I’m going to say something kind of incendiary,” Ilana Weitzman says carefully. The editor-in-chief of enRoute, Air Canada’s in-flight magazine, knows she’s tiptoeing through landmines. “Look at fashion magazines,” she says, referring to her old job as editor of the Montreal-based fashion title Strut. “The idea that content is completely free of any interested party influence in the magazine world is a little bit suspect.” Even, she says, in independent consumer magazines. For some purists, custom books aren’t “true” magazines, but at least when it comes to enRoute, Weitzman is clear: the difference is an illusion.

While Transcontinental Media’s purchase of Redwood Custom Communications Inc. attracted much attention, Rogers Publishing Ltd., Canada Wide Media Ltd. and Business Information Group have all expanded, dabbling in both consumer and custom publishing. Most consumer magazines try to keep church and state separate. At custom publications, though, church, state and monarch all snuggle together. But as the custom publishing industry swells in North America—using many of the same writers and editors as consumer magazines, and gravitating towards similar journalistic methods—custom is looking more like consumer. Meanwhile, many consumer publications make decisions with advertisers in mind, and some have gone as far as placing flashy ads on cover flaps and skimping on fact-checking. Rather than being polar opposites, magazines span a spectrum, with publications such as The Walrus at one end, and custom books like Proctor & Gamble’s Rouge on the other. Hybrids including enRoute—where a sponsor isn’t heavily involved and editorial content has integrity—fit somewhere in the middle.

In the past, the National Magazine Awards Foundation decided which magazines were “real” (read: consumer). While custom publications weren’t banned outright, entry rules for several major categories disqualified magazines “produced for the purpose of promoting the interest of the principal business of the person who publishes it.” Looking through the list of past winners (other than enRoute which has won a couple of awards) the custom books—Up!, Glow and Zellers Family, for example—don’t seem to get past honorable mention. But the tide may be turning. Arjun Basu, the editorial director for Spafax Canada Inc., the company responsible for enRoute and Pure Canada (produced for the Canadian Tourism Commission), now sits on the Foundation’s board of directors and says the rules have changed slightly. Now discretion rests primarily in the hands of the judges.

Despite feeling unwelcome at past NMAs, custom publications have found recognition elsewhere. The Pearl Awards, created in 2003, honour excellence in the industry—consumer mags need not apply—and last year enRoute won the Canadian Society of Magazine Editors Magazine of the Year in the large circulation category. Even if custom pubs are still fighting for recognition in the form of awards, opportunities for writers and editors to work may be more enticing—or simply necessary—in the face of the economic downturn.

And custom writing doesn’t have to mean compromising a writer’s or editor’s integrity—some custom books are more equal than others, especially when it comes to getting things right. Marco Ursi, editor of Masthead Online, thinks checking the facts is a good start for any custom book claiming journalistic integrity. “A lot of magazines that we would consider more traditional journalism magazines can’t afford fact checking and don’t do it,” says Ursi, citing various trade magazines or smaller independent magazines with fewer editorial employees. But some custom mags do. Spafax Canada, for example, checks all its magazines.

Jasmine Miller edits Sears’ custom-published magazines New Outlook and Family Outlook, and both of her magazines fact-check. Miller’s resume includes stints at Style at Home, Today’s Parent, and Canadian Business, and she views her move to custom as “just another job in journalism.” About half of both of her magazines’ content, done by some of the same journalists who work with her consumer competitors, is written independently, with no leverage from Sears. The other half, such as photo spreads of families dressed head to toe in Sears’ fashions, however, is obviously influenced by the client. For the editorial stories she oversees, Miller says there are few differences between working with a consumer or custom title. “I can see why people who are in consumer publishing, and have been for a long time, would look at custom titles and make some assumptions about where the differences are,” she says. “Sometimes those differences are true, but sometimes, if you look a little harder, a little closer, it’s not really that different.” Ultimately, she says, you’re just producing a magazine.

Nevertheless, even Miller acknowledges the similarities only go so far, and may not extend past beauty, décor, fashion and other such frolicsome titles. “There are no life or death choices for the readers of those magazines to be making. You want to see beautiful products highlighted in a beautiful way—and where to get it.” Custom publishing rarely takes a critical, investigative look into society’s ills. “It’s primarily lifestyle journalism and it’s almost inevitably positive stories,” says Ursi, “but that said, custom publishing does quite a nice job with it.”

Of course, not all consumer magazines run hard-hitting stories, and they can’t exist without advertising. The may not have clients overseeing the line up of features, but consumer titles consider their advertisers when laying out ads, including the cover and nearby editorial content concerning them. A parenting magazine, for example, may think twice about placing an article promoting breast-feeding next to an ad for formula if it wants to keep the advertiser (and its cash) close by.

But ultimately, no matter if the funding is coming from one conglomerate or from many one-page ads, all magazines have one thing in common: if they want to survive, they need good writing, strong editing and stories readers want to read.

Listen to journalist Jacqueline Nelson speak about her experiences writing “Custom Brokers” on the Ryerson Review of Journalism’s Podcast

During the June finale of Search Engine, listeners learned the radio program had been cancelled. Sort of. The show, which launched in September 2007 on CBC Radio One and focused on the effect of technology in public life, would now air exclusively on the web. And instead of a team producing the program, host Jesse Brown would manage most of the podcast in his PJs at home.

The logic was that CBC liked the show—which presented such stories as a look inside the unregulated online casinos hosted at the Kahnawake Mohawk reserve near Montreal and an interview with a Chinese blogger whose site had been shut down 48 times—so much it wanted Brown to bring these types of stories to programs with wider audiences, such as The Point, Metro Morning and The Sunday Edition. But that left Search Engine‘s audience wondering if the show would survive without the resources of a radio program.

The RRJ Online talked with Brown about working solo, integrating his audience, and why he “lost his shit” on air.

On how the changes have affected the program…; and Brown:

It’s much more fly by the seat of my pants. It’s Wednesday today, I have no idea what’s going to be on Monday’s podcast. When I was on FM radio, it really felt like we were a team of producers and journalists working at the CBC like any other radio team— working in this professional big corporation, working with studios, working with technicians, and talking to weirdos in their basements sitting by their computers. Well this year, I don’t have a team, I don’t have a lot of clout to fight for studio time, I’m working on Pro Tools, I go into the office about three times a week, for about 12 to 15 hours. I’ve become a weird guy sitting at home on the internet.

On Search Engine leaving the radio waves:

I knew the show wasn’t coming back. If CBC didn’t bring classical music back, after the kind of response it got for the changes to Radio 2, Search Engine wasn’t coming back to FM radio.

If I didn’t feel there was a chance of doing this stuff well, then I wouldn’t have taken the job and I wouldn’t have told my audience to work with me on it. So [I asked] “is there a legitimate commitment to these issues on the part of the network?” And I was told that there was, and I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt, and so far the will has been there to get these stories on the air. It really depends on the listener’s point of view. My listeners are getting less of a show than they used to. There’s no way of mitigating that. But, they’re getting more attention and audience for the issues they care about.

On the audience as a producer of the show:

There are so many ways that the audience makes the show better, and especially now that I don’t have a team. It almost feels as if the audience has taken that role up.

They’re not just pitching me stories, at this point the majority of the stories come from the audience, but they’re furthering the accuracy of those stories, my ability to find new voices. I don’t think it’s a shocker to anyone that CBC has a Rolodex of pundits who you will hear again and again and again and again on every show. And I don’t know that you heard one of them—maybe with the exception of Michael Geist—on Search Engine. We were always finding interesting people to talk to who hadn’t done a lot of media before. That meant speaking to a lot of bloggers who didn’t have the greatest verbal skills, but on the whole it made the show feel very different.

On experts in the audience:

On any given topic, anything that I’m talking about, somebody in the audience is much smarter than me. And my job is to be kind of a general source and filter of just discussion and information and editorial, but it’s a little daunting whenever I get on the microphone to know that somebody is listening to this is and going “That’s not quite right.” And I think if I have anything to say to the journalistic profession as a whole, it’s that we need to integrate those voices more and work with our audiences more. I think people get that finally.

It took a lot of job cuts and a lot of newspapers going out of business for people to get that. I think people are warily moving into it. I don’t think you can do too much, but I fear that if you do integration the wrong way it’s unwise. “Okay, now it’s the news by you! Send in your news, we don’t matter anymore it’s all about you!” And it falls flat and it feels very false, because people don’t need a news network to give them a platform. They have a platform: it’s called the Internet.

So really the onus is on us to prove to the public where we fit in. And I think that’s where it’s like “tell us the stories that matter to you most, we’ll do the leg work.” We’ll bring your pet issues to a wider audience if we think that they’re newsworthy.

On respecting audience feedback:

One week, I spazzed out on the air. I keep getting hammered on grammar and pronunciation stuff. I was having fun with the story, I was only sort of half annoyed and half amused, but with the level of mania the audience has with this kind of stuff, I kinda lost my shit and I was like “Enough, Enough!” And afterwards I was listening to the show the next day and I thought I sounded really harsh.

It felt as if I had hurt my friend’s feelings. There was this guy who had sent in some audio tape, and I wrote him back and I said listen I think I went too far. I’m forced to respect my audience because if I don’t, they’ll call me on it. And if I don’t have that back and forth, the goose is cooked.

Listen to journalist Daniel Kaszor speak about his experiences writing “Solo Mission” on the Ryerson Review of Journalism’s Podcast

While cleaning a five-bedroom house in a wealthy Toronto neighbourhood, Jan Wong had to pee. Venturing into the 11-year-old son’s private en suite bathroom, she was disgusted by the un-flushed toilet and the urine on the seat—some of it dried. In her 2006 Globe and Mail series “Maid for a Month,” Wong cleaned other people’s toilets, floors and kitchens to write about life on the bottom rung of the job market and, in her characteristically forthright nature, revealed the grime of the rich whose houses she cleaned.

But more than two years later, Wong is still trying to clean up the mess. Claiming deceit and invasion of privacy, one family is seeking $50,000 in damages against her, CTV globemedia Publishing Inc., which owns the Globe, and the cleaning company—which then launched a cross-claim against Wong and the Globe‘s publisher for fraud, deceit and breach of contract. Although Wong used her own name, she didn’t mention working for the Globe when she applied to Toronto Maids—called “Maid-It-Up Maids” in the series. She changed the names of all the people she wrote about—her boss, her co-workers and some families—but the Nitsopouloses claimed that details such as the neighbourhood, family makeup and ample pant-sizes were enough to give them away. They also allege they suffered embarrassment when friends recognized them in the story.

What Wong allegedly did “is enough to make a tabloid editor blush,” says Sam Hall, the family’s lawyer. He argues the family was wronged not just by what was published, but because Wong wasn’t really a maid. Had the Nitsopouloses known the truth, they’d have never let her in. There has never been a decision against a journalist for deceit and invasion of privacy in Canadian common law and the Globe tried to have the case thrown out, arguing it was a dressed-up libel suit that the family hadn’t pursued in time, but the Superior Court of Ontario disagreed. In September, the court ruled that the suit could go ahead.

Reporters often go undercover in investigative pieces, but it’s also a popular technique in participatory journalism—that infamous “I” writing—in which the writer plays an active role in the story. “You’re going places that other people can’t go,” says Susan Bourette, who won a National Magazine Award for her 2003 exposé of a Maple Leaf Foods slaughterhouse. “You’re revealing for them a world that they don’t have access to, and they want to see it.” But if Wong and the Globe are found liable, it could put a chill on undercover journalism in Canada.

Despite its many critics, undercover reporting has a long and distinguished history. Nellie Bly entered an infamous New York insane asylum in the 1880s by pretending to be mentally ill, and wrote about the abuses patients suffered. George Orwell wrote detailed accounts of living in poverty in Paris and London in the late 1920s. In the ’70s and ’80s, Pam Zekman and other Chicago-based journalists went undercover in nursing homes and abortion clinics. Trying to go beyond “he said, she said” stories, these writers sought first-person, hands-on accounts of what was really going on.

But in 1979, the Pulitzer Board denied Zekman and another reporter from the Chicago Sun-Times an award for their daring series on corruption in the city, reproaching their deceptive tactics—opening their own tavern, the Mirage, and documenting visits by city officials who solicited bribes. Though the board’s decision led to a wane in undercover journalism at newspapers, the practice grew increasingly popular on TV. Then, in the 1990s, the grocery chain, Food Lion Inc. sued ABC reporters for fraud and breach of contract after they lied on job applications and used hidden cameras to expose unsanitary practices and won $5 million. Even though the damages were dropped on appeal, the result was a chill on undercover reporting.

In a column this past fall, the Toronto Star‘s Rosie Dimanno called going undercover “the laziest form of reporting existent,” berating Wong and the Globe for sinking to “such schlocky tactics.” Although there’s undoubtedly a lot of cheap, stunt-inspired undercover stories out there—like low-budget exposés of bad carpet cleaners—Bourette defends the practice when it’s done well. For “Butchered,” published in Report on Business magazine, Bourette interviewed Maple Leaf executives and union staff, talked to workers and academics, read articles and looked up stats—all of the research she’d normally do for a story—but also went undercover, working gruelling, nauseating days at the slaughterhouse. The experience was so taxing she’s not sure she’d do it again. “You don’t get paid well enough for that kind of work.”

And some argue she shouldn’t do it again. Journalists are in the truth-telling business, explains Bob Steele, the Nelson Poynter Scholar for Journalism Values at the Poynter Institute. They should have a compelling reason to lie and deceive: the story must be of vital public interest or prevent profound harm, with all alternatives exhausted. Journalists shouldn’t do it to win a prize, scoop the competition or spend less money, he argues. According to the Canadian Association of Journalists, misrepresentation by a reporter is only justified “in cases where illegal or fraudulent activity is strongly suspected to have taken place, the public trust is abused or public safety is at risk.” Although no rules are set in stone, these guidelines are so restrictive it’s not clear if stories on working conditions in slaughterhouses or domestic cleaning would pass the test.

Although he admits there are some rare cases in which deception is justified, Steele thinks it’s simplistic for reporters to go undercover to get past P.R. spin. What they’re saying is “We’ll lie, cheat and steal ourselves in order to reveal that they’re liars cheaters and stealers. I don’t accept that,” says Steele. While agreeing with the need for tough guidelines, Fred Kuntz, former editor-in-chief of the Star, says that when it comes to nailing “villains, crooks and criminals,” sometimes you need to play a few tricks. He uses the Star‘s 2007 feature on deceptive immigration consultants as an example. “It’s very difficult to (get that story) by saying, ‘Hello, we’re from the Toronto Star, are you engaged in corrupt practices, are you counselling people to lie and portray themselves as refugees when they’re not?’ and they’ll say, ‘No, we would never do such a thing.'”

Robert Cribb, an investigative reporter at the Star who’s gone undercover for several stories including one on fraudulent telemarketing companies, says that “bad guys” are able to continue what they’re doing because so many journalists just wander around asking for opinions. In some cases, he argues, reporters need to discover what’s actually going on instead of merely reporting the conflicting sides, which essentially leaves the readers with nothing.

Though “Maid for a Month” peeks into people’s homes uninvited, Wong also details her working conditions, describing how it feels to be a maid—or at least how it feels to be an educated, well-off journalist working temporarily as a maid. Although these homes are private, for the maids that clean them, these homes are places of employment. Plus, the only people able to identify the family, argues Brian MacLeod Rogers, a Toronto-based media lawyer, are those who likely already know most of the details anyway and wouldn’t think any less of the family. Although he doubts the case against Wong and the Globe will go anywhere, he thinks it is cause for concern.

Bourette already feels the chill. She’s not bothering to pitch an undercover story she’s been thinking about for years, saying “I don’t see anyone who’s willing to risk doing it in this climate.”

Listen to journalist Carolyn Morris speak about her experiences writing “Undercover Blues” on the Ryerson Review of Journalism’s Podcast.

It is Graeme Smith’s 15th trip to Afghanistan. Though famous for his intrepid journalism, this time he’ll be spending more of his nights under a ceiling of impermeable cement. The Globe and Mail’s Afghanistan correspondent answers my e-mail from inside a concrete bunker. “We’re under rocket attacks again,” he writes. “Thank God for Wi-Fi.” But while Smith is safe underground, Afghan journalists are negotiating some of the most dangerous terrain in the world, serving as the eyes and ears of international news agencies. They are known as fixers or stringers, terms that are sometimes used interchangeably to describe those who coordinate interviews and offer transportation, reporting and translation services for international media outlets. Smith refers to them as journalism’s “unsung heroes.”

Smith’s predicament follows the kidnapping of CBC journalist Mellissa Fung, who was taken while reporting from a refugee camp in Afghanistan. Three weeks ago, Smith’s editors at the Globe put him on lockdown—he is unable to leave Kandahar Airfield without a military escort, unable to travel outside of the Canadian Forces’ orbit, and consequently unable to produce the innovative journalism that he’s known for.

Still, Smith sees this situation as an opportunity to be “more creative” in his reporting. For him, this involves training local Afghans to go out and gather information, conduct interviews and do research for him, a process that he describes as “painstaking” as “it takes a lot longer to produce a credible piece of journalism.” But he also sees it as necessary: “It’s just one of those situations where you have to put your own survival ahead of the story.” Smith offers similar advice to the local journalists that he works with, “I always tell my fixers it’s not worth dying for information,” he says.

But many still do. The Committee to Protect Journalists reported that in 2007, 66 journalists were killed internationally. Ajmal Naqshbandi is the first name that appears on its list. An Afghan freelance journalist, Naqshbandi offered his services as a translator and guide for non-native reporters. On March 5, 2007, Taliban insurgents kidnapped Naqshbandi along with an Italian journalist, Daniele Mastrogiacomo, and their fixer (who arranged interviews and transportation), Syed Agha. Ten days later, Agha was decapitated. After two weeks and pressure from the Italian prime minister, the Afghan government secured the Italian journalist’s release by freeing five Taliban prisoners, but refused to do the same for Naqshbandi. On April 8, Naqshbandi was beheaded.

When asked to comment on this incident Smith says, “Yes, I’m concerned about the protections given to local Afghan staff. When a journalist is kidnapped while working for a foreign news agency, that outlet should take measures to win the journalist’s freedom—no matter what his or her nationality.” Smith talks of the public outcry that occurred among CBC correspondents when Afghan authorities detained Fung’s fixer after her kidnapping. “They continued lobbying for his freedom, and got him out. I wish other journalists would be so concerned when their local staff get into trouble.”

Kathy Gannon is familiar with the professional relationships between Western journalists and local Afghan media workers. Gannon was the Associated Press’s Pakistan and Afghanistan correspondent from 1986 to 2005. She talks about international media’s increasing use of Afghan and Pakistani stringers and fixers and the precautions that should be employed when hiring local journalists to travel to areas where Westerners might not have access. Gannon stresses that some areas that are too dangerous for Western journalists might not be as risky for some local Afghans, but that it is the responsibility of the journalist and the news organization to know what kind of environment a fixer or stringer is asked to travel to. “It’s incumbent on you to do your homework, and it’s also incumbent on news organizations to say, ‘Listen, that Afghan life or that Pakistani life is just as valuable as a Canadian life.'”

Although Afghan media workers play essential roles in international news organizations, they are seldom given the same benefits as staff reporters. Before Canadian Press staff reporters embark on a six- to eight-week rotation in Afghanistan, they undergo training to help them function effectively in a hostile environment and are provided with insurance coverage for the dangers they may face while working in a war zone. An Afghan media worker, however, is treated as a freelance employee, either paid by the week or given a monthly stipend, neither of which includes any kind of insurance or medical coverage.

Paul Loong, the Canadian Press world editor, says that CP has been using the same local Afghan interpreter “for quite a long time now.” The interpreter also fulfills the role of a reporter, but is treated as a freelancer and does not receive insurance or official training. Loong says the responsibility for training local Afghan media workers about the dangers of any given area falls to “the journalists that we have in the country.”

While there are no hard and fast rules regarding how much risk local Afghan reporters take, Gannon points out that there’s a difference between a local reporter being trained by a journalist familiar with the dangers in Afghanistan versus one who has just arrived in the country. “It’s different if you’re based here, you’re AP or Reuters, you have your Pakistani staff and they’re bound by the same rules as your foreign staff. ‘It’s not safe to go here, it’s not safe to go there.’ That kind of thing. But I’m talking about people who come in. They don’t have contacts and they send their local fixer to the tribal areas and something happens there, they get kidnapped…I mean, everybody wants a story: ‘I want to talk to bad guys.’ It becomes a dangerous thing to do, to ask a local person to find you the bad guys,” says Gannon.

Loong says that CP’s policy is to not risk lives for stories. “Freelance people on retainer out there-—they’re not employees-—they don’t have insurance, but they do have the understanding that if something goes bad we would do the best that we can to negotiate something. They know if something bad happened we would try to solve the situation.” Smith and Gannon both acknowledge that it’s not unusual for a news organization to lobby for the release of a local journalist who has been kidnapped or pay medical expenses if one is injured. But of course, none of this can be guaranteed without insurance or a contract.

It’s not surprising that many Afghan freelancers aren’t feeling very reassured. Freelance Afghan reporter Shukoor has worked for 12 years for Western news organizations, including the New York Times, The Economist and Der Spiegel. Like most of his colleagues, Western and non-Western alike, what Shukoor fears the most is kidnapping and what might happen to his family if he were injured or detained. Shukoor says that none of his employers has ever mentioned the subject of insurance to cover his medical expenses or support his family, should he be injured or kidnapped on the job. “News companies…besides giving insurance for their own correspondents [should] pay a little attention to those people who take equal risks in providing stories. I mean, they should [keep] in mind that Afghans are also human beings and that their lives are worth the same as a life of an American, Canadian or European.”

Afghan CTV cameraman and reporter Javed Ahmed highlights the risks faced by Afghan media workers, as he says that his status as a journalist, which required him to have contact with the Taliban and insurgents, was used as a rationale for his arrest and imprisonment. On October 26, 2007, Ahmed received a phone call from a man who claimed to be a U.S. military public affairs officer. “He wanted to see me for a journalism survey…. I said, ‘We usually don’t work on Friday, but it’s okay, I’m there.'” When Ahmed arrived at Kandahar Airfield he was met by a red pickup truck that drove him inside the Special Forces compound. After that, everything went terribly wrong. “At once around 20 people came up beside me and jumped at me like animals. They surrounded me, tied my hands with plastic handcuffs and closed my eyes with a black cloth. They took me to the prison.” The U.S. military imprisoned Ahmed for 10 months on the grounds that he was an enemy combatant, had Taliban contacts, and was selling weapons to insurgents, although this was never proved. Ahmed thinks his detention had a widespread effect on other local Afghan journalists: “They think, ‘If I get detained, the news agency will not work hard to get me released.’ They know that people will not do anything, so they decrease their efforts for international news agencies.”

One can’t deny that in a country stricken with poverty, pay from international news agencies can act as a powerful incentive for local media workers. “The pay varies wildly. The best fixers in Kabul can command $300 dollars a day and I know other guys who take $50 dollars a day,” says Smith. Of the full-time local staff employed by the Globe Smith says, “Their salary is about ten times higher than any other kind of work that people get in Southern Afghanistan. They do okay.” Many local media workers are aware of the risk they’re taking working for Western media, and that their job can increase their chances of becoming a target for insurgents. But when a seasoned reporter is paired with an adept local journalist, certain dangers can be minimized.

Smith says that in his experience, money does not embolden local media workers to take unnecessary risks to get a story. He explains that the pay is consistent whether a journalist chooses to stay in his office in Kabul or venture out into more perilous conditions. When asked if he thinks the salary and lack of insurance for freelance Afghans is fair when measuring the risk involved, Smith says, “Frankly, yeah. I think it is fair because they wouldn’t be doing it if it weren’t. Afghans have a keen sense of self-interest and a very good eye for when a bargain is no longer a bargain. They would immediately tell me if this wasn’t to their advantage and they felt like quitting.”

Gannon isn’t so sure. She believes it isn’t necessarily that easy for some local media workers to make that call: “The foreigner you’re offering $300 dollars a day, that’s hard to turn down,” she says. And the high demand from international news outlets for translators and local guides increases the likelihood that money could play an influential role. “I don’t think we could go a few weeks without an interpreter,” Loong comments.

It’s difficult to evaluate the risk that Afghan journalists are exposed to compared to that of their Western counterparts, as all journalists reporting from conflict zones face extreme danger. As Smith notes, “I know some Afghan journalists who do the majority of their work from the comfort of gated compounds in Kabul, and rarely take risks. I also know some Western journalists who foolishly gallivant across the Afghan countryside, crossing into extremely dangerous areas—sometimes without really understanding the risks they’re taking. So it’s hard to generalize.”

On the other hand, he says, “The majority of the journalists in this country are Afghans, so as a group they’re exposed to more risk. Afghans are also usually better equipped to understand the risks, and better connected to manage the security problems, so some of them take on assignments that are far more dangerous than anything a Westerner would attempt.”

But when two reporters work side by side, both facing the same life-threatening situations on a daily basis, it’s hard to accept that one has a higher salary, a safety net of an insurance policy provided by a news organization, and most likely a government that will lobby if a kidnapping or imprisonment were to occur. The other is left to question his worth in the eyes of both his own government and international media organizations. Double standards have already been established: remember the case of the Italian journalist being bargained for while his Afghan colleague was left to die. Javed Ahmed’s words are not unfamiliar, nor unreasonable. “If I’m working for an international news agency, they have to think about me the same way they’re thinking about any North American journalists. I’m the same human like they are.”

Bob Rupert saw it coming. In mid-October, the Carleton FreePress editor knew his time with the paper would soon be over when he discovered the company was having trouble paying its printing bills. Sure enough, the next Monday afternoon, owner Dwight Fraser walked into a story meeting and revealed that the New Brunswick weekly would be publishing its last issue on October 28. Unknown to his staff, Rupert had already written an article that discussed the closure as well as economic dilemmas, price slashing and his frustrations with the Competition Bureau. Although Fraser pulled the story at the last minute, the closing of the year-old Maritime weekly still attracted lots of attention in a place where media concentration is controversial.

In the centre of that debate is Brunswick News Inc., a media company owned by J.D. Irving Ltd. Brunswick News owns all three English dailies and eight weekly newspapers in the province. The Irving family is also a prominent proprietor in the forestry, shipbuilding and transportation industries. The folding of the FreePress raised the long-standing issue of media concentration and claims about how this big corporation drove a small paper out of business.

As one of the few publications not owned by the Irving conglomerate, the Carleton FreePress called itself the “independent voice of Carleton County.” According to the 2006 census, the County has a population of 26,632. The FreePress had 3,800 readers, including 1,300 subscribers. Nicknamed by others as the “little paper that could,” it prided itself on running community-oriented stories such as last summer’s assault of a high school teacher that was not widely reported in the Brunswick News-owned papers.

For Rupert, who came out of retirement last year just to become the editor, the FreePress was more than a job. “I believe in newspapers the way a Jehovah’s Witness believes in a bible,” he says. “I think communities need good newspapers.” He put up $20,000 and, determined to collect between $250,000 and $300,000, formed a group called Friends of the FreePress that asked supporters for $1,000 each. But after talking with the advertising department and receiving close to $40,000 in donations, Rupert realized a small paper simply can’t compete with the Irvings and gave up.

He alleges Brunswick News unjustly lowered its subscription and advertising rates at competing newspapers, such as the Woodstock Bugle-Observer. He compares it to a hypothetical situation of a 7-Eleven franchise cutting its prices in half in fear of a newly-opened convenience store. “That’s exactly what happened to us.”

But Fraser blames the fall of his paper to high expenses and a small market. “We were struggling from the day we opened,” he says. “We had a good paper, a strong fair share of advertisers but our costs … we just couldn’t get them where they had to be.”

Meanwhile, Kelly Madden, general manager of weekly newspapers for Brunswick News, says his company played a fair game and that his company’s ad rates are actually higher than those of his former competitor: “As a matter of fact the FreePress was pricing based on the established pricing of the Bugle-Observer.”

Competitors have accused Brunswick News of bullying small papers before. On March 26, 2008, Ken Langdon, former publisher of the Bugle-Observer and founder of the FreePress (See “The Great Newspaper War of Woodstock, New Brunswick”), filed a complaint with the Competition Bureau claiming that Brunswick News wanted to drive Ossekeag Publishing, which distributes four bi-weekly magazines throughout the province, out of business. Owner Mike Hickey alleges that after he bought the company in 2000, Brunswick News unfairly slashed advertising rates at competing magazines. “Their only purpose is to try to take away advertising revenue for us,” he says. The Bureau didn’t pursue the investigation.

Joan Fraser, former editor-in-chief of the Montreal Gazette and now a senator, thinks there should have been an investigation. “The Carleton FreePress believed that it was facing unfair commercial competition, which is seriously the role of the competition authorities to investigate,” she says. “In this case I felt particularly sad because of the unique situation in New Brunswick.”

In a 2006 report on media concentration, Fraser and the committee couldn’t find an example anywhere else in the developed world where a company owns a majority of news publications, as well as a large portion of multiple industries in one area. Fraser acknowledges that the province’s three dailies perhaps wouldn’t survive without the backing of the Irvings, but she also sees a problem. “Nobody should have that much control over media in a given jurisdiction,” she says, citing a lack of diversity in voice, self-censorship and biased coverage as dangers. “It just strikes me as inherently risky.”

While the committee was completing the report, it heard testimony from former Brunswick News employees about the coverage of industries the Irvings are involved in. “We heard one story from a former newsroom executive who said he has been asked to delay a story involving one of the Irving empires’ other interests,” Fraser recalls. But Bugle-Observer editor Devon Judge says he hasn’t experienced such control. And Chuck Brown, a former reporter for the Telegraph-Journal, a Brunswick News daily, expressed similar sentiments. He said through e-mail that he never felt any restraints on his reporting during his seven years with the paper even when his articles related to the Irving’s businesses.

Still, Rupert argues media concentration raises questions about critical coverage. “People always have doubts about the integrity of stories because the owners of the papers are also big, big players in the industry,” he says. But Rupert can’t fight anymore and believes the government must enforce the rules. He is glad, though, that he came out of retirement for what is now a defunct newspaper. “This was a case of a province where there’s virtually no competition and a community really needed a paper,” he explains. “I believed in it … I’m not at all sorry that I tried it.”

It’s hard to maintain Canadian English. Even that paragon of virtue, the Oxford Canadian Dictionary, is flagging in its efforts to uphold the language’s integrity. Faced with competition from free online dictionaries, Oxford University Press laid off all four staff members in its Canadian dictionary division in October, including esteemed editor-in-chief Katherine Barber.

Fortunately, Judy Maddren—resident grammar guru, pronunciation pundit, and terminology tutor at CBC—still has her job. Host of morning radio show World Report since 1993, Maddren succeeded Russ Germain as media language adviser in 2003. She alone has access to the CBC’s Language File (or lang file, for short)—12,000 entries of correct pronunciation and usage, common grammar mistakes and specific instances of CBC style. (Since 2003, Blair Shewchuk, cbc.ca’s senior editor of journalistic standards, has kept an online version, though Maddren often contributes to it.)

The RRJ Online asked Maddren how she does it, why it matters and what it would take to get the CBC to use “impact” as a verb.

On being a language adviser:
The first word to highlight here is adviser. Some people call me a language cop, but that’s not in my job description, and it could drive you crazy if you tried to do that. What we try to encourage is fellow broadcasters and editors talking to people and saying “Your verb didn’t match your subject here,” and that sort of thing. I might go after someone who’s mispronouncing. We just issued a pronunciation guide on Barack Obama because we had some people saying “Ba-RACK O-BAMA,” so I would put out a note on that or I might call somebody and say, “If you’re going to do another story on this, you might want to know that….” [the correct pronounciation is bah-‘RAWK oh-‘BAW-mah]

In terms of grammar, that is supposed to be caught when an editor vets a reporter. On my own show, I guess I’m the last gatekeeper of grammar. So if I catch the verb and the subject not matching, it’s gone through several people by then. Pretty bad!

On pronunciation and contentious terms:
I get a fair number of e-mails from people. Two this morning, actually. There’s a story from a place in Northern Alberta that some people say is pronounced “Fort Chip-a-WY-an” and some say “Fort Chip-a-WAN [when it’s actually chip-eh-‘WY-un or CHIP-uh-‘WAHN].” So that’s one thing I’m dealing with. The other is, apparently the term “oil sands” is an industry term, and “tar sands” is an environmentalist term. So we have an entry about that in our lang file, but they want me to go after it again. People come to me, they phone, but mostly it’s e-mails. I had ten e-mails from people apoplectic about Barack Obama’s pronunciation. I try to do what I can during my shift in a day, and then I get a day a month to think and consider and write this monthly note to send out.

On judgment calls:
It varies. If it’s a pronunciation, I try to get as close as I can to the actual people, sometimes that’s as simple as calling the embassy of their country, or sometimes, because it’s so early, I can phone their companies and get their phone messages and hear them say their own names. [Laughs]. In terms of grammar I have Fowler’s, and Canadian references, and online references, and sometimes I will speak to a professor at a university. In terms of style, we will sometimes convene a committee of broadcasters. For instance, when the Iraq war was on we had a senior editors meeting to talk about war language, what we would accept and what we wouldn’t, what were the American military terms. “Collateral damage” for instance, is one we recommended against, because it doesn’t actually say “severed limbs” and that sort of thing. Sometimes I will talk to one of my senior managers about a term.

The most recent example I can give you is, we had recommended saying “former students” of residential schools rather than “survivors,” because not all of them termed themselves survivors. So we recommended “former students who were abused.” But that was viewed by the native community as highly “washing over” the issue. So we had a conference call with about seventeen people across the country talking about that issue. We came out with a note that said it was permissible to say “survivor,” but to be clear who you’re speaking about. Because if people who went through the schools felt that they had actually had a good experience and didn’t see themselves as survivors, then we should not call them that. So it was a reminder to be clear about who you’re speaking about, and how they view themselves.

On colloquialisms:
It’s very difficult. On the one hand we’re supposed to sound conversational in our broadcasts, on the other, we have to try to present the news in a non-judgmental, clear way. So where’s the line with colloquial language? We try to tell our writers, “Don’t use adjectives, use a verb to be descriptive.” Take out all the adjectives, that’s one way to try to avoid getting a particular point of view across. For one thing, we recommend not using the word “kids” in the news. Children. And not to describe somebody as a “grandmother.” Is that germane to the story? Are you trying to make people feel sorry for this woman? It’s quite difficult. The other issue is computer-related phrases. To a certain demographic, and I would say 35 and under, all those words are second nature and everybody knows what they are. But for the wider audience, we need to describe them sometimes.

On repeat offenders:
In terms of pronunciation you’ve got some people with really terrible ears—they just don’t hear it! [For example,] we don’t use native or aboriginal as a noun, it’s an adjective—“native people.” And it’s like talking about disabled people. That’s one of my pet peeves—calling them “the disabled” or “the homeless.” That’s a “we and they” story. As in, “the homeless, oh, those people over there,” and most of us are one step away.

On profanity:
When is profanity or slang appropriate in a broadcast? When I was first working here, “fuck” or “shit” didn’t get to air. Because it wasn’t considered germane to the story, you didn’t need to. But that’s shifted. We do hear that now and then. On World Report, because we do recognize ourselves as a breakfast program, we will often warn listeners “You may find this disturbing,” or “You may find the language offensive,” because we know there are people with kids sitting at the kitchen table.

On “impact” as a verb:
I hate it. But again, it’s in the [Canadian Oxford] dictionary. This is completely ungrammatical, but I have words that I tell people, “That’s a word I’m not going to the wall on.” There are all sorts of other things that I’m going to deal with, I’m not going to argue and fight with them about stuff, but I do not use impact as a verb. It’s very interesting what’s in the dictionary. Yeah—“Impact: noun, transitive verb, often followed by on, against, etc. or intransitive, to have an impact.” So there you go! It’s never over ’til it’s over, right?

Fashion journalism hopes to help transform the “fashionista” into a “recessionista,” as a recent New York Times article put it, by highlighting the recent trend towards staying stylish on a tighter budget. Here in Canada, for example, the cover of Fashion‘s November issue features a big, bold pink-and-white sell line that promises, “Luxury for less— when to spend, where to save.”

The magazine had planned for a year to do a luxury issue, but as the economy faltered, editor-in-chief Ceri Marsh and her staff realized it made more sense to spin the story another way. “Obviously the economy is top of mind right now for everyone,” she says. “Any kind of big moment like that in the culture, it’s your job to reflect it.”

But reflecting a culture shift caused by an economic downturn could prove to be a lot easier than surviving that downturn. Already Wish, a lifestyle magazine with a fashion section, has announced that it will cease publication in December. Meanwhile, many Canadian fashion titles are facing worrisome slides in ad sales. And it’s one thing to go from being a fashionista to becoming a recessionista, but no publication wants to be a depressionista.

Articles such as “Luxe for Less” or “100 Items for Less Than $250” have always been staples for fashion magazines and newspaper style sections, but in good times readers had to look a little harder for them. That’s all changed. Marsh cites examples in the November issue of Fashion: “You’ll find both ends of the style see-saw-from the fashion-for-the-people collaboration between Comme des Garçons and H&M to fall’s glittering shower of fine and costume jewellery. And in the interest of bringing you the most opulence for your buck, we’ve put together a list of the season’s best pieces-under $500.”

Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana and other high-end designers-with their high-end prices-aren’t completely disappearing from fashion spreads. “The rich tend not to suffer as much during recessions,” says Russell Smith, author of Men’s Style: The Thinking Man’s Guide To Dress, freelance columnist for The Globe and Mail and co-creator of xyyz.ca, a website for men with info on entertainment, style, dining, sports, health and cars. “But it’s not only the rich who read about these products, fashions and lifestyles that they can’t afford. It’s everyday people.” He believes lavish spreads are for people to fantasize about and escape to another world where they could afford to wear over-the-top, glamorous clothes. “It’s called an aspiration spread. It’s not practical. It’s about imagining yourself in that situation,” explains Smith. “That’s why they’ll show the $20,000 dress on a model who is 18-years-old and she’s riding on an elephant in a palace in India.”

But as advertising budgets shrink, spreads of any kind will be less common because issues will be smaller and some publications may fail. Wish, will suspend publication at the end of the year, though its website will continue, as will an annual magazine that will include easy weekday recipes and grocery lists from the magazine’s popular 20-Minute Supper Club.

Other Canadian fashion magazines are also suffering. A comparison of ad pages, including inserts and supplements, from the third quarter in 2007 to the third quarter in 2008 shows that Flare ad pages plunged 44.2 per cent, Fashion dropped 20.3 per cent, and Elle Canada slipped 5.7 per cent, according to Leading National Advertisers of Canada (LNA). Toiletries represent the biggest advertising category for Canadian consumer magazines, and for women’s titles in particular. Toiletry ad dollars were down 24.9 percent in the third quarter of 2008, according to Marco Ursi, editor of Masthead.

Core advertisers prefer ‘pure fashion’ magazines to publications that just include fashion in their mix, as Wishdid. “Part of the problem with Wish is that it was a kind of a schizophrenic idea,” speculates Ursi. “It worked for a while, but when things get tough and you’re trying to pull from four different ad categories, what happens is you end up lower on the ad buyer’s list.”

Douglas Knight, president of St. Joseph Media, the company that published Wish and Gardening Life, which also closed, is not optimistic about the short-term prospects for the magazine industry. “This is the largest blow-off in advertising. This is my fourth downturn; there’s never been one like this before,” he says. “Over a dozen magazines closed this fall, and this is just the beginning.”

It was a simple assignment: when the third in a string of pipeline explosions shook the northern British Columbia community of Dawson Creek this Halloween, Tamara Cunningham was sent out to cover it. A former reporter to the Dawson Creek Daily News, Cunningham realized as she drove up to the site that access wasn’t going to be easy. The road leading to it was blocked by security-no one was yet sure if these were deliberate attacks. It was, her boss stressed, an important story to get, so Cunningham did what most reporters would and got creative.

Taking a side road, she found a farmhouse that backed on to the field where the pipeline was laid. She parked in front of it. An unmarked van pulled up behind her. The driver identified himself as James, a freelance reporter from the Alaska Highway News, a sister paper. Strange that reporters from both papers would be there, she thought, but the camaraderie couldn’t hurt, and they were soon joined by another reporter from Motion Media. They began knocking on doors, looking for a way to the explosion site. Before long, Cunningham was armed with a map, key and permission to cross a landowner’s yard. A small victory, but enough for an excited Cunningham to give James a celebratory “Woop, let’s go!” and a buddy-punch in the arm. Also enough for James to flip open an RCMP badge and stop Cunningham’s story dead in its tracks.

“I’m sorry,” said James Rutledge, St. John RCMP officer, “you have to understand. I had to do this.”

Cunningham didn’t agree, and neither do most journalists involved in cases of police playing the press card in the name of investigation. To date, no formal restrictions exist in most of Canada’s police departments regarding the practice of posing as a journalist. The fact that not every police department in Canada (Winnipeg Police Service, for example) endorses the tactic raises the question of whether it’s necessary at all, and more importantly, what it means for the journalists affected by it.

Last July’s uproar against OPP officer Steve Martell’s decision to pose as a cameraman at a 2007 Mohawk protest resulted in arrests, but also reams of blog posts, articles and columns penned by fuming journalists who argued the practice interferes with press freedom.

“I think it would be difficult to make a moral argument that the police had absolutely no other way,” says Mary Agnes Welch, president of the Canadian Association of Journalists, “that they had exhausted all of their methods in order to catch someone who was putting other people’s lives in imminent and direct danger.” While not illegal, it ultimately makes the jobs of reporters harder as sources find one less reason to trust them. And dangerous: it’s unlikely cameramen will be in anyone’s good books at a Mohawk protest in the future. Welch knows cameramen who have had to work in especially aggressive environments because the people they were covering thought they were cops. “I’ve never heard of a police officer impersonating a journalist in order to directly stop a journalist from doing their work,” she says of Cunningham’s case. “It’s almost like a double whammy.”

In Ontario, media relations coordinator Sgt. Pierre Chamberland points out that the number of times OPP officers have posed as journalists can be counted on fingers. “There aren’t many instances where doing so is of any value to us,” says Chamberland, who asserts the practice can be justified if dealt with on a case-by-case basis. “You have to blend in with your environment. If you’re in a situation where there’s a potential riot because of a huge gathering of people, which is attracting a huge number of media, for us to go in there dressed in OPP uniforms to gauge the crowd is probably going to influence the crowd more towards violence.”

Many would judge the 2001 capture of escaped and armed B.C. convict John “the Bushman” Björnstrom as extreme. Björnstrom, who had been breaking into Shuswap Lake cottages for nearly two years, was lured into a trap interview by RCMP officers pretending to make a documentary for the CBC. Before arresting Björnstrom, they let the tape roll for hours as he served them steaks and wine-a tactic seemingly picked up from then-Kamloops This Week reporter Dale Steeves, who met with the convict months earlier for an exclusive story.

It’s true that the OPP generally uses the tactic in cases of public protest. For Canadian Journalists for Free Expression president Arnold Amber, Ipperwash in 1995 comes to mind, along with a number of demonstrations he’d previously covered. He saw camera crews (“I knew they were cops, other people knew they were cops,” he gibes) taping demonstrations from afar. But after sending a string of letters to Community Safety and Correctional Services Minister Rick Bartolucci in response to the Martell episode, Amber and the CJFE decided more than just words would be needed to make their case. They have since, with the help of lawyers, been pulling together a proposal for a Charter application to address this practice; a quest that could take years, as it would eventually have to appear before the Supreme Court.

Still, Amber is adamant about its importance. “There’s a reason why our society is built on cops getting permission to do certain things,” he says, pointing out that if there are policies on wiring phone calls and getting search warrants, there’s no reason to let undercover practices go untouched.

Since Björnstrom, it seems not much has changed in B.C.; just last year 24 Hours Vancouver editor Dean Broughton had to decide whether or not to issue a public complaint when an RCMP officer posed as a journalist from the paper to arrest anti-poverty protestor David Cunningham. Soon after, he decided to go ahead.

Cunningham also decided to issue a complaint of her own. While unable to publish the pipeline article without a picture, she wrote a story on her experience with James, and the RCMP’s track record of posing as journalists. She also admits that Rutledge has since apologized for his use of the tactic.

“As soon as he said he was a journalist, I treated him like a fellow journalist. I immediately considered him a buddy. I felt incredibly stupid afterwards, and a little naïve,” she says. “It’s going in my scrapbook, that’s for sure.”

Teenaz Javat, 39, came to Canada in 1997. She had accumulated five years journalism experience in her native India and in Pakistan. She has a masters in economics. But when she came to Canada, because journalism is not a nine-to-five job and her kids were young, it was her personal choice to put her journalism career on hold.

After eight years of not working in Canada, Javat went back to school for a college certificate, initially considering a corporate communications program. But when she looked online, she discovered Sheridan Institute’s course, Canadian Journalism for Internationally Trained Writers. It seemed like a perfect fit.

Javat was among the first group of immigrant students to participate in this program in 2006. Its premise is to help foreign writers develop their media skills and understanding of Canadian journalism. The course also includes an internship portion that allows participants to get into the newsroom and prove themselves to employers. Still, at the end of the course, Javat faced problems.

“We realized that the industry is just not ready to take us,” she says.

Joyce Wayne started the program in 2007, after seeing the hardships that foreign journalists face in Canada. “They’re fleeing their home countries because they’ve written about things deemed inappropriate, in places where there really isn’t a free press.” At the same time, Jim Poling, managing editor of the Hamilton Spectator, was creating a group of internationally trained writers and providing support and byline opportunities for them. “I was despondent about their stories and the lack of commitment in Canadian media to help and recognize talent,” he says, “I grew weary of their employment struggles.” In Poling’s eyes, these journalists were often written off because they lacked Canadian experience.

Poling and Wayne came together and created the Sheridan program, where Javat was a self-described guinea pig. She was one of 31 journalists from such countries as Pakistan and India who enrolled in the three-semester program. Among the courses they took were Freelance Writing and Media Ethics and Law, followed by a six- to fourteen-week internship. For their $6,359, the participants attended classes four evenings a week and all day Saturdays to accommodate those who had full-time jobs. Most students were in their late 30s and had experience in print writing or editing.

Back to School

Wayne, now coordinator of the journalism program at Sheridan, explains, “There seems to be a bias in the media against hiring these people.” She suggests a quiet, systematic racism as the cause. Although media outlets appear to be embracing the program through scholarships directed towards relieving tuition costs, only the Toronto Star, CBC and The Hamilton Spectator actually offer internship job opportunities.

“There are places, for instance, CanWest, CTV, The Globe and Mail and CP, that have not taken anyone, even on a free work-placement basis,” Wayne says, although these outlets did offer scholarship money.

A staff person at a large Canadian media outlet, who wishes to be left unnamed, explains the reluctance less as racism and more as a question of unfamiliarity with the course and those behind it. This person, who works with interns, also sees language as an issue. Although decent writers come through the program, he says, “Some call me and I can’t understand a fucking word they’re saying.”

During the early stages of the program’s development, there was much discussion about English-language standards for admission. Katherine Govier, an award-winning novelist and journalist and a member of the advisory board for the program, explains that the language standards were lower than expected in the first year as the college tried to fill the course. “I taught freelance writing in the first year and half. Several students in the class certainly didn’t understand spoken English,” she says.

Language comprehension problems made it difficult for instructors to teach, for students to learn and for the college to arrange internships. As former president of PEN Canada, an association of writers which defends freedom of expression, Govier supports the idea of the program. “It’s hard to fit in as a writer in a different country,” she says. But, she explains, the courses presume that the student enrolled has a good grasp of English. “That’s where we ran into trouble.”

Poling suggests that the reason for the change in the language requirements had nothing to do with enrolment. “The language standard moves a little bit, but it’s only because we believe in people and that they have something to contribute.”

Although Javat has no language barrier, she still experienced employment problems after the program’s completion. She was placed in a six-week internship with the Toronto Star last year but wasn’t lucky enough to land a job. “They have a patronizing attitude that they’ve given you exposure and they’ve fulfilled their obligation,” she says.

Javat’s issues were a combination of few contacts and zero social capital. She believes that in journalism, you’re only as strong as your networking. Still, Govier describes Javat as one of Sheridan’s most successful students. She now works as a casual at CBC, most often writing banner headlines. “I admire my bosses for being patient,” she says, “it’s an ongoing process.” Although Javat has seen her share of hurdles, she concludes, “I wouldn’t be anywhere without Sheridan.”

A current student, Edna Amador, 44, agrees with Govier that knowing the language is paramount. “The problem with most immigrants is that they read the news in their native language,” she explains, “but language never ends. How can you express yourself without mastering it?”

Amador believes that the course can open doors for immigrants because they earn a Canadian certificate and learn skills that are transferrable to the real world. However, she also faced some resistance, even though she’d been writing in English since she was a teen. “Most people think that because English isn’t your first language, you can’t be that good.” Although Amador participated in the course, she was lucky to land a job at a publishing house seven months before internship placement time came around. “I was already working as an editor; I was an exception,” she explains.

If Sheridan tightens up the language requirements for the course, class sizes might shrink and work placements could prove easier to arrange. And without filled classes, Wayne says, the program shouldn’t suffer. Still, Poling says, “There are always improvements that can be made, but it’s not as simple as applying a big fix.” He also articulates the main purpose of the program: “You give them a byline and the community gets a fresh perspective. Our communities are changing, and we have to adapt to the new wave of immigration.”

For 2010, Wayne is working on expanding the program to include TV and radio broadcasting and to admit second generation immigrants, as well. But with language already a barrier in a writing course, expanding into broadcasting might only prove more ineffective and unfulfilling for the students, and the community may miss out on new voices.

On November 1, 2007, Kim Latreille received an email from Barnes and Noble, the American equivalent to Canada’s Indigo Books & Music, announcing the company’s plan to display magazines made from recycled paper more prominently than other titles. Latreille, the group director of production for St. Joseph Media, which publishes eight major consumer magazines, including Toronto Life, Fashion and Canadian Family, forwarded the message to her boss, thinking, “It’s just a matter of time before something like this occurs here.”

And she was right. In May 2008 Indigo distributed its Ancient Forest Friendly Paper Policy to vendors, signaling the chain’s plan to promote the use of recycled and post-consumer recycled fibre in all of its paper products, including magazines. (Post-consumer recycled fibre refers to paper recovered from previously used paper materials, such as unsold newspapers and magazines and paper mill waste.)

Indigo’s new policy outlines a timeline for magazine and book vendors to introduce recycled materials: vendors had 12 months to reach 20 per cent, 24 months to hit 30 per cent and five years for 50 per cent.

According to Steven Forth, Indigo’s director of vendor relations, as one of North America’s leading magazine and book retailers (with 244 stores across Canada), the company feels obligated to endorse recycled materials. Markets Initiative, an environmental organization that works with large paper consumers to help them implement paper policies that protect ancient and endangered forests, is currently collaborating with Indigo in an effort to assist the company in making its recycling suggestions a reality.

But since Indigo isn’t in the publishing business, it’s the suppliers of books and magazines that really need the hand. Printing and publishing companies like Rogers Publishing, which currently uses magazine paper with a minimum of 10 per cent post-consumer recycled paper whenever possible, and St. Joseph Media, which is striving to making that same percentage a reality, have developed their own in-house paper policies.“We had plans as a company prior to hearing about Indigo’s deadlines, but we were able to push them forward because of Indigo’s objectives,” says Latreille. However, she does feel that the wording of Indigo’s policy gives the wrong impression. “I thought that Indigo wouldn’t pick up our books anymore,” she says. “It seems like they are drawing a fairly strict line.” But according to Forth, the new directive is more of a goal than a demand, and the company won’t stop selling magazines that do not meet the terms of the policy. But vendors are required to provide Indigo with information concerning the content of recycled paper used in their products. “We are not warlords,” he says. “It’s not do this or die, but there are benefits for all of us in this.”

Several magazines are laid out on a conference table at St. Joseph Media’s printing plant in Concord, Ontario. Mary Budgell, a St. Joseph Media account executive, flips through the August 2008 issue of Explore one of the few Canadian magazines printed on 100 per cent recycled paper, and searches for a page with white space. She then browses the November 2008 issues of Toronto Life and Canadian Family with the same purpose, eventually placing each on top of the other. The difference in shades of white in the three titles is obvious (the Explore paper was slightly darker), but only in the way that a navy-blue article of clothing looks black until it is held up against something that is truly black. “Consumers probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference unless they did this,” Budgell says.

Depending on the grade and weight of the paper, it can have a greyer tint, meaning it is not a crisp, white colour like higher-quality paper stocks. There are five grades of stock, five being the lowest and one being the best. Most magazines are printed on a four or five. The many different types of stocks range in colour, thickness and glossiness. It is ultimately up to the magazine’s publisher to decide what stock it wants, a decision that is partly based on cost as well as appearance. Currently, only a small fraction of paper stocks exist in recycled versions, but paper mills are working toward developing as many of the existing types as possible in a recycled form.

Penny Caldwell, editor of Cottage Life (another magazine that’s printed on 100 per cent recycled paper), says her magazine advertised the fact that it was using recycled paper and included this information in its subscription promotion materials. However, since the magazine made the switch to recycled paper, newsstand sales and subscriptions have not increased.

Other publishers may also find that moving to recycled paper won’t lift sales, while the paper itself can be eight to 30 per cent more expensive than nonrecycled stock, according to Latreille. In addition, paper mills around the world have been closing because of the current state of the economy, says Neva Murtha of Markets Initiative, who works with publishers to assist them in making the switch to more environmentally conscious printing and publishing strategies. Rick Boychuk, editor of Canadian Geographic, also notes there is a lack of paper mills in Canada that produce the kind of stock magazines need.

“This is a challenge for all of us,” Boychuk explains. The magazine’s June 2008 environmental issue used what is called “wheat sheet”: glossy, lightweight, coated paper made with 20 per cent wheat straw, a first in North America. Even though Canadian Geographic won’t know how successful the wheat sheet issue was in terms of sales for another three or four months, it received enthusiastic and congratulatory mail from readers and people in the magazine industry. “One day maybe we’ll have more issues on wheat sheet,” says Boychuk.

The St. Joseph Media printing plant, aside from the huge machines, resembles a Costco outlet and has a subtle smell of permanent marker. Technology has improved over recent years, so printing on recycled paper is no different from printing on nonrecycled stock—the ink-and-water balance remains the same for printing on both. Budgell watches the trimmer, a machine that cuts each magazine into its correct dimensions as it slices the paper and spits the final product out the opposite end. Back in the conference room, where eight magazines are spread out on the table, Budgell says, “Indigo’s requirements are going to have a huge impact. Everyone will have to comply. If everyone has to jump on board here, they had better make sure there’s enough paper supply.”

Listen to journalist Jordana Rapuch speak about her experiences writing “Paper Dreams” on the Ryerson Review of Journalism’s Podcast.