Safe harbour for Walrus

MAG MAKES IT Saturday Night is still over, but charitable status arrives to rescue other periodical

Magazines dedicated to serious issues have a tough time surviving in this country, as witness the apparently final demise last month of the venerable but chronically teetering Saturday Night.

But now a large, aquatic mammal is pointing to a viable solution. The Walrus Foundation has finally obtained charitable status from the federal government, assuring the future of The Walrus magazine. The awardwinning magazine, when launched in Sept. 2003, had proclaimed itself Canada’s Harper’s, Atlantic and Mother Jones — essential U. S. periodicals that are also supported by non-profit foundations. The Walrus

was underpinned by $ 1 million annually for five years, to come from the MontrealChawkers charitable foundation. But the money could not flow to the Walrus Foundation until its charitable status, too, was confirmed by Revenue Canada.

“ There are still a few issues to be ironed out but I’m now certain that The Walrus’s future is secure,” says Ken Alexander, editorial director and founding publisher of the magazine. One of the issues is whether the transfer of funds might be permitted to be retroactive to 2003, since Ken Alexander had been paying contributors for the past few months out of his own pocket. Some freelancers say they had waited up to 60 days for their cheques.

“ I have been spending my undeserved inheritance,” says Alexander ruefully.

His father, Charles Alexander, a successful lawyer, set up the Chawkers foundation in 1988 in support of education, naming it for his house at the boys’ school he attended in England.

While the text- heavy magazine quickly achieved a paid circulation of 53,000, that is not enough to keep it afloat or make it attractive to most advertisers. In any case, Alexander has purposely kept the ad ratio lower than that of other magazines: 30 per cent ads to 70 per cent editorial.

“ Part of the difficulty here for our type of magazine is Canada’s huge landmass,” Alexander says. “ We have very high distribution costs. We print in Winnipeg and have to truck the magazine across the country.”

Alexander says controlled circulation, which Saturday Night tried by folding itself into the National Post, does not work. “ More people receive the magazine but they are not asking for that magazine. Do they read it? In our case, they want it, they keep it, they read it cover to cover.” John Macfarlane, publisher of Saturday Night

in the 1980s and now vice- president of strategic development at St. Joseph Media as well as editor of Toronto Life, calls The Walrus’s new charitable status “wonderful news, because this is what’s required to ensure the survival of serious magazines. They can’t survive in countries as sparsely populated as Canada, but they also have difficulties surviving in the U. S., with a population of 320 million.

“ Harper’s wouldn’t be with us but for the McArthur Foundation. There is no shame in having a patron.”

While there are already a clutch of periodicals here that are published by non- profit foundations ( The Beaver, Canadian Art, Canadian Geographic) none falls into the same category.

“ They tend to be related to a single discipline,” says Ken Alexander. “ Ours is in keeping with the trend to multi- disciplinary learning at the universities. I would say ours was a unique application. The Walrus Foundation is dedicated to elevating discussion on public issues — its aims are educational, broadly defined.” The magazine has published articles by university professors, novelists, poets and non- fiction authors including James Laxer, Wayne Johnston, George Elliott Clarke, Charles Foran and Margaret Atwood. Two similar magazines, MontrealMaisonneuve and Vancouver-based Geist, both previously rejected for charitable status, are reportedly emboldened by the Walrus decision to apply again.

Besides publishing 10 issues a year of the magazine, the Walrus Foundation will sponsor events such as a by- invitation- only panel discussion probing Canada’s “literary soul.” The event is linked to Noah Richler’s 10- part radio series and book A Literary Atlas of Canada.

“ Many organizations want to partner with us for seminars, conferences, literary evenings across Canada,” says Alexander, a former teacher, who adds that he is particularly keen to reach high school students heading for university.