Best of the season

Canadian Magazines is taking its annual Christmas break and will not be posting again until January 4, when we'll present a look back at 2009 with our round up of the Year in Canadian Magazines. We imagine many of you will not be sorry to see 2009 gone, mind you. It's been a pretty grim time for the magazine business, what with layoffs and closures. But there's reason for hope and even some optimism for the year ahead. Meanwhile, to all our friends and colleagues, have a merry and a happy.

J-Source journalism integrity award nominations due by January 8

If you know of someone who should be awarded for committing journalism to the benefit of society, you have until January 8 to nominate them for the J-Source Journalism Integrity Award.

The award, which has been made annually since 2007, will honour an individual or organization that has encouraged excellence, had a positive impact on the quality of journalism at the local and/or national level and serves as an inspiration to working journalists as well as educators, our readers, audiences and the Canadian public.

"We strive to recognize and celebrate the efforts of journalists, journalism educators, activists and citizens who believe that journalism can make a difference in a functioning democracy," says the organization.

J-Source.ca (English) and ProjetJ.ca are the websites of The Canadian Journalism Project (CJP)which is sponsored by the Canadian Journalism Foundation. Guidelines include:

• The action, decision, advocacy, story, approach, judgment call etc. that provides the basis for the nomination must have occurred in the 2009 calendar year
• If the basis for a nomination refers to an internal decision, the information must be verifiable through others involved
• Nominations must be received by midnight on January 8, 2010 at integrityaward@j-source.ca
  

Spafax to custom publish magazine for Bombardier Aerospace

Spafax Inc., the custom publishing firm that produces enRoute magazine for Air Canada is about to launch a magazine called Experience for Bombardier Aerospace.

According to a press release from Spafax, the new publication will launch in May as a bi-annual (by which we think they mean twice a year) lifestyle publication distributed to Bombardier business aircraft customers, "some of the world’s wealthiest and most influential individuals". Editorially it will focus on travel, leisure, dining, shopping and information about Bombardier products and innovations.

Bombardier makes Learjet, Challenger and Global business jets and offers fractional ownership services through Flexjet.

“We are proud and honored to have been selected by Bombardier to write, edit and publish Experience magazine globally,” said Katrin Kopvillem, managing director and publisher at Spafax. “This client brings with it a crème de la crème demographic. We look forward to harnessing the global resources of our organization – both creatively and among our worldwide sales force – to create a magazine that will appropriately speak to the elite Bombardier customer, wherever in the world they may reside.”

In addition to enRoute and OnAir for Air Canada, Spafax, which is a division of the global communications company WPP, produces publications for Mercedes Benz Canada, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts and Royal Jordanian.

Supreme Court ruling broadens libel defence for publishers and non-journalists

The Supreme Court of Canada has made rulings ordering two new trials that considerably loosens up libel constraints on publications. In two cases to which Magazines Canada was a party, the court accepted that "responsible communication" could be a legitimate defence in a libel action. Like many other defences, it rests largely on furtherance of the public interest and the judges set out seven criteria for judging what is "responsible", including the seriousness of the allegations and the reliability of sources.

The two cases were Grant vs. Torstar Corp. and  Cusson vs. Ottawa Citizen. In both, a new trial was ordered (during which the new defence can now be argued).

In the Cusson case, the Citizen was sued by an Ontario police officer who felt that he had been libelled by an article that suggested he had misrepresented himself as a trained dog handler in taking part in rescue operations at Ground Zero in the aftermath of 9/11. The paper lost the case when the jury decided not all of the fact were proven. It was upheld at the Court of Appeal. Part of the reason was that "responsible communication" had not been used as a defence at the original trial, even though it had not been recognized as a distinct defence by Canadian courts.

In the Grant case, a developer brought a libel action against the Star for a story that quoted neighbours' statements that Grant was using his political relationship with the Mike Harris government to secure approval for a new golf course.  A jury awarded damages. The court of appeal ordered a new trial, saying that the "responsible communication" defence had not been communicated to the jury. Grant appealed to reinstate the verdict and the SCC dismissed the appeal.

The decisions together were  a vindication of not only the Ottawa Citizen and Torstar, but other media who supported them in arguing that the archaic libel and defamation laws needed to be reformed. In effect, it opens up the possibility of publishing stories in which best efforts have been made to seek the truth, in the public interest, without being able to prove the truth of every statement.

Both cases hinged on being thwarted in being able to put forward the defence of "responsible communication". In both cases, the SCC ordered new trials, thereby giving defendants the chance to use the defence and justify their journalism as fair and balanced and in the public interest.

Of further interest is that, while the decision came as the result of a traditional libel action against a traditional mainstream publication, the court found that the "responsible communication" defence applies to anyone publishing matters of public interest in any medium -- in other words bloggers and non-journalists.

Read the Globe and Mail report on the two cases.

Quote, unquote: On not being steamrolled

“We’re at the hinge point. As a librarian, I have to go where the information goes. Yes, there are a couple ways to disagree with e-book readers – we can complain about the hardware or the software. But as with any disruptive technology, you’re either guided forward or you’re steamrolled. The only way to do it is to jump on the tiger and take control of it.”

-- Christopher Harris, a librarian and the creator of the blog digitalreshift.org, quoted in a Christian Science Monitor article looking at the future of reading. 

The nice, warm feeling only a fundraising letter can bring

I quite like Mother Jones magazine; its journalism and its politics. But I hadn't realized that by subscribing to their e-letter, I have become a U.S. Democrat. This was brought home to me when I received a fundraising message from "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi" and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, asking me to join what is, in effect, a chain letter to the President of the United States, Barack Obama and his family and to corral five of my friends to  do the same.

Our extraordinary progress this year would not be possible without dedicated grassroots Democrats like you. You worked every day to put Main Street first, to create millions of clean energy jobs, and to make health care affordable for the middle class.

 Go figure.

Magazine world view: RD revamp; Atlantic digitizes; 40k paper jobs gone;Grazia staff fatten up

• A Reader's Digest that Grandma never dreamed of (New York Times)
• Giant U.S. digital newsstand gets name: Next Issue Media (Industry in Progress blog) 
• The Atlantic readies launch of digital business brand  (btob online) 
• British publisher to launch Independent Magazine Publisher in early 2010 (minonline)
• Custom content has best year ever (minoline) 
• US loses 40,000 newspaper jobs in 2009 (Jon Slattery) 
• Why many magazine retailers don’t care about Christmas (magnation blog) 
• 25 reasons editors don’t get back to writers faster (WordCount: Freelancing in the digital age) 
• Smithsonian to publish ‘cultural’ travel issue (Folio:) 
• Grazia staffers in a froth | Media Monkey (Guardian) 
• BBC Worldwide head supports Murdoch’s paywall plan (Press Gazette) 
• What ethnic media can teach us about the future of news (Utne media blog)

MoneySense relaunches personal finance website with sponsor support

MoneySense magazine has re-launched its website with the help of the sponsorship of TD Canada Trust, according to a press release. The revamped site will include new blogs by senior editors Bryan Borzykowski and Rob Gerlsbeck as well as a variety of information on personal finance.

Atlantic Journalism Awards add three magazine categories

The Atlantic Journalism Awards (AJA) has added three magazine categories -- best magazine article, best magazine profile article and best magazine cover -- to its lineup for the 2009 awards which will be made May 8 in Halifax. Deadline for submission to the awards is Friday, January 29.

The additions to the awards could be a response to suggestions that the Atlantic Magazine Association (AMA), which debuted last year,  may be considering launching its own Atlantic magazines-only awards program and event. The AJAs have traditionally had some magazine content but are dominated by other media, particularly newspapers, radio and TV.

Fast track production system will shorten deadlines for ads in Rogers consumer magazines

Rogers Publishing says it is launching its promised Pressxpress production schedule with the January 2010 issues of Chatelaine and its French counterpart Châtelaine. This will be followed by the March 2010 issues of Flare, Today's Parent, Loulou and Glow.  Under the new sped- up manufacturing and production system, advertisers can submit material for publication within two weeks of the final issue being in readers' hands.

"When combined with the flexibility and speed-to-market already offered by Rogers’ weekly and bi-monthly titles — such as celebrity weekly Hello! Canada, current affairs weekly Maclean’s, L'actualité and Canadian Business — the Pressexpress schedule offers advertisers the agility they require to reach some of Canada’s most highly-engaged readers and consumers,." the company said in a release. 

Is this the future of magazines?

Mag+ from Bonnier on Vimeo.

The future of magazines is a matter of great speculation these days; the recent launch of a tablet-enabled Sports Illustrated showed one way that things might go, but critical comment was that it was trying to force fit the magazine form onto a screen. An alternative approach might be a concept developed for the publisher Bonnier by the design firm BERG. Its intent is to show how the essence of magazine reading can be retained, but meshed with the power of online technology.The Bonnier R & D lab says:

The concept aims to capture the essence of magazine reading, which people have been enjoying for decades: an engaging and unique reading experience in which high-quality writing and stunning imagery build up immersive stories.

The purpose of publishing this concept video is first and foremost to spark a discussion around the digital reading experience in general, and digital reading platforms in particular.

You can follow the conversation about the concept at Bonnier's beta lab.

Quote, unquote: Chasing traffic every minute

“Not only do you have to become a daily, you have to become an hourly or a minutely if you're going to get the kind of traffic that's going to make you competitive.”

-- Toronto Life magazine editor-in-chief Sarah Fulford, quoted in a long article about the future of the magazine industry in the Globe and Mail.