Maisonneuve Magazine founder Derek Webster is leaving his baby of seven years to take an important job at Reader’s Digest, according to Canadian Magazines.
UPDATE: More stories from Masthead and The Gazette.
UPDATE (June 16): Maisonneuve releases a statement. Carmine Starnino replaces Webster as EIC.
Editor/publisher/founder/poobah Derek Webster explains the new look of Montreal’s alternative magazine, for those of you who care about what font it uses. (via J-Source)
They’ve also ditched the “eclectic curiosity” tagline, which they admit doesn’t actually mean anything.
The guys behind Montreal-based Maisonneuve Magazine announced yesterday that effective Dec. 19, they would be putting the daily newspaper briefing MediaScout on permanent hiatus, a victim of a lack of funding. This just a few weeks after putting out a survey asking people how much they’d be willing to pay for the service. Considering they only pay their writers about $125 a week, it’s kind of surprising they couldn’t come up with funding.
As you can imagine, I’m a big fan of media criticism (in an age of increasing media conglomeration, so few mainstream outlets can have true editorial freedom without pissing off someone in upper corporate management). But MediaScout never did much for me. Its choice of newspapers always seemed arbitrary and limited (Ottawa Citizen but no Montreal Gazette, La Presse but no Journal de Montréal, three papers in Toronto but none in Western Canada). And I never found it brought much new to the table. Summaries of top stories can be seen on everything from Google News to the radio newscast, and sarcastic comments about newspapers can be found on just about any blog.
MediaScout could have been a big independent force for Canadian media criticism and analysis if there had been more investment in it. But paying some university student a few bucks to summarize the morning’s news just always seemed a waste of money to me.
Ever hear of Maisons Neuves magazine? It’s a French-language ad magazine from Transcontinental, showing nothing but ads for people looking for new homes on the south shore.
Transcontinental can feel free to waste glossy paper and ink printing up ads that nobody will look at. But doesn’t the name of this magazine sound suspiciously similar to another local magazine we all know and love?
I can’t help but wonder if some ad sales rep introduces herself over the phone as being from “Maisons Neuves magazine” (or, since it’s in French, “magazine Maisons Neuves”) and causing confusion among a hapless advertiser.
But that’s just because I’m paranoid, I guess.