Little media
Reinforcement for a muckraker
by Ron Verzuh
hen Toronto's This Magazine
began back in 1966 it was
about schools. Then in the
1970s it was about left- wins national-
ism. Now. as it marks its 20th year.
Canada's best alternative masazine
promises to be about investigativl jour-
nalism.
Signs of the change
will
appear this
summer with investigative pieces on a
national right-wing lobby group (June)
and the financial affairs of a prominent
federal politician (August). And that's
just the beginning, says Nick Fillmore,
TM's new investigative editor.
After a failed bid to rescue
Goodwin 's magazine last fall,
Fillmore, the former Centre for Inves-
tigative Journalism
president,
approached TM with a plan to expand
to nine issues a year from the current
six. Aiming for one investigative item
an issue as of January, 1987, Fillmore
also called for an increase to 48 pages
from 40 and some possible design
modifications which include a glossy
cover.
Fillmore, a reporter with
CBC
Radio's Sunday Morning, is convinced
that Canadian iournalists crave an outlet for work thit their increasingly conservative employers would refuse to
publish for political reasons. Therefore, his plan says, "investigativejournalism will be a priority" and "many
of the stories will be those missed,
ignored, or suppressed by the mainstream media."
It's a familiar refrain in the world of
alternative magazine publishing.
Unfortunately, few ever deliver. The
well- connected Fillmore has a better
chance than many, and to his credit he
has sought the counsel oftwo previous
efforts: Goodwin's and htst Post. ln
fact, former lnst Post editor Robert
Chodos could soon join the list of literati, social critics, and trade unionists
who appear in the TM masthead.
Of course the road ahead is filled
with cavernous potholes. Once a magazine declares its intention to publish
"hard-hitting political analysis and
investigative reporting," the genuine
article has to be found on a fairly regular basis. Will journalists "dig deep to
uncover the real stories behind (the)
issues," as Fillmore hopes?
"There's a huge fear that the stuff
mav not materialize." confides TM's
mairaging editor Lorraine Filyer. "But
we are committed to actually paying
won't), it will almost certainly irritate
small but fiercely loyal readership.
bring up to $2,500, says Fillmore, with
an average fee running about $1,200.)
Still, as Filyer says, "we all know it's
hard to find writers, especially when
you can't pay...it's even hard when you
can pay $2,500."
alternative fold, TM could be jeopardizing its status as an essential platform
for it." (An investigative piece could
Another pothole is TM's "collective" editing approach. It's often
shunned by mainstream journalists as
too cumbersome and constraining. But
it hasn't impeded some past attempts at
exposes. In March, for example, TM
published a cover story deiailing the
failings of the Canadian Labor Congress's international affairs department. The piece caused some labor
leaders to cry foul, as the editors sus-
pected it would. And one TM editor
admits that the collective did consider
the neeative side of bitine the hand of a
major"potential ally on*the left. That
the story ran intact is encouraging.
especially for muckrakers who are seldom concerned with what a probing
story will do to a publication's political
a
And there is yet another pothole, one
that has awaited many an unwary alternative magazine. By stepping out of the
of dissent. As magazine critic and journalism educator Don Obe recently put
it
on CBC Radio's Dayshift:
"If
TM
ever does become more mainstream,
it
would kill it."
Speaking to a CIJ seminar in March
entitled Why Canada doesn't have a
Mother Jones? (MJ has recorded major
investigative success in the United
States). Salutin shared the same con-
cern. "There's a certain vitality
and
clarity to be gained from being on the
outside," he said, "and there's a great
danger of losing it the farther you get
inside."
Of course. adding investigative journalism to the mix will not likely strike
fear into the heart of the circulation
department
mas.azine
of Saturday Night, the
TM editors love to hate. TM
edilors would be delighted if the addition were to shake SN off its present
course
of offering up increasingly
ties.
bland doses ofyuppie patter. But that is
A third pothole could be the watering
down of TM's biggest strength: its col-
unlikely to happen.
umnists. With a paid circulation of
6,000 (Fillmore's plan Predicts
increase
to
10,000
by
an
1988) and an
annual budget of $100,000, TM is
arguably the most successful alternativi malazine Canada has produced. It
has outlasted what little competition
has surfaced and its longevity has been
marked by a willingness to change with
Besides, muckraking has almost
been relegated to the alternative media
fringe. It was only in the Watergate era
that the mainstream embraced investigative journalism in a big way and that
brief flurry of enthusiasm has virtually
disappeared. So by adopting Fillmore's
plan, TM is reinforcing a tradition
within the fold, not breaking with one.
These last three potholes aside, one
the times. Unlike its newly redesigned
neighbor, the heavily academic Cana-
crucial rule must be observed: If you
promise investigative journalism, you
dian Forum, TM has cultivated some
must deliver the goods. TM must keep
that in mind as it launches this poten-
exceptionally talented popular writers.
Stan Persky and Rick Salutin are
among the best in the stable, and TM's
Los Angeles correspondent Marc
Cooper is good enough to get picked up
by the granddaddy ofalternatives, New
York's Village Voice. Tom Hawthorn,
the enfant terrible of Canadian alterna-
tive iournalism, is also worth watching. He's now putting his Gonzo-style
pen to work on pay TY's MuchMusic.
If the shift to more investigations
negatively affects the contributions of
these popular regulars (Fillmore says it
tially exciting period in its evolution
as
one of Canada's most entertaining and
provocative voices ofdissent. @
Ron Verzuh is
the
founding editor of the
now-defunct Goodwin's, Canada's
National Alternative Magazine. Verzuh
wrote the main story on the alternative
press in our March-April issue. Our
intention is for the Little Media column
to appear periodically, as circum-
stances dictate.
content
MAY/JUNE 1986 17