Paul McLaughlin, freelance journalist 

Vanity Fair and Maclean’s

I’m a huge Vanity Fair fan. Maclean’s, despite its political leanings, has improved incredibly since [editor] Ken Whyte took over. So I like it very much. I think it used to be a pretty boring magazine. Even though I don’t have the same political leanings as Whyte, I think it’s a much more interesting magazine and a great Canadian magazine. And I’m hoping that, under [editor] John Macfarlane, The Walrus will become a better read than it used to be. It all depends on the cost, doesn’t it? But I can’t live without Vanity Fair. That’s my favourite.

Stacey May Fowles, publisher, Shameless and circulation manager, The Walrus

None

I don’t think I’d pay for anything online. I want to pay for something I can hold in my hands. I think digital editions are a terrible, terrible idea. I want to say that I would pay for it because I want people to do it. But I wouldn’t and I love magazines like nobody. It’s very sad and very honest. That’s like three martinis honest. Maybe if you gave me a membership to something exclusive, and as part of that I got a digital edition of the magazine-maybe. But to pay for a digital edition of a magazine? No, I wouldn’t do that.

David Hayes, freelance writer

The New Yorker, Toronto Life, New York Times Magazine and Mojo.

If the print version wasn’t available or if they started charging for the online version, I would likely pay for those. I’m accustomed to everything being free online. Most magazines are free-not all, but enough that you don’t have to pay for them.

D.B. Scott, consultant and blogger, Canadian Magazines

Among others … Toronto Life, Harper’s, The Atlantic and Geist (maybe)

I wouldn’t pay for most magazines online unless they give me sufficient value. I’m not going to be an early adopter. I’m not going to be the first one to pay for a magazine everybody else is getting for free, and I think that’s a big problem for magazines.

I would be more likely to pay for a magazine if I believed that the magazine was getting the majority of its revenue from its readers. And I think that the business model based on advertisers driving magazines is probably broken-and more or less broken for good. We’re in the transition period. My hope is that 10 years from now there will be a lot of magazines that are carried 60 to 70 percent by their readers. If I felt that about any of these magazines, I would be more inclined to pay a reasonable fee to be a subscriber.

We’ve spent four generations convincing people that a magazine is worth no more than a high-end greeting card. That’s got to stop.

Graham F. Scott, editor, This Magazine

Toronto Life, Spacing, Maisonneuve, This Magazine, Good magazine, The Walrus and The Guardian Weekly

It depends what the model is. I would not want to pay by the year. If I could pay $15 a month to get all of these magazines, I might do it.

I think the physical is important. I think ink on paper is worth it. I like carrying it around with me. I like being able to flip through it. I don’t think the quality of the story online from print has to change. But I think the [online] price should go down because everyone knows that online costs less to deliver and consumers aren’t stupid. They know that you can’t charge the same price for something that costs 95 percent less to produce.

Ian Pearson, freelance editor

The Believer,Fly Fisherman and The New York Review of Books

It’s hard to say because I used to read Salon a lot, and then when it added the pay element and became very commercial, I stopped reading it. I did pay for The New York Times Plus but then it stopped charging. It wasn’t working because people didn’t want to pay. It would definitely be something specialized. I like the fact that Maclean’s online is free. I don’t read Maclean’s in print but sometimes I’ll go to its website and look up an article. If it charged for that, I would never do that.

I like The New York Review of Books, but I don’t subscribe to it because I hate having too much paper coming into the house. So if I could pay $20 a year to subscribe online, I would. Even though they’re long reviews, it’s something that’s quickly readable online. And if you want to, you can look up something from three months ago, or if you’ve just read a book or want to know about a book.

I read Andrew Sullivan’s political blog for The Atlantic a lot and he’s constantly pointing to Atlantic articles. But there’s something about those lengths of article that you really want to read to in print. Again, I don’t subscribe to it. I’ll pick up an occasional issue.

Conan Tobias, managing editor, Canadian Business

The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Wired (maybe) and Entertainment Weekly

Any magazine that I read on a regular basis now, I would probably read online if it wasn’t available in print. But I don’t want to read it online-I want to read it in print.

I work in magazines. I like print-for longer stuff especially. I just prefer reading it at my leisure, where I want, in print.

I could see Entertainment Weekly going online. I don’t think The New Yorker or Vanity Fair could go online entirely just yet. But I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next 10 years.

Marco Ursi, editor, MastheadOnline

None

If I have to pay for something, I’m going to buy it in print. If The New Yorker folded and I could only get it online, then I would think about paying for that. I’m not a print romantic but with The New Yorker, the experience is about reading the magazine. Flipping to the back and the front, and the layout and the organization of the print magazine are very important to my relationship to it. I read a lot of magazines, but I don’t have a really committed relationship with any other magazine.

I’m kind of saying things that the editor of Masthead shouldn’t say, but as a consumer, my perspective is different. I’m 26. I’m Gen-Y, apparently. So I’m used to getting things for free. I used to buy three CDs a week. I buy zero now and I download all my music illegally-I pay nothing for it. I go see a few concerts and I justify my contribution that way. If there was no way to download music, I would start buying things again. Magazines, that depends. If there are free things online versus paid things, I’m still going to choose the free things until they become so shit that I can’t take it. I know everyone wants to start charging for content, but Masthead tried it and it failed. I think it’s a stupid idea. You charge for print, you don’t charge for the web.

Lynda Shorten, executive producer for CBC Radio’s As It Happens, exits a news meeting upset. After a  wave of deaths among Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan, management at the public broadcaster is asking: What are we going to do for the 100th death?

Almost a month later, I’m in her office. I’ve worked at the show and know Shorten to be a confident woman. Right now, however, she is so bothered by the thought of covering the 100th death that she fumbles her words and cannot look me in the eye. She recognizes the symbolic meaning of 100 but worries about turning a human being into a number. By doing so, she says, “you somehow diminish the death of number 53, 54, number 72, and it turns the death toll in Afghanistan into something approaching a score in a game.”

There’s the irony. Although the death of the 100th Canadian soldier is heartbreaking, it’s also terribly convenient. News organizations have a perfect opportunity to highlight the Afghan crisis. When the death toll breaks the triple-digit barrier, the country will be listening. But with such a captive audience comes the responsibility of covering the 100th soldier’s story without discounting the other 99.

The first Canadian troops arrived in Afghanistan in February 2002. Since then, more than 13,500 soldiers have served in the country and 97 have died. Nine of those deaths took place between August 9 and September 7. Within less than a month, the death toll jumped from the 80s to the high-90s and news organizations were paying attention. Three deaths short of the 100th milestone, it was time to act.

This type of planning is nothing new in an industry that considers the advance obit normal. When celebrities and icons reach a certain calibre (and age), newspapers write obituaries for them in advance. The New York Times, for example, keeps about 1,200 on file, including one from 1982 whose subject has outlived its author. Such preparation is essential for people like the Queen, the Pope and even Apple’s Steve Jobs, whose obit was accidentally published—and then promptly retracted—this summer when a newswire was updating it.

“You’d have to be forehead-slapping naïve to believe that people don’t die,” says Catherine Dunphy, who spent three years writing obituaries for the Toronto Star. She acknowledges many view the advance obit as ghoulish, but says it’s responsible journalism. For most organizations, there hasn’t been much debate over whether to mark the occasion—it’s just what newspapers do. “It is a kind of natural whole number that people always use to pause and reflect on,” says Stephen Northfield, foreign editor at The Globe and Mail. “I guess that’s kind of embedded in your DNA when you’re an editor or writer working in these areas.”

Yet, the 50th garnered little attention. The deaths of six Canadian soldiers on April 8, 2007, were void of any “fifty fanfare,” as the count jumped from 45 to 51.

“It seems kind of uncomfortable and a bit rogue to look forward, but part of our obligation as a news organization is to look forward and try to make sense of these things,” says David Downey, a project, planning and development manager forCBC National Radio News, who began thinking about coverage six months ago.

When the news comes in from Kandahar, CBC Radio will issue a short bulletin announcing the deaths. In addition to feature news pieces, its current affairs shows have made plans too. Between reading the names of the 100 soldiers, The Current will air a documentary that includes a father of a soldier killed in Afghanistan saying every time he hears of another soldier’s death, it takes him back to when his son died.

Nova Scotians can relate. In Halifax, soldiers are a part of everyday life—they are friends, neighbours and coworkers. Four of the first 10 soldiers killed were from the province, and the percentage of casualties from there is higher than the census would suggest.

To mark the 100th death, Halifax’s Chronicle Herald has prepared a photo page with the fallen soldiers’ faces and a feature-length article. Dan Leger, director of news content for the paper and its website, has a frank attitude about its coverage: “It’s a big-ass news story … of vital interest to Canadians and that’s why we’re covering it. And there’s no other ideology behind it.”

His thoughts toward highlighting the number 100 are equally forthright. “There’s always somebody who can say ‘assigning a number to them is just dehumanizing them into numberhood or whatever,’ but fuck it. Every soldier’s got a tag that has a number on it—they don’t mind it.”

Welcome number 100 and with it, dangerous territory. “Probably the single greatest pitfall of this moment is that you can already see the front page,” says Northfield. He admits it may be impossible to avoid turning number 100 into, well, a number. “I don’t think it dehumanizes them, but it turns them into a symbol of something that’s different.” To avoid fixating on that person as a symbol, Northfield says the Globe will broaden its focus to the other 99.

He doesn’t want to “telegraph” the paper’s plans to competitors but states the 100th casualty is an opportunity to capture the longer-term implications of these deaths, and to check in with their friends and families. He also says this isn’t a one-moment event confined to the date the 100th soldier dies.

Shorten’s solution is to do the same with the 100th death as her show has for Canada’s other fallen soldiers. “We’ll probably note it’s the 100th but not make that the focus,” she says. “My dream intro would say, ‘To some people he or she is a number, but to so and so, he was her son.’ Or something like that. So, to take the fact of the numbering and turn it into a story about a human being.”

Meanwhile, news organizations will be waiting—and counting. Unlike that 1982 obit from The New York Times, it’s unlikely the 100th dead soldier will outlive the people preparing for his or her demise.

“It would be astonishing,” says Downey, about the possibility of the 100th death never coming. “It would be absolutely astonishing.”

Listen to journalist Morgan Passi speak about her experiences writing “Death Watch” on the Ryerson Review of Journalism’s Podcast .