters. Her political views land her in many arguments with her Stephen Harper - lovin' friends and family in Calgary. She is often labelled a "radical hippy" and "bleeding heart liberal. "
Current boy crush: Michael Pitt.
Current girlcrush: Tori Amos.
Political Compass: Economic -7.62. Social - 6.92.
Joyce Byrne is the former publisher of This Magazine (2001-2005) and is now at work setting up the shadowy Western Bureau for Canada's best alternative journal. As a kid she dreamed of being a spy but
realized her authority issues ruled that out completely. The daughter of a
cop and a banker from the 905 region, it was fate that one day she'd be in
charge of running a small leftwing magazine; so instead she satisfies her
secret agent fantasies by watching ALIAS episodes on DVD.
Current boycrush: Joel Plaskett.
Current girlcrush: Angelina Jolie.
Political compass: Economic: -7.12. Social -8.00
John Degen is a Toronto poet and writer, who likes to reread the prison letters of Vaclav Havel. His first novel, The Uninvited Guest, is available now from Nightwood Editions. He dreams of the day when someone other than a businessman or lawyer is elected Prime Minister of Canada. Read more about John at www.johndegen.com.
Current girlcrush: Maureen Dowd, my
imaginary New York Times op-ed columnist girlfriend.
Current boycrush: A tie between Al Franken and Zinedine Zidane, both excellent strikers.
Political compass: Economic -4.62. Social -3.90
Aaron Leaf is a professional catsitter, a service industry peon and a
small business owner but if anyone asks, he's a writer. When he's not
chatting with his thousands of Friendster, Myspace and Facebook
friends he does leftist stuff like protest war and play squash. He
keeps a travel/photo blog and
currently lives in Vancouver.
Current Boy Crush:
Current Girl Crush:
Political Compass: Economic: -8.75, Social --8.31
Ron Nurwisah grew up in Vancouver but is now a Toronto-based freelance writer and editor who writes on urban issues, visual arts and literature. He spends far too much time blogging on Torontoist and his own personal blog Boyreporter.ca. He'd like to see more people on bikes, fewer SUVs and better air quality for all.
Current Boy Crush: Graham Hill of Treehugger.com or Dave Meslin of Whorunsthistown.to
Current Girl Crush: Emily Haines of Metric
Political Compass: Economic -7.13, Social -6.97
Shawn Syms has written on sexuality, politics and culture for almost 20 years, for publications ranging from The Globe and Mail to Spacing to Our Times to Xtra. Right now he's deep in the middle of rewrites of Human Forces, a short-fiction collection. Shawn's intensely turned on by Larry the Cable Guy's buttcrack but deeply turned off by the character's political sentiments. Oh, life's contradictory impulses!
Current boycrush/girlcrush: Ty Greenstein of "acoustic, harmony-driven gender pop" band Girlyman
Political compass: Economic -7.00. Social -7.18.
Ariel Troster is a writer and activist in Ottawa. By day, she works for a wonderful NGO that lets her act like a professional shit disturber. By night, she writes a column for Capital Xtra and blogs from Dykes Against Harper. She loves snappy sentences, spicy food, booty-shaking music and nerdy girls and boys.
Current Boy Crush: Owen Pallett
Current Girl Crush: Beth Ditto!
Political Compass: Economic -8.25, Social -7.28
Mason Wright is a Toronto-based editor, writer and visual journalist with a particular bent toward issues regarding the environment, media and technology. He also publishes a personal weblog called propeller, located at www.prop.ca.
Current girlcrush: Feist.
Current boycrush: Jeff Tweedy.
Political compass: Economic -8.88. Social -7.54.
Note: the political compass we used is located at www.politicalcompass.org
More entries on:
THIS matters
Listed in
