The newspaper medium is an easy mark for ridicule. Itscaricature consists of the inverted pyramid, the 5 o’clock deadline and a strict adherence to “just the facts, ma’am.” Yet for a half-decade Jon Wells has worked within the supposedly rigid confines of his daily newspaper, The Hamilton Spectator, and repeatedly tested the limits of long-form journalism. Since 2003, thedailyhas published six of the diligent reporter’s oversized features.

These stories aren’t mere double-page spreads appearing in hefty Saturday editions. The first, “Poison,” weighed in at 160,000 words and ran over five weeks and 31 instalments. Wells won a National Newspaper Award for that one. The other five serials — “Sniper,” “Heat,” “Post Mortem,” “Emergency” and “To the Grave” — have all been published at similar lengths.

Review online editor Sara Chappel sits down with Wells to talk about his ideas, his research and the writing process for such large-scale projects.

Sara Chappel: What kinds of ideas are you drawn to?

Jon Wells: I wanted to be a sports writer when I was a teenager. I used to write stuff at home when I was 11, 12 years old, on my own, just kind of making up stories. Every game has a built-in, natural narrative: there’s a beginning, middle and an end, and there’s a winner and a loser. That’s the real basic skeleton of a sports narrative.
Most of my series are crime stories, but I don’t think I’m drawn to crime stories themselves. I’m drawn more to writing about people who encounter great challenges in life. Certainly in crime cases this manifests itself in the detectives who investigate these horrible murder cases and the families of victims who have to cope with loss.

There’s always some kind of hook that gets people into the narrative and tunes them into the plot and what happens at the end. But in between are the profiles, so I’m getting into the minds of different characters and what makes them tick — good or bad. Crime stories are filled with extreme examples of people behaving very badly. Criminal Minds and CSI are about people trying to get at the core of what makes an evil mind work, and I’m also interested in trying to show for readers what makes someone tick, who’s operating beyond the pale of what we would term to be civilized or humane behaviour.

In the one I did on the firefighters — “Heat” — the main character dies of cancer. That wasn’t a crime story per se, but it was about a family dealing with the horrible loss of its father and husband.

SC: Do you come up with the ideas or are they proposed by your editors?

JW: “Poison” was suggested by former editor-in-chief Dana Robbins. He had the idea that I could do something big with the story about Sukhwinder Singh Dhillon [who had been convicted of poisoning his friend, Ranjit Khela in 2002, and his first wife, Parvesh Dhillon, a year before that], but no one told me how big. To take chances, to stretch my legs and to try to write the best thing I’ve ever written were pretty much the only instructions Dana gave me.

The second, “Sniper,” again was Dana’s idea. The third, “Heat,” was mine. I suggested writing about this huge Plastimet fire that happened in Hamilton [on July 9–12, 1997] from the perspective of the firefighters — a real human drama, like the television series Third Watch. The fourth, “Post Mortem,” was an idea I got from going through our files of trials and stories we’d written and finding one that had a heavy CSI feel.

“Emergency” was my idea as well. I was trying to see if I could write more of a live narrative — something happening in the here and now. It was one of the most challenging concepts I’ve attempted because I didn’t know how it would end. That was stressful — hoping that it would come together as a narrative. The last one, “To the Grave,” another crime story, came about when I was researching the “Post Mortem” crime series. One of the detectives said, “You know, the one case that was really horrible was this one.” And I thought, “Oh, I should come back to that sometime and see if I can do the full treatment.”

SC: When you get an idea, what do you do then? What’s your research process?

JW: The first thing is to outline the general narrative arc of the story. It will certainly go through changes when I start writing — what do I want to show off the top, what do I want to hold in my pocket until later in the narrative and that kind of thing. But in terms of the general arc, I’ll write a timeline of events to help me develop the skeleton of the narrative. The rest of the process, no matter how long it takes, is putting meat on the bones and filling in the blanks. It’s a matter of determining the characters and then interviewing like crazy everyone who might be a character.

If it’s a crime story, I’ll gather court transcripts and read the stories that have been written about it so I can start to accumulate this volume of detail. Every tiny bit helps when you’re trying to fill out a narrative that’s going to last for at least 30 chapters. Through doing that, I conceptualize how the plot will progress. You’re trying to write a plot that’s sustainable, so you don’t want to splurge with all the great stuff in chapter one — or you’re in trouble.

One of the things Dana was telling me about doing long features was “over-report and under-write.” I always have this temptation to include every voice I interview so I can show the reader, “This is what I did, here’s the work I did.” But that’s not helping the reader.

SC: Where did you learn to report?

JW: I went to University of Western Ontario for my undergraduate degree in political science, and wrote sports for the student paper, The Gazette. Before I started my undergrad degree I was encouraged to take something that required a lot of writing, which for me was politics. I did a lot of big essays and stuff like that. Then I went to Carleton for the Master of Journalism program. Although I already had a pretty good grounding in writing, you can always learn more. That was two years and a great experience. Then I worked for the Guelph Tribune, a weekly paper, for five years. That was a great learning experience, too, because there were only three reporters. So there was a lot of chance to write features — not six-page features, but 20-inch profiles of people. That really helped me for the long-form journalism.

SC: How do you pace yourself when you’re in the middle of an enormous project?

JW: I just try not to fall behind. Once I started gathering information for “Poison,” even before it was coming fast and furious, I was trying to develop a rapport with the investigators. If you want them to open up to you with the kind of detail that you want for a narrative, you really need people to trust you. So there’s this process of just getting to know them, and that takes a while. So a month or two in I feel a little panicky because I don’t think I have all that much. And the editors come over to my desk and say, “Well, what have you got?” And I go, “Well, not much.” You have to be patient.

SC: So what do you do to get people to trust you?

JW: I always think if I can just get my foot in the door, if I can just sit down with them, it’s a lot friendlier. There’s an intimacy that comes from sitting down with anyone. That can provide some trust, and then it’s a case of getting them to see that you’re — hopefully — a person who’s not out to get them. And maybe you tell them that: “I’m not out to trick you.”

Word of mouth helps as well. If you’re doing your first interview, you have no track record. You’re relying on your sales skills. My father was a salesman, a great golfer and just a really personable guy. I’m not nearly as extroverted, but maybe some of that salesmanship rubbed off. You have to be able to look someone in the eye and believe what you’re selling — in this case, your integrity. You’re selling your ability to write something that’s not going to make them look like an idiot.

SC: Is there anywhere in particular you like interviewing?

JW: I like going to the person’s house. A coffee shop is okay. A cafeteria’s not very good — you have colleagues coming in and out. An interview room is cold and empty. I’d rather be in a person’s house if for no other reason than you can see what books are on the shelf and photos are on the wall. I was doing a long profile of [Hamilton Tiger-Cats running back] Jesse Lumsden a few weeks ago and by the end of it he was showing me the artwork on his wall. So I led with that.

SC: Do you sit down to write once you’ve got your research done, or do you write as you research and then piece it all together?

JW: I try to write as I go as much as I can — that’s easier when you’ve got a lot of time. With “Poison” and “Sniper” I took about a year to put each of those together. When I did “Poison,” for example, early on I interviewed the forensic pathologist who did the autopsy on this poisoning victim, and then I went to the library and researched poisoning cases, and wrote this chapter I called “The Autopsy.” It could have been a stand-alone feature. I wrote about 60 inches just on the autopsy mixed in with a profile of this pathologist, and then just shuffled it away and moved on. By the end I had almost a series of segments or chapters, and I started fitting them together. That’s how I stayed ahead of the game with “Poison.”

With the one I did last year, “To the Grave,” the deadline was tighter. I had about three months, which probably sounds like a lot, but not when it’s a 13-part series with 60 inches a day. And that was a difficult story. It was a case I wrote about and it never went to court, so it took a lot of arm-twisting for the police to talk to me. It was a matter of being quicker on my feet to try and figure how the story was going to go. As I was interviewing, I wrote the timeline. I couldn’t write it in scenes. Basically, I sat down: Chapter One. Even as we were laying out the pages for the series, I had a great interview with a cop who had arrested the killer at the hospital. They’d gotten into a big fight there and I didn’t even know that. So a one-liner that read, “He was arrested at the hospital, read his rights and taken to the jail,” changed to a detailed scene that read, in part, “He fought like a wild animal and was kicking and screaming against the glass doors of the emergency room….”

At a certain point, you do have to say, “Okay, I’m going to leave it alone, I’ve got to move on, I’ve got to polish what I have,” but it’s an ongoing process with the research and the writing. I never really say: “Now I’m done researching. Now I’m going to write.”

SC: Did you find out something that made you say, “Oh no, I wish I’d been able to put that in?”

JW: I’ve rarely felt that I’ve missed the hook or the potential payoff that would have made the story so much better. It’s more the little things. You become so obsessed with getting the little details that make it sing. For example, with “Heat,” the firefighter story, I’ve kept in regular contact with the widow and the son of Bob Shaw, the firefighter who died, and every so often — once or twice a year — we’ll get together for dinner. They’ll start telling old stories about Bob: “Oh, this is the place he used to come — we used to eat here all the time.” And I think, “Well, why didn’t you tell me that?” For the book [Heat: A Firefighter’s Story (Lorimer 2006)] I went back and used some of these extra details.

SC: Do you need anywhere in particular to write?

JW: It’s not the most peaceful place, but I’ve written most of my stuff at my desk at the Spectator. For the last series, when I was really under deadline, I spent some solid time at home, where I had total silence. I could write for a free half hour without checking email and without anyone bugging me and without listening to ambient noise. It’s amazing what you can get done. You feel like you’ve worked for three hours and think, “Okay, that’s a day for me, but you’ve only worked half an hour.”
SC: Do you keep a notebook?

JW: I use a notebook for reporting, but I find myself scribbling on little pieces of paper in my car as I’m driving — which is not recommended! As soon as I finish an interview, I’m writing in my head in the car on the way back. I’m thinking aloud about what they’ve said and what they’re like. I’m already starting the process of developing a portrait. Even driving to work, I’ve called my own voicemail if a thought comes to me about something. If I have my tape recorder, I’ll tape myself talking to myself. The process of writing never actually stops. Even when I’m watching TV or movies I pay attention to what the show’s writers are doing to the viewer: What’s the device they’re using? What’s keeping you locked in? You can have the most lyrical writing in the world, but if no one wants to read the whole story it’s not much use.

SC: Thanks for speaking to the Review.

With three days to go until the third issue goes to press,unlimited editor Dan Rubinstein isbusy. Hunched over his computer, he does the last edit on the cover story for January-February’s “Transformation” issue. The story is a feature on 24-year-old millwright Billie Lyons, a woman who symbolizes the gender shift in the trades industry.

Rubinstein peers at the type on the screen, then his fingers tap the keys. Folders, reference books and full-size pageproofs are strewn across his desk. He stands up and pushes his chair away. He heads to the printer. The phone rings. He grabs some papers off the tray. The phone continues ringing. He walks in the direction of his art director’s office.

unlimited is a nationally distributed business magazine based in Edmonton. Type its name into Google and the following tagline appears: “unlimited is Canada’s hottest new business magazine, aimed at 20-35 year old business up and comers.” Rubinstein describes it as a “business and work culture magazine.” The concept departs from traditional Canadian business magazines in that it is aimed at people just coming into the workforce. And it’s not just about making a profit, according to Rubinstein. It’s about making a positive impact in the world through work and business. “You want to pay your bills and make a living whether you own a business or not,” he says, sitting at his cluttered desk in Edmonton, “but you also want to do it in a way that has a positive impact on others around you.”

Rubinstein bets there are enough new workers interested in business issues for whom the adage “business is business” doesn’t necessarily apply. unlimited and the more established Toronto-based Corporate Knights, edited by Toby Heaps, seem to cut across the old bottom-line precepts of business journalism and instead focus on what they see as the new business reader: tech-savvy, and socially and environmentally conscious-in short, the Generation Y “millennial worker.” By aiming their editorial content at this audience, Heaps and Rubinstein hope Corporate Knights and unlimited will become the next generation of successful business magazines. Signs are encouraging but both have a long slog ahead of them.

unlimited was launched this fall by Alberta-based Venture Publishing, Inc., which also has in its stable a more conventional business magazine, the 11-year-old Alberta Venture. unlimited targets the 20-35-year-old demographic and publishes theme-based issues every other month. Total circulation of the magazine is 20,000, with 15,200 copies distributed through controlled circulation and 7,300 available on newsstands.

Ruth Kelly, who is also publisher and editor-in-chief of Alberta Venture, started unlimited after a conversation with one of her readers, who told her Alberta Venture was useful but didn’t resonate with him. He said the magazine was more about the people he’d like to do business with and less about him as a businessperson or his peers. Then he uttered the magic words to Kelly: “You know, you should make a magazine for me, Ruth!”

Kelly thought of the many workforce and labour issues pertinent to Albertans. With significant numbers of younger Canadians moving to Alberta to take part in its booming economy, many long-time residents found themselves scratching their heads at new, unfamiliar ideas. “Millennial, Gen. Y employees have a different approach to work than the more traditional boomer like myself,” she says. Many are flexible but not smitten with long hours, and they tend to look for fulfilment from their work. The New York Times reported recently that surveys in the last few years have found that millennials look for jobs that embrace a “flexible work schedule” (92 per cent), “require creativity” (96 per cent) and “[allow them] to have an impact on the world” (97 per cent).

Kelly believes launching unlimited also makes sense as a basic business strategy for her company. “My audience for Alberta Venture continues to mature and grow,” she says from her office in downtown Edmonton. “I need to make sure we’re bringing in people from the younger ranks so readership doesn’t decline.” She points out that her readership, a group that ranges in age from 35-60, isn’t shrinking, but does say that the percentage of their target readership isn’t growing.

unlimited uses profiles to illustrate the different work and life possibilities available to readers. The current “Giving” issue features Calgarian Brian Boulanger, a successful businessman who also volunteers his time to the United Way. In the piece he says he gets “huge returns” back. The issue also features a profile of Bacon, a small Edmonton restaurant, where owner Juliana Mimande tries to source locally as much of the food on her menu as possible. The article ends with a “Bacon Bits” section that offers advice for opening your own restaurant.

Unlike the larger national magazines, such as Report on Business and Financial Post Business, unlimitedfocuses on businesses and issues that affect the work and life of the employee. “[Other magazines] focus on more established businesses and older white guys in suits who call the shots,” Rubinstein says. “There’s a whole other world, and that’s where we fit in.”

The magazine has received positive feedback since launching in September, but there’s been some reader criticism as well. One Toronto reader asked when they were planning to be less Alberta-centric. Rubinstein admits he looks for stories that have at least an element of Alberta content, but says they also go beyond provincial borders. Kelly contends, “That’s a question I would only hear from people in Ontario.” With most national publications based in Toronto, Kelly says a publication with content from Alberta shouldn’t be problematic for a national audience, since most Canadians are used to reading about provinces and issues that aren’t always pertinent to their own. And anyway, she points out that Venture Publishing is a regional company that uses the strength in Alberta circulation and maximizes opportunities in Alberta first.

unlimited is not the only new-wave business magazine on Canadian newsstands. The older Corporate Knights doesn’t look at business from a traditional corporate perspective either. Rather, it gives its readers information on socially and environmentally responsible businesses.

Co-founder Toby A.A. Heaps was managing editor of both Mutual Review magazine and Planning for Profitmagazine when he realized established business magazines were missing something. “They cover business from the perspective of who’s making money, who’s losing money, why, with the odd personality piece thrown in,” Heaps says from a press junket in Bali, where he’s covering the United Nations Climate Change Conference for Corporate Knights and blogging for the Toronto Star.

Published quarterly, Corporate Knights reaches most of its readers as an insert in TheGlobe and Mail. Of its 101,300 total circulation, 95,500 are delivered to Globe subscribers in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa and Calgary. The rest are distributed through subscriptions to various readers such as CEOs, MBA and law students, and MPs and senior civil servants. Although Heaps would like more of a public presence, currently just five hundred copies of the magazine’s print run are sent to Chapters and Indigo newsstands.

Corporate Knights publishes guides to socially responsible investing, a list of the “Toxic 50” companies,a survey of the who’s who of green and responsible businesses and investigative stories from a business perspective. “We’re looking at where business is going,” Heaps says. To that end, he’s trying to launch aCorporate Knights global issue, with which he hopes to target G8+5 countries (the leading world economies, plus Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa).

In the shaky world of Canadian start-up magazines, surviving six years seems like a major success story. As to whether Corporate Knights actually makes money, publisher Karen Kun says she’s happy with the results so far. “Nobody should go into the magazine business to make a lot of money,” she says. “Our goal is always to break even or turn a small profit, even though we’re a for-profit organization.” One reason for Kun’s optimism might be the encouraging increase in advertising support from financial sector companies looking to reach readers with ethical investment portfolios. The current “2007 Cleantech Issue” contains ads from Sun Life Financial, Enbridge and Royal Bank.

There are numbers to back up the optimism. The past few years have seen a surge in socially responsible investments in Canada. According to the Toronto-based Social Investment Organization, a national non-profit association for the socially responsible investment industry in Canada, “assets invested according to socially responsible guidelines have increased significantly, from an estimated $65.46 billion in 2004 to $503.61 billion, as of June 30, 2006.”

That’s the sweet spot associate editor Melissa Shin is convinced Corporate Knights must move toward. It used to be about the bottom line, but now’s it about the triple bottom line. “You’re looking at the environment, you’re looking at your stakeholders and you’re looking at your monetary profit,” she explains. “When people are unhappy with the way things are going and they see the need for change, they may not necessarily know that the triple bottom line is one way to do it.”

While unlimited and Corporate Knights chase younger business readers, FP Biz editor Brian Banks doesn’t spend much time pondering the greying of his average reader. “We try to do a range of stories cognizant of the fact that we have an average reader age of 45, but we have a wide range of ages reading the magazine.”

FP Biz does cover corporate social responsibility and green business trends, Banks says, but he doesn’t cater to younger readers just because they seem more interested in those topics. He figures intelligent business readers are interested in new trends no matter what their age. His magazine provides direct advice and aims its personal finance service journalism at readers in every stage of life. “There is a dramatic difference,” he says, “in financial planning when you’re 30 versus when you’re 55.”

That said, Banks says he does take notice of what interests younger readers. “These kids are into all this green stuff,” Banks says. And he’s taken note of what his sales reps are thinking. “You have the advertising crowd saying there is probably a lot of advertisingbusiness if we were doing more stuff in this area.”

So maybe Heaps and Rubinstein are onto something with their respective editorial strategies at Corporate Knights and unlimited. Rubinstein is certainly confident that as his beloved millennials take over the workplace and become a larger target readership group, his approach to business journalism will inevitably become increasingly popular. “Our magazine will become more relevant as a place where people can go to find useful information,” he says, “as well as context for the work environments they find themselves in.”

As to whether this next generation of business magazines can survive, Banks is noncommittal, saying, “Every few years something comes up and certain magazines stick and others come and go.”

Libel plaintiff lawyer Ronald F. Caza was arguing a motion in an Ottawa court when he received the email from his junior lawyer, Jeff Saikaley. Caza knew exactly when the decision would be made. With 30 seconds of downtime, he checked his BlackBerry and read an email saying something along the lines of, “New defence recognized by Court of Appeal but appeal dismissed.”

Last spring, Caza represented Danno Cusson, an Ontario Provincial Police constable who, after participating in the search and rescue operations following the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York, had been written about in theOttawa Citizen in a negative light. Cusson sued the Citizen, the Ottawa Citizen Group Inc., Southam Publications (a CanWest Global Communications company) and his OPP Staff Sergeant Penny Barager for defamation. The jury found that two of three stories about Cusson were defamatory, and damages were awarded. The defence then filed an appeal.

The day Caza received the email, he made his way back to the office at the law firm of Heenan Blaikie and logged onto his computer to read the decision in detail. The plaintiff lawyer was satisfied: the appeal had been dismissed and he’d won his case. But he was wary-he may have won the Cusson battle but lost the libel war. He decided the new ruling was a loss for victims of libel.

Ontario Court of Appeal Justice Robert Sharpe’s decision, issued November 13, allows for a new defence, “responsible journalism” in the public interest, when media companies are sued for defamation. “Truth” (a defence that proves the truth behind a statement), “fair comment” (presenting a statement that’s clearly an opinion as an opinion), and “privilege to publish” (giving public access to courts, Parliament and the proceedings of other public institutions), have been other major defences used in libel cases in Canada. The defence of responsible journalism can be used when journalists are able to produce evidence of a reasonable amount of research that proves their public interest stories are accurate based on their “responsible journalism.” The existing “truth” defence requires the defence to prove what the journalist says is true, whereas “responsible journalism” is about sources, research and public interest. The ruling seems to imply that the media have been emboldened to pursue tough stories in the public interest, but no two lawyers can agree on exactly what it will mean for journalism.

Some attorneys are enthusiastic and in favour of making our libel laws consistent with other English-speaking democracies, such as England and Australia. Others see the ruling as a vague new defence that means nothing. And then there’s Caza, who says, “This decision is one of the biggest changes in the law of defamation in the last 50 years.” Believing it makes for an uneven playing field, he says, “The question now is, ‘Did they exercise responsible journalism? The issue of truth is no longer determinative of what the end result of the litigation will be when it is a matter determined to be of public importance.”

Caza thinks the decision creates a better defence for Canadian media because the Ontario Court of Appeal has reduced the fear and likelihood of being sued successfully for defamation. “Newspapers will be allowed to publish lies and will not be accountable if it’s on public interest issues,” says Caza, “as long as they exercise responsible journalism.”

Toronto Star lawyer Bert Bruser thinks Sharpe’s ruling makes for a dramatic change in libel law as well, but he’s much more optimistic. He says Canadian media have been operating under rules long discarded by other western democracies, including the United States, England and Australia. “Finally,” he says, “the Ontario Court of Appeal has determined that our law should change. For the media it’s a relief that we’ve finally gotten ourselves into this century.”

Peter Jacobsen, a lawyer for The Globe and Mail, was an intervener on behalf of the Globe, the Canadian Newspaper Association and Ad IDEM/Canadian Media Lawyers Association, in the Cusson appeal. He also has a more optimistic view of the decision, saying the ruling gives newsrooms some assurance when getting public interest stories out. He also likes the fact that the plaintiff can no longer lie back in the weeds and say nothing. “It recognizes responsible journalism at a high value,” he says. “It gives journalists a defence.”

Jacobsen has been using the responsible journalism defence for a while, anticipating it would be approved. “For the most part,” he says, “journalists do practice responsible journalism-it’s going to benefit a lot of them.” He believes guidelines for responsible journalism can be found just as easily as other professions. “We have a lot of guidance from schools of journalism, from professors, from practitioners,” he says. “You go to medical schools, you call practicing doctors, you find out the standards-how is it any different than that?”

Journalists such as the Toronto Star‘s Jim Rankin think the new defence improves the quality of journalism because it brings a sense of security to the endeavour. It will help to get more stories in the public interest out with less apprehension. “It has the impact of improving the quality of journalism across the country,” he says. “It stresses the importance of responsibility in reporting.”

Former Toronto Sun lawyer and current Sun media columnist Alan Shanoff isn’t so sure, saying he doesn’t think any significant changes in court outcomes will occur. The only practical purpose it might serve, he suggests, is to make plaintiffs more reluctant to sue and reduce some amounts of legal settlements. He views it as less of a triumph for journalism and more of a victory for the common law of defamation. He also believes the new defence will only lengthen trials and do nothing to improve the quality of journalism. “We’re inviting the courts into the newsroom,” he says. “Judges and juries are becoming editors.”

Lawyer Charles Campbell of Iler Campbell says the main problem is who gets to define the term “responsible journalism,” and exactly how is it defined. But he also thinks the decision signals a shift in the way Canadians perceive journalism in the public interest. He cites an old libel decision from 1961 to illustrate his point. The case pitted the Globe against Harold C. Banks, with the paper reporting in an editorial that Banks, a union vice-president, was corrupt. At trial, the Globe’s defence was that in was in the public interest to report on Banks’s control of the Seafarers International Union. The paper lost its case then, but Campbell thinks “it would have been decided differently under the new test. If the Globe does some reasonable research,” he says, “and presents some indices of corruption, and then gives Banks the chance to respond, then they could go ahead and publish it. There’s the kind of illustration,” he concludes, “that nowadays we want newspapers to do that kind of crusading and investigation.”

Campbell also thinks the ruling could cause a shift in what journalism is about in the first place. “Is journalism about getting at the truth,” he asks, “or about what people say about people?”

Pick up the October–November issue of Desi Life magazine and you’ll see the headline “Boy Wonder” and a smiling 13-year-old, who happens to be a golf champion, lying in a pool of golf balls. But a quick look inside the magazine reveals decidedly more provocative material: the experiences of five gay men in South Asia, and articles about gay icons in Bollywood movies, a sex bazaar and a porn star.

Nowadays most mainstream magazines can run this sort of risqué material without raising any eyebrows, but South Asian magazines have rarely explored culturally taboo topics for fear of offending readers. Then again, Desi Life, a bimonthly glossy owned by Torstar Corp., isn’t like most South Asian magazines. In fact, it is the first South Asian magazine associated with a mainstream newspaper in Canada. Launched in April 2007, the magazine is the latest addition to Torstar’s Star Media Group of ethnic publications. Others include Sway magazine, Canadian Immigrantmagazine and Sing Tao newspaper.

Although several popular South Asian fashion magazines, such as Anokhi (Unique) and Suhaag (Soulmate), exist in the Canadian market, there are only two successful Canadian South Asian lifestyle magazines besides Desi Life: Vancouver-based Mehfil (Gathering) with a circulation of more than 250,000 and Desi News, a Toronto-based publication with a circulation of 30,000. Both magazines are 11 years old.  Despite a population of around 1 million South Asians as of 2005, Canada lags behind the United States, which has a population of 1.9 million South Asians according to a 2000 US Census Bureau report, and 15 titles.

The inspiration for Desi Life came from Toronto Star reporter Prithi Yelaja, who suggested the idea to management in 2006. It only made sense. South Asians make up the largest ethnic group in Toronto, with about 600,000 in the Greater Toronto Area. According to the Solutions Research Group, they are one of the fastest growing ethnic groups in Canada, and 70 per cent of that growth is happening in Toronto. South Asians are highly educated and heavy media consumers — an ideal target for a niche publication.

While Desi Life’s editorial covers the usual topics found in South Asian magazines, such as food, style, music and celebrity gossip, it also goes a step further by providing intelligent features on business, religion, culture and community issues­ — even when those issues might be controversial. But because the magazine targets diverse readers, its racier editorial content might not resonate with some and may alienate others. The magazine’s biggest challenge is producing an editorial mix that pleases its diverse South Asian audience.

So far, editor Bageshree Paradkar says Desi Life has received an overwhelmingly warm response from readers for its style and content. It has already won first prize in an Inland Press Association and Newspapers Special Sections Network competition for the best North American stand-alone publication in its circulation category.

The magazine, which is distributed independently, started with a controlled circulation of 65,000. It has now increased to 70,000. Fifty-five thousand copies are delivered door-to-door in predominantly South Asian areas, chosen based on consumer data obtained from a marketing research company. The other 15,000 copies are distributed at South Asian events, libraries and retail outlets, such as DVD stores, grocery stores and restaurants in South Asian areas. The magazine aims to be as inclusive as possible, targeting readers in their early twenties to those in their sixties.

“Not only are people happy that we have this magazine, but the fact that it’s a Star publication, for many people it’s a recognition that they have arrived, that they are being recognized by the larger community,” says Paradkar. She adds that many readers express gratitude because there is finally a magazine that addresses their issues. Writers have been similarly enthusiastic — about 100 have contacted Paradkar since the first issue came out. One of them was Rhodes scholar Boria Majumdar, who thought the magazine stood out. “I found it extremely interesting. I have travelled pretty extensively around the world over the last few years, and of all the ethnic magazines that I have read … Desi Life is perhaps one that really traverses the intellectual and popular plain.” Desi Life currently has 17 freelance contributors, with about five writing regularly.

Some of the issues writers have tackled, such as homosexuality and sex, are ones that other South Asian magazines are hesitant to touch. Mehfil publisher Rana Vig says, “With certain South Asian audiences, it’s probably not the best way to go, especially if you’re trying to build a large audience.” He adds that with a controlled circulation model, magazines have to be even more careful about not alienating readers because they aren’t receiving it by choice.

In Desi Life’s June–August issue, a reader voiced his frustration to Paradkar about the South Asian community’s treatment of gays and lesbians; he expressed little hope that the magazine would represent them. “I do know, as it always happens, that people like me will be forgotten,” he wrote. What he didn’t know was that Paradkar already had a feature in the works. An article describing the largely positive experiences (including sexual ones) of five gay men who travelled around India and Pakistan was published in the October–November issue.

The existence of homosexuality is largely denied by South Asian communities; even when it is acknowledged, gays are often shunned by their families and communities due to religious and cultural reasons. “It’s a sensitive topic but that’s no reason not to write about it,” says Paradkar. She says mainstream media discuss tough issues, so she doesn’t see why Desi Life shouldn’t. “Yes, some people will not be comfortable, but that’s just too bad.” Paradkar says she didn’t receive any complaints, except from one reader who said the article was too rosy and didn’t reflect the reality of homophobic attitudes. Mostly, though, the story received a positive response, especially from the gay community. One reader told her the article was inspirational and that he loved how it was written from a humane perspective, with tolerance and acceptance.

One story published in the same issue did generate backlash — a profile of Sunny Leone, a South Asian Canadian porn star based in the U.S. Sonia Kandathil wrote about Leone’s upbringing, her journey into adult films, reactions from family and the South Asian community, and the role being South Asian has played in her career. Paradkar received four or five angry responses. Somebody said the magazine was promoting Leone’s lifestyle; somebody else complained the article was objectifying women. Another reader said there were much more important issues to cover. In response, Paradkar says they do cover more important issues, and Kandathil doesn’t suggest that Leone is a positive role model.  She argues that Kandathil writes objectively by telling readers what Leone does and lets readers decide what they think.

“[Paradkar] told me people went up to her and were like, ‘Oh my God, how could you run a story about a South Asian porn star?’” says Kandathil. “At least she engaged in something controversial.”

“We’re so used to this ridiculous Bollywood perception of life,” Kandathil continues. She believes stories like Leone’s provide a broader perspective about the South Asian community. “We’re a lot of things — we’re taxi drivers, we’re 7-11 owners, we’re hotel owners, we’re porn stars.”

In particular, older readers often find these topics irksome, Kandathil says, because they don’t consider them appropriate. “The older generation thinks it’s better not to know, because if you know about it, then you have to address it at some level.”

It’s not just the differences between age groups that pose a challenge for the magazine. South Asians make up the largest minority group in the GTA, but within that population there are Indians, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, Afghanis and others. Despite sharing many cultural similarities, these groups are diverse in their religious beliefs, traditions and languages. In addition, the values held by older immigrants are different from those of newer immigrants.

“By far, my biggest challenge is diversity,” says Paradkar. She says it’s a constant balancing act to represent all the groups fairly. Previous issues have covered the Muslim celebration of Eid and the Hindu festival, Diwali.  Next month’s issue will feature Christmas. Paradkar makes sure the writers are aware of being balanced, too. “She’ll call me and say, ‘Raheel, you’ve done this [story], but you haven’t spoken to anyone from South India or Sri Lanka,’” says Desi Life writer Raheel Raza, who writes for several publications and is also an interfaith advocate and media consultant.

Writers also have to be aware of the diverse relationships between South Asian countries, as well as sensitive religious and political issues. Even when writing a cricket story about Pakistan and India, Desi Lifesports writer Boria Majumdar says he has to be very cautious about the national and political rivalry between the two countries.

Objectivity is key, he adds. Writers must shed their national, cultural and religious identities. In addition, neutral language and terminology have to be used, says Raza. For example, she would never use the word “terrorist.”

When interviewing, writers also have to keep in mind South Asian values. Majumdar remembers doing a story about Little India store owners and finding that most people weren’t willing to go on record. He says people didn’t want to discuss certain issues, such as immigration or their stay in Canada. Similarly, when Kandathil tried to interview South Asian strippers and prostitutes, they refused because they were embarrassed and wanted to keep their job private. Even Leone didn’t want her family or fiancé to be interviewed.

Although there are challenges, writing for Desi Life has many upsides. The magazine provides a vehicle for stories that usually don’t get told by the mainstream media. Rakshande Italia, a business writer for Desi Lifewho also writes for the Metroland group of newspapers, says when it comes to South Asian stories, she has to work extra hard to sell them, as mainstream editors don’t find them interesting or relevant to their readers. She says it’s also difficult to write about topics specific to ethnicity for mainstream papers because editors are wary of stereotyping or being politically incorrect. Desi Life, on the other hand, allows more freedom. “If a mainstream paper used a quote saying South Asians are thrifty, it would be misconstrued,” she says, “but if it was in a South Asian magazine, readers would relate to it and laugh at themselves.”

Italia says it’s also refreshing not having to explain things, such as the importance of cricket, or define terms like Bollywood for South Asian readers because they understand the culture. It’s easier for writers to understand readers, too, because they are a part of the community.

Paradkar says she wants South Asians, whether they’re teenagers, adults or senior citizens, to think of Desi Life as their magazine. In keeping with its risqué editorial stance, the December issue will contain an article about young South Asians’ relationship with sex. The story will likely be applauded and create some controversy at the same time — precisely the response Paradkar is looking for.

Directly across from the western block of Parliament Hill stands the National Press Theatre at 150 Wellington Street, the traditional site of news briefings for every prime minister since Lester B. Pearson in 1965. Because of an ongoing feud with the national media, however, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has only set foot in the gallery once.

For over a year, the Conservative government and Privy Council have been planning a second media centre that would be under their control, one-and-a-half blocks fromthe existing press gallery. The centre, which would be run by the Privy Council Office instead of journalists, had a secret code name: the Shoe Store Project. Then the plans were discovered, sending ripples of anger through Canadian journalists, who viewed it as the latest move in Harper’s bid to create a controlled interview environment.

On October 15, Tonda MacCharles of the Toronto Starbroke the story after receiving a report she filed for under the Access to Information Act almost exactly one year earlier. The documents revealed a full outline of the needs for the centre’s interior that included a stage or riser, comfortable seating for 40 to 80 people, security at the back and front doors, electronic feeds for sound, sound boards, simultaneous translation space, phone-in capacity, proper lighting for cameras, tables for handouts, products, glasses, water, flags, backdrop, photocopier, full work stations with internet hook-up, a large-capacity printer in the back for officials to use and washroom facilities.

What remains unclear is why a new media centre is needed. One document states that Harper “needs to put in place robust physical and information security measures to protect the prime minister and cabinet.” This has left many wondering exactly what information security procedures are needed in a public press conference. A hand-drawn sketch among the documents, which depicts a space for “permanently installed cameras with feeds to media,” has left journalists fearing the worst. “Obviously, if the only tape you can get is tape someone has shot who has a vested interest in the situation, then that organization is going to give you tape favourable to their position,” says Christopher Waddell, a professor of journalism at Carleton University.

When asked about the cameras, Privy Council Office spokesperson Myriam Massabki replied, “no comment.”

The next day, MacCharles wrote a follow-up article that was headlined: “Government Shelves Media Centre Plan.” Massabki says the “exploratory” project was rejected by the Privy Council last fall for two reasons. “The main reason is the accessibility of the place. As an example when we put in place a media centre that attracts media journalists, they need a big parking lot for their trucks and cars and things like that.” The other is its cost.

One opposition party critic doesn’t believe money is the issue. “In a context of a government that spends billions of dollars a year I don’t think that is really their financial concern,” says Mark Holland, Liberal MP for the riding of Ajax-Pickering. “When their plan got leaked it was dramatically unpopular, so they backtracked in an awful hurry.”

“Harper is going to have to do two things,” continues Holland. “One, get thicker skin and be willing to answer those hard questions. Two, accept that he’s not a dictator. Behaving like one is not going to keep him in office.”

Since the Conservative party won power in February 2006, members of Harper’s staff have tried to control its dealings with the press numerous times. Shortly after the election, Harper stopped publicizing Tory cabinet meetings and barred journalists from the hallway outside the cabinet room, effectively blocking them from questioning cabinet ministers on their way out of meetings. On May 23, 2006, journalists walked out of a press conference right before it started when Harper announced that Canada would give $40 million to aid Darfur. Earlier, Harper’s deputy press secretary, Dimitri Soudas, had tried to set up a list of reporters who wanted to ask questions. Anyone on the list could be called upon to ask Harper a question. No reporter took up Soudas on his offer. “Unfortunately,” Harper told London’s A-Channel the next day, “the press gallery has taken the view they are going to be the opposition to the government.”

But it has been traditionally understood that the media’s responsibility is to ask questions of the governing party, no matter which party governs. Yves Malo, a director and former president of the press gallery, says Harper has to stop seeing journalists as his enemies. “They have to stop thinking we are there to attack the government.”

Sandra Buckler, Harper’s director of communications, often bears the brunt of the press gallery’s flak. During a meeting between the PMO and press gallery executives in March 2006, Buckler suggested that the foyer of the gallery would make an ideal interview location. It would be called “The National Press Theatre,” she told Emmanuelle Latraverse, then-president of the gallery. Buckler did not return phone calls for this story.

Whether or not the Shoe Store Project ever gets built might not be the real issue. Waddell believes the controversy only obscures the real need, which is for journalists to dig deeper and not be content to receive spoon-fed stories from the government. “I’m not sure a new media centre is an issue that plays anywhere else other than reporters,” he says. “The public doesn’t care.”

“Journalists should do their jobs of going out and finding good stories,” Waddell continues. “Whether the PM wants to talk to you—whether the PM likes you—is immaterial to doing your job.”

Ken Langdon was sitting in a Tim Hortons in Woodstock, New Brunswick, talking with a friend and drinking a black coffee when his cell phone rang. Debbie Bustard, house proctor of a residence for students from New Brunswick Community College that Langdon owns, was calling. Two forensic accountants were at the residence; they had a court order and had come to search his office. It was the morning of September 27, eight days after Langdon had resigned as publisher of Woodstock’s Bugle-Observer, the newspaper with offices just across the street from the residence.

The court order was on behalf of Brunswick News, the company that owns the Bugle-Observer. Owned by J.D. Irving Ltd., Brunswick owns all but two English language newspapers, and all but four French newspapers, in the province. In addition to media, the Irving family’s business empire covers shipbuilding, forestry, transport, retail and construction. After Langdon quit the Bugle-Observer on September 19, he emailed a resignation letter that outlined his plan to start a paper, the Carleton Free Press, which would become the Bugle-Observer’s only direct competition.

Over the next two days, the pair of court-appointed KPMG accountants would spend almost 13 hours searching Langdon’s office and vehicle, as well as his home office, closets and even his wife’s dresser drawers. Sandra Langdon, a principal at a local elementary school, was not home at the time.

Victor Mlodecki, vice-president and general manager of Brunswick News, alleges that Langdon had “misappropriated” information from his former company, including budgets, sales plans and carrier lists of newspaper deliverers. Langdon says he used the files to work from home, but that starting August 29 he also sent himself files that might support his case for a possible constructive dismissal suit. Once Langdon’s lawyer advised him not to pursue the suit, he says he deleted the emailed files, along with the remainder of his Brunswick files.

Langdon claims he’s being hounded by his former employer because the Carleton Free Press has created competition for Brunswick, something the chain is not used to. Meanwhile, Mlodecki claims his company is not against competition at all. Rather, he claims it is a case of misappropriation, pure and simple: Mlodecki alleges Langdon sent himself information that is proprietary to Brunswick in order to assist him on the business side of his start-up. Although this story appears to be yet another replay of an independent David taking on a corporate Goliath, ultimately this may be for the courts to decide.

Langdon started in the newspaper business in 1994 when he bought the Carleton County Advertiser. Three years later, he sold the Advertiser to the Irving family. Langdon stayed on as manager of the Advertiser until 2003, when he was promoted to the position of publisher of the Bugle-Observer. It was during a regularly scheduled meeting in the Brunswick News offices with Mlodecki and group publisher Kelly Madden in late August when Langdon decided that he had to leave the Bugle-Observer. According to Langdon, Brunswick News owed him a $4,000 bonus from 2006. “I felt that my days were numbered at that point,” he says. (Langdon maintains that Brunswick still owes him this money.) Mlodecki insists that he called the meeting to discuss Langdon’s underperformance that year and had no knowledge of the bonus beforehand.

But it took more than the outstanding bonus to convince Langdon to leave the Bugle-Observer. He remembers one particular meeting with his fellow publishers of the Irving-owned weeklies. According to Langdon, Mlodecki talked about his plan to put Gary Windsor, who runs a flyer distribution network in Bathurst, out of business. Langdon, who didn’t meet Windsor until after his legal issues with Brunswick started, says he was speechless. He remembers thinking to himself, “I can’t believe he just said that.” Mlodecki asserts that Langdon is embellishing. “We discussed, at length, the defensive measures we were putting into place [in Bathurst] to protect our business interests there,” Mlodecki wrote in an email. “It was observed that these measures could cost a lot of money, perhaps as much as a million dollars.”

Langdon says he also felt the Bugle-Observer could serve the community better. “A community newspaper is more than just a profit centre—it reflects the values of the community it serves. I didn’t feel we were doing that,” he says. The Free Press is different, he says, because its owners—he and business partner Dwight Fraser—live in the community they cover.

When Langdon resigned as publisher, he had been working at the Bugle-Observer for four-and-a-half years. The decision to start his own paper did not come easily. Still, he explains, if you’re in the newspaper business in New Brunswick, and you don’t want to work for the Irvings, starting your own paper is the only choice.

In October, a New Brunswick court granted Brunswick News an injunction that prevented Langdon from using confidential information from the company and soliciting the Bugle-Observer’s advertisers. Then, around the end of the month, Justice Peter Glennie of the Court of the Queen’s Bench of New Brunswick upheld the portion of the injunction that prevented Langdon from using confidential information from Brunswick News and recruiting its employees, but ruled that Langdon could access the contact list of 15 advertisers previously included in the injunction. “Anything that has happened subsequent to the search,” says Langdon, “is just an effort to suppress the Carleton Free Press.”

Julian Walker, a journalism professor at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, says the journalism community in New Brunswick has welcomed the Free Press. “The feeling has been that a greater competitive situation would be very healthy for the province,” he says. “If we could have a greater number of independently owned newspapers, that would be healthy as well.” Walker had spent 10 years in the newspaper business before entering provincial politics, and previously served as editor at The St. Croix Courier, one of the province’s two independent English-language newspapers. He has also written for the Irving-owned Telegraph-Journal, based in Saint John. “The situation here isn’t just that there is a concentration in the media,” he says, “but the Irvings are very big and important players in the economy as a whole.”

“It’s not like there are huge bits of white space in their papers,” continues Walker. “What tends not to happen is a real investigative effort by the papers on stories that touch on the Irvings.” Coverage of the Free Presscontroversy in Irving-owned papers, for example, has been minimal.

Mlodecki cautions against oversimplifying the situation. “This isn’t about competition,” he says. “This is about somebody who illegally misappropriated information from a business and tried to take it across the street to start a competitor against the business that he once worked for.” Mlodecki, who has worked in newspapers for 35 years and for Brunswick News since 1998, disagrees with any assessment that Brunswick enjoys a near monopolistic advantage over any newspaper competitor in the province. “Do you get all of your information from newspapers?” he asks. “You’re on the Internet, I suspect. You watch television. I suspect you listen to radio. There’s a number of ways that you can get your information without picking up a piece of newsprint.”

Langdon says the Woodstock community has been supportive. Leading up to the launch, Langdon returned home each night to listen to between 12 and 15 telephone messages from supporters. At the Free Presslaunch party on October 29, the 2,000-square-foot office space, located in a Woodstock strip mall, was completely full. In attendance were community members, Free Press staff, provincial, federal and municipal politicians—including Progressive Conservative opposition leader Jeannot Volpé—and professors and their classes from the journalism program at the community college. CTV and CBC television and radio media covered the event. The support has spilled over to the tabloid-size pages of the Free Press, which now includes 15 to 20 pages of advertising every week.

So what’s it like to take on an Irving-owned newspaper corporation? Langdon laughs and says, “I don’t recommend it.”

If you scan the glossy covers of women’s magazines on newsstands these days, you’ll see a particular type of woman – young, thin, sexy.

Or maybe a celebrity. Or a model. Or maybe food.

What you won’t see, usually, are middle-aged women staring back at you. More, launched last March, is designed to be something different for consumers of women’s magazines. While Elle, Flare and Fashion target women between the ages of 18 and 34, More directs its attention toward Canadian women over 40. Based on its circulation numbers alone, they seem to be more than happy with the new product.

That More magazine has been a success story straight out of the starting blocks is indisputable. The real question is: how did its staff do it? A good place to start would be More’s editor-in-chief Linda Lewis, who was chosen by owner Transcontinental Media to take the reins of a magazine that immediately filled an unexploited niche in the Canadian marketplace. “I would have gone to More no matter who the owner and publisher was, Rogers or Transcontinental,” says Lewis. “I knew this was a brand magazine.”

“I really believed in what the mandate of this magazine was,” she continues. “And as a 46-year-old woman myself, I can attest that I wanted a magazine that spoke to me.”

After four interviews with Transcontinental executives, Lewis decided to leave her editor-in-chief position atToday’s Parent. In late August 2006, she jumped to More. “I had always wanted to do a launch,” she says. “It’s one of those things that if you ever get the opportunity to do in your career, it’s a fabulous and exciting thing. Scary.”

In September, Lewis helped to organize some focus groups. Women in their 40s and 50s talked about what was important to them, and one of the things that turned out to be important was Canadian content. This consideration was crucial, since Lewis would be in charge of a magazine with an American name.

Lewis then hired one person she had worked with previously; the rest were new. More had not one but two launches. The first was a business trade launch in December 2006, to alert potential advertisers to the new niche market product. The official consumer launch came three months later, in March 2007.

Even success can bring its share of challenges, and the biggest challenge for Lewis so far is keeping up with the pace of growth. Most publishers and editors prefer to wait a couple of years before they have enough confidence in the circulation numbers to prepare an audit statement. Not More — it will turn one in March 2008, yet has already received its first audit statement this month. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulation, its circulation stands at 120,000, with about 100,000 of those paid.

Meredith Corporation, the American owner, originally launched More in 1998 with a circulation of 320,000. Since then the number has almost quadrupled, to 1,200,000. More was named Ad Age Magazine of the Year in 2006 and was listed fourth on Adweek’s “Hot List” this year. Excellent growth and accolades, all in under a decade, but the Canadian More (Meredith agreed to let Transcontinental use the name) has enjoyed an explosive start.

The obvious question is: how? Traditionally, advertisers go after the young, who want to spend money and are in with the latest fashion trends. Following the advertisers, many Canadian women’s magazines go after this age group as well. Chatelaine, for example, Canada’s oldest magazine for women, went fishing for younger readers while trying to keep those who grew up with the magazine.

But, according to Statistics Canada, there are five million women between the ages of 40 to 59 living in Canada. To reach the female portion of the 40-plus consumers, who control three-quarters of the nation’s wealth, Transcontinental marketed directly to its database of names of women belonging to this demographic. Lisa Rivers,More’s circulation marketing director, says the challenge was, and continues to be, finding good names segmented by age for More’s mailing list.

So while other magazines have been chasing the Holy Grail, the 18- to 34-year-old demographic, and skewing younger editorially, More went the other way from the beginning. It specifically addressed a crowd that has often been ignored by the magazine business: the Baby Boomers. “It’s long overdue,” says Lewis. “In the past few years, readers, marketers and advertisers have woken up to the fact of the power and energy of this group of women.”

Monica Drexler, More’s national sales manager, adds that women aged 40-plus “feel somewhat neglected and insulted — that when you turn 35 you fall off the radar.”

And they’re not going away. According to Statistics Canada, by 2010 this 40-plus age group will be nearly 60 per cent larger than the 18 to 49 audience. Lewis says, “You can’t ignore it anymore.”

More actually celebrates women over 40, boasting that they’re savvy, independent and know what they want. “There’s a lot of power to these women in that target group,” says Drexler, “and advertisers are beginning to understand that.”

That’s why Lewis was careful to select her writers. She made sure they grasped the magazine’s mandate.More aims not to be fluff. The editorial content has a mix of style, body and mind, attitude, people and places, and work and money. In “The Liberation Generation Gap,” for example, published in the November issue, freelance feature writer Jay Teitel offers a male’s outside perspective. “There’s the whole notion of how women were too busy being feminists to raise feminists — too busy being liberated to raise liberated daughters — so what you see now is a backtracking. To an outside observer, this is how it appears.”

Teitel also writes a column on living with a woman going through menopause. “The built-in hook is that you’re a guy writing about women’s issues,” he says. “In the long run I would rather write stuff for women than for men.”

Kim Pittaway, former editor-in-chief of Chatelaine, also freelances for More. In the same issue, she interviews women 40-plus in a department called The Last Time…, where women share stories of the last time they caused themselves harm, used menopause as an excuse, looked into their child’s eyes, wore a bikini or sucked up to their boss. In one reported episode, a woman received a ticket from a police officer for not wearing her seatbelt; she was trying to liberate herself from her coat during a hot flash.

Such articles appear to hit the mark for More readers. “I’m 43 myself,” says Pittaway, “so a lot of the topics and issues that Linda is tackling are exactly on track with where I am in my life.”

After working at Chatelaine and elsewhere, Pittaway believes most magazines aim editorial at the stereotypical 35-year-old spending woman that advertisers want to reach. “We use to get letters fromChatelaine readers all the time who didn’t feel like they were being represented in the pages because we were focusing too much on younger women,” she says. “That’s a chord that More has really struck.”

On the right night, at the right bar, metal fans show up ready to go. Young men and women, barely old enough to cross the ID line, scan merchandise, buy drinks and wait for the show. At the end of a good night, they’ll stagger, — if not limp — toward the exit doors, disoriented, intoxicated or both, their T-shirt collars hanging to their diaphragms, heavy with sweat.

The state of Canadian music journalism is rarely anyone’s first thought when seeing fans of Killswitch Engage spitting blood and dust into bandanas after bearing the impact of one too many crowd surfers at the Vans Warped Tour. Or when hearing about how at one point during Behemoth’s stop at Toronto’s Opera House, the only way to leave the seething mosh pit was to climb the bar.

Few would imagine that many of these fans, as avid readers of Unrestrained! and Brave Words and Bloody Knuckles, help to keep music journalism alive in Canada. They’re regular readers of the nation’s primary hard rock and metal titles.

There is no shortage of free or online music publications in Canada, yet paid circulation magazines have trouble surviving. There are only two popular music publications that have substantial newsstand and subscriber presence. The 15-year-old Chart is the longest-running consumer title, while trade publicationCanadian Musician has been around since 1979, and both usually cover mainstream and alternative Canadian rock.

After the leading pair, Unrestrained! and BW&BK are the two longest-running paid-circulation music magazines, specifically targeting a genre of music that receives little support from other media outlets. Both were started by veterans of M.E.A.T., one of Canada’s original hard rock magazines. “Metal” Tim Henderson, CEO and president of BW&BK, co-founded his magazine 13 years ago. Its current frequency is 10 issues per year, and its circulation hovers around 25,000 to 30,000, with 25 per cent sold in Canada. “I’m pretty proud of the fact that we’ve been able to survive this long, especially flogging heavy metal,” says Henderson. “We’re not selling out, and I’m not trying to diss Chart ’cause they’re doing their own thing, but we don’t have to put Sloan or Coldplay on the cover to keep going. No. We’ve put heavy metal and we will always put heavy metal. End of story.”

The smaller of the two publications, Unrestrained!, began in 1997. It is published quarterly and has a circulation of 15,000 copies, with 30 to 40 per cent distributed in Canada. Co-founder and coordinator Adrian “The Energizer” Bromley is, like Henderson, proud of his magazine’s decade of existence, particularly whenUnrestrained! eschews covering more commercial heavy bands in favour of featuring diverse underground and “extreme” music. “I put 10 years of my life into this magazine,” Bromley says. “There’s no way I’m going to blow our whole identity on one failed attempt at an issue that’s trying to make big bucks.”

According to Jeffrey Noonan, an associate professor of music at Southeast Missouri State University, music magazines have historically tended to be commercial productions. However, music titles may also be what Noonan characterizes as fan magazines, publications created by fans for fans that instead promote a lifestyle, genre or particular understanding of music. “Magazines founded by real fans tend to have a hard time surviving, because they try and stay pure,” Noonan says. “They try and focus on the music, on the personalities, whatever, and try not to get sucked into the commercial end of things.”

Henderson is wary of classifying BW&BK as a fan magazine. Although Noonan uses the term to describe any publication created by fans for fans, it runs the risk of connoting a lack of quality, perspective and professionalism — suggesting the kind of magazine that runs bedroom pin-ups of pop stars that target guileless 12-year-old readers. “Gene Simmons told me a very wise thing once — that fanzines are really just baby magazines,” Henderson says. “Everyone has to start somewhere and we’ve been doing this almost 15 years, so for somebody to call Brave Words just a fanzine — hey, certainly at the end of the day, we are fans, and maybe that’s the beauty of it right there.”

When looking at the content of both magazines — mostly artist features, interviews, reviews, and band and industry news — there is no doubt that BW&BK and Unrestrained! are written, in the words of Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, author of Metalheads: Heavy Metal Music and Adolescent Alienation, “by metalheads for metalheads.”

“The people who’re reading [these magazines] aren’t looking for The Economist or The New York Review of Books,” says Arnett. “They’re looking for more of what you might call advocacy journalism. They’re looking for people who are on their side.”

The communal aspect of the genre is crucial to metal culture. Its entire structure depends on an interwoven network of fans, musicians, promoters, record companies and media. The closeness inherent in the metal scene is, in part, born of the reputation it has garnered. Henderson has seen the way negative perceptions of metal and its fan base have influenced his dealings with advertisers. “Sadly, the outside view is that it’s gutter music for a bunch of bums and hippies and drug users,” he says. “Just a bunch of kids that have no disposable income.”

The reputation of metal fans, rightly or wrongly, might precede them, but they are certainly loyal. Josh Hogan, founder of Diminished Fifth records, an east coast metal label, notes that metal is one of the few genres left whose fans still purchase CDs. Independent record company operators know this and target their advertising to readers of Unrestrained! and BW&BK accordingly. But this suggested presence of buying power has not translated into much interest from other kinds of advertisers. National advertisers already sell into international magazines read by Canadians, and don’t necessarily need homegrown music publications.

Henderson did recently convince Jägermeister to buy in, but generally he says the “suit and tie guys” at agencies aren’t sold on metal magazines as the right demographic for their products. “It’s kind of ridiculous that we can’t get advertising outside the music industry,” he says. “I go to shows and see people holding a bottle of Molson Canadian and they’ve got their Doc Martens on.”

While securing advertising remains a challenge, both magazines rely on their bond with metal fans — and to some extent, rock fans in general — to keep going. Unrestrained! has refined its editorial focus by covering bands rarely recognized in international competitors’ magazines. BW&BK devotes attention to its online component, which features a regularly updated metal newswire, as well as the Braveboard, an electronic message board used by fans and industry personnel to talk music and promote new artists, album releases and shows.

One Braveboard user is 20-year-old metal fan Gregory Darwin. He recognizes the close-knit nature of the metal community, and sees its downside. Speaking specifically about Toronto’s metal scene, he says, “It becomes impossible to criticize a band without someone taking offence.”

This mentality may extend beyond the scene to the publications covering it, as both BW&BK andUnrestrained! are interested in preserving and supporting metal culture. Some niche magazines may face questions about the level of their critical analysis, but both Bromley and Henderson say their magazines are as objective as any others in the business. “Objectivity is part of everything in life,” Bromley says. “In terms of music and music magazines and journalism, I’m sure there’s certain elements where it doesn’t come out as much as it should in certain situations, but we know what’s shit and what’s awesome.”

Darwin, who also reads both metal magazines occasionally, has no complaints about the writing. “It’s very informal and casual,” he says, “but isn’t glaringly terrible.” Contributors to both magazines may not be the most polished, Bromley agrees, but he believes they do have their own voices. “I’m not saying that I’m the greatest writer,” he says, “but I’ve got a style and an identity.”

Canadian music magazines in general may be at a disadvantage when compared to the international competition because they publish in a smaller market and have less access to celebrities to use as billboards for their covers. However, targeted niche magazines such as BW&BK and Unrestrained! might actually benefit from having less mainstream competition. They stick to exactly what they know and rely on their one precious commodity — devoted fans — who likely will stick around as long as there are shows to see, limbs to bruise and reasons to believe.

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Paula Todd sits at a table in a CTV studio room. She wears a smart black suit and pink blouse, with a string of pearls around her neck. Her blond hair frames her strong cheek bones. The tag line for the Wednesday, October 17 edition of The Verdict with Paula Todd reads: “Aggressive Panhandlers.” The show covers a heavyweight interview list of city councillors, lawyers, civil rights activists and shop owners from across Canada, and a few in New York. The guests are both for and against cracking down on panhandlers.

On the N ew York segment, author George Kelling talks about his theory that if you take care of the minor offences, a lot of the major offences will take care of themselves.

“Some people said that the … theory also criminalized homelessness. It pushed those people who were eyesores off the streets … and really made their life hell. Do you buy that?” Todd asks. There’s no need for a response — the author of a book about the theory wouldn’t be buying into any opposing theory.

Throughout the show, Todd switches smoothly from guest to guest, giving each a chance to fight his or her point. She is animated and sympathetic, delegating conversation and fuelling debate with confidence and ease. While she moves from one subject to the next, she’ll every so often drop in her own opinion — sometimes so obviously it’s hard to miss her bias. Perhaps she does so to ignite anger and controversy, and spark further debate. Regardless, Todd’s ploy, while going against traditional journalistic objectivity, captures the drama and controversy her show aims for.

The Verdict, which began broadcasting last March, is the first all-legal television show in Canada. The program has already reeled in some of the country’s biggest legal cases and prominent figures, such as Conrad Black and Robert Pickton, and has dealt with some of the nation’s most pressing legal and political issues, including bigotry, youth gangs and pedophilia. In the same way the U.S. crime program CSI leaves its viewers satisfied with a killer’s conviction or the solving of a mysterious crime, The Verdict specializes in hot-button topics likely to ignite strong responses from the audience.

Spurred on by the success of well-known American legal hit fodder such as CSI, Law and Order and Criminal Minds, CTV’s original intent, according to its mission statement, was to “give viewers an in-depth look at the hard-hitting legal and justice news making headlines from around the world.” The show combines news segments with in-studio interviews and debates, as well as out-of-studio interviews. Its focus is Canadian law and current affairs, but U.S. cases are often cited for reference. The show is primarily aimed at those who love the thrill of crime and punishment, with all its electrifying details, consequences and controversy. “Todd will draw on her own experience and expertise to give Canadians a unique perspective on the high-profile crime and legal issues of the day,” the show’s mission statement describes, tipping its hat to Todd’s bona fides.

And indeed, Todd has the bona fides — she holds a degree in law from York University. As for journalism, she began her career at the Toronto Star in 1983. At various times she worked as a Queen’s Park political correspondent, a feature writer and an editorialist. She has also written for several other publications, including The Globe and Mail and Canadian Living magazine, and found herself contributing to CBC radio and CBC Newsworld’s Face Off as a political analyst. She began to make her mark in broadcast journalism over a decade ago with the start of TVOntario’s Studio 2, which she co-hosted with Steve Paikin. A few years into her tenure, Studio 2 launched a new segment called Person 2 Person, which eventually spun off into its own show called Person 2 Person with Paula Todd (P2P). P2P explored extraordinary stories of citizens’ emotional, social and political struggles and successes. In 2004, she authored a book titled A Quiet Courage, which was inspired by her experiences at P2P.

Then, in June 2006, Studio 2 was no more. TVO abruptly cancelled the long-running program and invited one of its co-host to create a new one called The Agenda with Steve Paikin. Todd was left outside of the deal. She soldiered on with P2P, but it would be her last year at TVO. This past February she jumped ship to CTV.

Former colleagues have called Todd a pit bull when it comes to journalistic integrity and skill. She can win over viewers with heartwarming interviews. She has a knack for persuading subjects to open up. But what Todd really loves, former Studio 2 series producer and supervising producer of P2P Jane Jankovic recalls, is action. To get the story she wants, she can be aggressive and tenacious. She loves to put her subjects in the hot seat. (Todd declined to be interviewed for this story.)

While not all viewers were tolerant of Todd’s confrontational manner on Studio 2, she was undeniably good at asking tough questions and relentlessly pushing subjects. For The Verdict, the main objective is to allot debate time between subjects, ask the important questions and be informed. But if Wednesday night’s show is any indication, Todd’s subjective interjections make for a more heated viewing experience, even as they cross the line of objectivity.

In the New York segment of “Aggressive Panhandlers,” Todd asks one of the city’s anti-poverty activists, “Isn’t New York better off than it was before? It’s cleaner… it certainly seems safer?” Todd seems to be arguing for eradicating homeless people altogether.

Later in the segment Todd holds up posters that she thinks are “incredible campaigns” — public signs created to warn those helping the homeless and panhandlers. One sign she holds depicts a man shooting heroin into his arm. The line underneath reads: “Your generosity is killing me.”

“Look at this,” Todd says jokingly, “I’m not supposed to be doing this.” But she does.

In the U.S., Court TV presents American justice in an educational and entertaining way. The channel usually covers recent trials, verdicts and legal news headlines, but this year it has added significant chunks of dramatic programming. Shows such as RED (short for Real. Exciting. Dramatic.), Forensic Files, Most Shocking, Cops, Body of Evidence and Under Fire are designed to quench what the network believes is the audience’s thirst for an exhilarating drama series, with a reality twist.

CTV won’t be devoting its entire network to dramatic real-life criminal justice shows any time soon, but The Verdict offers viewers a glimpse of the format, exploring a wide range of Canadian perspectives. Todd’s segment on panhandlers, for example, covers people in Kelowna, B.C., Toronto and Calgary. The show remains largely a roundtable debate and does not focus as strongly on the drug busts and criminal chases of Court TV. Yet Todd’s intention to provoke heated conversations and arguments, along with her slanted personal perspective, add to the intensity. Word usage, questions and news clips accentuate the show’s excitement and create a dramatic atmosphere.

Todd smiles at the camera. “I get the last word,” she says. “When did it become a crime to want clean, safe streets?”

Todd goes on to say that, to her obvious surprise, those who want to get panhandlers off the streets and remove homeless people from urban centres are treated like “Darth Vader.”

“What a bunch of bunk,” she says. Living on the streets, and working there, “That’s not a privilege or a right — it’s a disgrace.”